Author Archives: Britton

New Deck: What We Are Working For

We have completed another month and as such we are coming up with another goal that we are working for.  In previous months we’ve worked for a new  roof and to pay our taxes.  This month we decided that we would work for the funds to replace the deck on the house in Rincon.  The wood deck is original (built around 1990) and has been exposed to the elements since the place was fresh.  The wood has gotten pretty bad and is rotting out.   It is getting to the point where you really don’t want to even walk on it.


Under Deck


On Deck

You can see the condition of the deck (click to enlarge)


Cassie

The deck will be a fairly major part of living in the house and our day to day activities so it will be important to replace it.  I think I may be able to do a lot of the work myself if I can aquire the right tools (a really tall ladder).  It will be a matter of just cutting boards, and screwing them back into place.  I imagine I would simply replace what is there piece for piece. 

This is what it looked like when it was first built:


Fresh Deck

 It would be good to have a nice deck to cook food, entertain and watch sunsets from.  This is a worthy goal to work towards this month!

Out of the Cage and On the Road Less Traveled

I had a doctors appointment in Fort Collins today so Cassie and I both took the day off.  I spend a lot of time working in the basement of a big concrete square building in front of  computer screens.  So I am always surprised at my reaction to the “outside world” on days off.  Just about anything and everything seems amazing to me.  From the amount of people driving around (pretty normal) to helicopters flying around with the President inside (not so normal).


Obama’s Helicopter (I think)

They had the whole highway shutdown and I could only get to within a block of where my appointment was, go figure.  Cassie and I decided to just walk across the shutdown highway.  It was the right choice and took less than 5 minutes.

After the appointment we decided to get some lunch.  Since we were out and about we didn’t want to eat somewhere we had been before so we went to the Taj Mahal.  Not the real one of course, it’s a restaurant in Ft Collins.  The flavors in Indian food are much different than what our palates are accustomed to, which is what we were after.  So we ended up eating too much..lol.


lunch

After lunch we went for a short walk down the Poudre Trail in Fort Collins before heading home. When we were walking down the trail, it split off into two paved ones and a dirt one. Cassie said, “Two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” I didn’t know what she was talking about, so she said to look it up. I looked it up and found Robert Frost’s poem on my phone.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Just then we saw an awesome huge tree that we would not have seen had we taken the well-worn trail. It was pretty cool.


Cassie in the Tree. How cool is this tree!?

I work almost every weekday and simply don’t see the outside world often.  Even something as simple as a doctors visit can turn into a fantastically different day and an opportunity to experience something different in life.  Weird, I know, but I am ready to take the road less traveled for I truly do believe that will make all the difference.

Cafe Panache in Greeley

The other day Cassie and I finally had a chance to visit Café Panache in downtown Greeley.  We had been meaning to eat there since we heard about their opening in the newspaper.  They focus on crepes, soups and salads.


Located in downtown Greeley

We showed up at lunchtime and ordered a turkey/provolone/sage crepe, a romaine salad and an order of curried pork with cherries.


Lunch

The restaurant has a nice French café feel to it. They play French music, serve chilled water in a wine bottle and is creatively decorated.


Cassie in front of the menu and some of the unique decorations (melted and repurposed albums)

The food was fresh and tasty and appropriately priced (everything was around $3).  I hadn’t ever had curried pork that I can remember, but I thought it was pretty good. Overall a fun spot.

Electricity: What We’re Working For

Well we’ve completed another month and as such we are coming up with another goal that we are working for.  In previous months we’ve worekd for a new  roof and to pay our taxes.  This month we decided that it would be a good idea to come up with a solution to what appears to be high energy bills in PR.  

We are planning on living on a budget and it would appear that the utilities might take up quite a bit of that.  So this month I figured it would be a good idea to save up for some solar panels. 

We don’t plan on using too much electricity other than for a few fans, a new refrigerator, music, charging laptops and using computers and lights.   Of course there will be other things like dishwashers, various kitchen appliances and the like.  I don’t even need to be off grid, I just want to off-set some of the long term subscription costs so I will have to start thinking about a design.

From what I read on CA2PR’s blog, electricity in Puerto Rico costs 29¢ a kilowatt-hour.  I think we pay around 4¢ here in colorado if you stay under 500kwh, everything above that gets billed at 9¢.   So the cost of electricity is quite a bit higher!

I will start to research what it will take, and asking our firends Jeff and Katrina for advice as they had a solar system setup on their previous home.