Settling In, In A Construction Zone

                                     Saturday May 30, 2015

The community of Advance is just a couple miles from our home.

It has a small deli and a Point Health Club (maybe someday when our life is not so chaotic I might join it and take some yoga classes).

For now the deli has been a life saver, especially the first week we arrived. The deli opens May 1, so it was perfect timing for us. The first week we were so busy unpacking that we ate there every lunch. For dinner we got one of their pizza's. We will need to join the health club soon at this rate of eating out!

Across the street from the deli is another community called Summerset. Summerset has a marina and  very upper class homes. It also has a restaurant which we have not tried out yet. It is on the list of tries soon.

In a picture in the deli Joe points to where our house is located on Lake Charlevoix. The big body of water at the bottom of the picture is Lake Michigan.

This is a picture of the building the deli is in now in Advance, MI which was in 1881. After doing a goggle search, it looks like we are in the Advance community according to the map, but have a Boyne City, MI address.

Because our house was still in partitioning plastic, we just lined our dinning room with some of our stuff. No other place to put the stuff. Mind you this project was suppose to be done May 1.

Because our bedroom was also walled off, we decided to set up our bedroom in the living room. In this picture the living room is walled off also, but we used that to our advantage, as a semi visible privacy wall.

We set up the bed rail to keep Mallery in our bedroom, and is also our entrance to our home in our home.

We have a great view of Lake Charlevoix from our bed as a concession prize!

On the other side of the wall down from our bed we set up our dinning table/makeup table.

Mallery's crate and food is next to our bed, though she sleeps with us most nights.

We found a veterinary the first Monday we arrived. Even though Michigan is not a state with medical exceptions, she allowed working with her without the shots. All she had to do was look at her records for the year to see that it wasn't because of money that I wasn't giving them to her.

I had her kidney valued rechecked and they have improved greatly. Last summer they were normal when she saw the surgeon at Michigan state. In Iowa her BUN was 81, and they tested at 72 now which is still high. Her CREA in Iowa was 3.6, which the Eastern Iowa Specialist said was her permanent kidney damage and would not improve. Today it is 2.2, with normal being between 0.5 to 1.8. My veterinarian in Boyne was very impressed with her improvement. She said I was doing miracle work on her. I give God all the glory for His blessings and direction on what daily care she needs. Mallery was always 7 lbs for her 13 1/2 years. She got down to 5 lbs but is back to 5.2. Not much of a gain,but at least she is not going downhill! We have been giving her fluid treatments every 3rd day verses the 2 times a day that she got in the beginning.

After 3 days of unloading the moving truck which took much longer because our drive is on a slant making the truck ramp  at a much steeper slant-not to mention we were both exhausted from the prior week loading and driving to Michigan. After the truck was unloaded the yard needed to be mowed because the girl we had hired only did part of it. Her mower broke down half way though. Probably because the grass was too tall by the time she got to it.While Joe mowed, I weeded. The weeds had also got out of control while we were gone.

Mallery enjoyed her yard while Joe mowed and I weeded.

I enjoyed the lake views as I weeded and seeing Mallery enjoy her yard.

Every once in a while Mallery would get out from under the umbrella and sun for a while. I had to keep her dress on because her fur has become so fine, she would have got a sun burn otherwise. We still have ups and downs with Mallery, and still live day to day. She has been hanging in there for me so I could get her home. That was my biggest prayer, to see her in a sable environment with her own yard again! Thank you Jesus for answering my prayers

There have been a ton of fisherman trolling past our yard. We found out there was a Bass Tournament going on. Must be bass out from our place.

Someday when we get settled we want to go fishing too!

Each evening we would enjoy our deck after the many chores of home ownership and moving. The first week we were here, the showers were still not done so we had to go a week being grubby. We did have our airplane size 1/2 bath that we could use to wash our face and brush our teeth. The remodeling is almost over now. We just have a few odds and ends that we are waiting for, like a window that needed to be redone because our contractor put in one that was too small (at least I thought so). We also are waiting for shower doors that we couldn't decide on. But all in all we can pretty much use our new bathrooms. Praise the Lord! Remodeling is not fun when you are living in the mess.