That's hot

If our former next-door neighbor is still around, he's close to 100 years old. He lived there alone, and while he had family visit often, I worried a lot about what might happen to him between visits alone in his split-level house. He didn't seem to worry, though. He still drove. He was productive around the house, cleaning his driveway with one hand on a leaf blower and the other on his walker. Not that he needed to; like us, he had a yard crew.

He finally decided to move into assisted living and for the second time in a row, we lucked out with good new next-door neighbors. Alex and Blin are from Colombia and are over-the-moon happy with their house and the neighborhood. Their first baby was born just before our party on August 4th, so they spent much of that day exhausted, hanging around on their deck.

A while back, I asked Alex if he'd like our pellet stove. He brought Blin over so they could see it, and they agreed it'd be great to install in their house. That was back when we were getting the new floors installed, so it's been a while. It's been cold so he messaged me on Sunday while I was out walking to ask if he and their roommate could come get it. They got to work in on that while I carried four bags of pellets that came with our house from our garage to theirs.

I'm relieved to discover that it's a model made to just slide right into an existing fireplace, so we're left with a second fireplace similar to the one downstairs. We don't have a screen for it, though, so I shoved a big cardboard box in it so the cats don't climb in and get dirty. I'd love to someday have a gas insert, but in the meantime we might put a spare TV there and play screensavers or fireplace videos.

It's also a relief to learn that the pellet stove works great. I warned Alex and his roommate before they got to work that I'd never turned it on since we didn't need it. Yesterday he messaged me this photo.



It's so cool to see it in use and I'm very happy with how this all worked out.

That's hot

If our former next-door neighbor is still around, he's close to 100 years old. He lived there alone, and while he had family visit often, I worried a lot about what might happen to him between visits alone in his split-level house. He didn't seem to worry, though. He still drove. He was productive around the house, cleaning his driveway with one hand on a leaf blower and the other on his walker. Not that he needed to; like us, he had a yard crew.

He finally decided to move into assisted living and for the second time in a row, we lucked out with good new next-door neighbors. Alex and Blin are from Colombia and are over-the-moon happy with their house and the neighborhood. Their first baby was born just before our party on August 4th, so they spent much of that day exhausted, hanging around on their deck.

A while back, I asked Alex if he'd like our pellet stove. He brought Blin over so they could see it, and they agreed it'd be great to install in their house. That was back when we were getting the new floors installed, so it's been a while. It's been cold so he messaged me on Sunday while I was out walking to ask if he and their roommate could come get it. They got to work in on that while I carried four bags of pellets that came with our house from our garage to theirs.

I'm relieved to discover that it's a model made to just slide right into an existing fireplace, so we're left with a second fireplace similar to the one downstairs. We don't have a screen for it, though, so I shoved a big cardboard box in it so the cats don't climb in and get dirty. I'd love to someday have a gas insert, but in the meantime we might put a spare TV there and play screensavers or fireplace videos.

It's also a relief to learn that the pellet stove works great. I warned Alex and his roommate before they got to work that I'd never turned it on since we didn't need it. Yesterday he messaged me this photo.



It's so cool to see it in use and I'm very happy with how this all worked out.