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Shaking but not Moving 1024 683 Mari Bickmore

Shaking but not Moving

Well, I guess it takes a pandemic and an earthquake to get back on track! Luckily I’ve been keeping busy whilst sheltering in place! I’m going to have this hermit thing down pretty soon, but I can do without another earthquake! My first one and I hope my last. Nothing last being shaken awake in the morning by your house!

So, so many things have happened since I last posted to this site. Where to begin? OMG…for one thing, how could it have been almost THREE years since I last wrote? Like water going downhill. At the time we were living in El Dorado Hills, CA, and in the summer of 2018 we moved to Holladay, Utah. Now I’m living by my daughter’s family with two of the most darling grandchildren possible. Can’t get much better than that, other than all of my children and grandchildren moving here. If I could pull that off, nothing could ever be better.

Circumstances involving our move were not ideal, but so many great things followed. Like my daughter, Amanda Bickmore Crane, and I get to work together. How fantastic is that!? We already had formed Bickmore Design, LLC, and have renovated many houses over the years. Prior to this I was the owner of Posh Interior Design in Columbus, Ohio, and Minneapolis, MN, switching names to Bickmore Design in Kansas City, KS. Gosh I know right!…following a corporate husband sure does have its ups and downs.

Keeping busy with renovations and design work, I’ve also completed the state real estate course, tested, and obtained my Utah State Real Estate License. What a difficult profession. I’m with Equity Real Esate – Solid in Sandy, UT. Those two professions should go hand-in-hand and I’m working to make that happen. Not sure how that’s going to work going forward after this pandemic crisis. My heart bleeds for those who are losing their jobs and for the economy in the short-term. I hope and pray that we will all recover quickly, both physically and economically. What a difficult time for our governments dealing with something no one expected. I am not happy with the people pointing fingers as if our leaders caused this. It seems to me that they are dealing with it as best as they can under the unfortunate and adverse conditions. I feel so blessed to have safe shelter and food to sustain me. If you live near me and need anything, please let me know.

Just dropping a few photos of a renovation and design project that are full of color and make me happy.

Winter Wonderland 1024 768 Mari Bickmore

Winter Wonderland

Have I written more about renovations? Did I finish my Gram Camp saga?  Did I write about the outcome of the presidential election?  About those great new cookies.  About my last trip? About all the atrocities Islam continues to commit Every Single Day. Anything?  No, no, no, no, no and no.  (I did do a little victory dance on election night that the barely-human Clinton woman didn’t win and I think I’ll wear my Adorable Deplorable T-shirt for months to come.)  I would love to say that it’s a new year and I’m turning over a new leaf for blogging, but I just can’t commit because I don’t want to mark that in the failure column.  I will say that I have every intention of writing more.  Not just intention–I want to write more! and that is probably something I can succeed at since I’ve written so rarely; more could be not very much at all!  Truly, it doesn’t matter because hardly anyone reads this so it is really just like journaling and that’s just fine.

Well, Christmas is over for another year and now we can start counting down for next Christmas – 354 shopping days!

Backing up though, we spent Christmas in Salt Lake City in a really nice, newly and tastefully renovated townhouse we rented just about three blocks from Temple Square and another block to City Creek shopping mall.  (Great location and if you’re looking for a spot in downtown SLC it is VRBO #4053608.)   The owner had even put up Christmas lights outside…it’s the little things!

I LOVE spending Christmas with my grown children and their families, who doesn’t?  But I’d rather do it at home where all my cooking utensils and food are right where they should be and I have everything I need to prepare a huge holiday dinner and all the dinners in between.  If I could just let that go and eat out when I’m out of town I’d probably be better off.  Anyway, this year was different…my youngest child and my only daughter was expecting my third grandchild, so everyone had to be there to welcome our new grandson to the world!

Utah was so kind in delivering us a white Christmas wonderland.  It snowed most of Christmas Day, which made me feel like I was right in the middle of a Norman Rockwell painting.

My fabulous granddaughters got to play in the snow and make snowmen, which they don’t get to do often in SoCal…well ever.  My oldest son got to go up to Brighton to snowboard a couple of days and the girls got to take their first ski lessons.  We all got to walk Temple Square at night, which is even more amazing at Christmas than any other time of the year. Christmas lights virtually covering everything, twinkling in everyone’s eyes as they walked the grounds that were more than magical.  Just being at Temple Square gives you that warm feeling that makes you remember what Christmas is all about. Makes me want to sing Christmas songs right now (trust me, you wouldn’t want to hear that!!! hahahaha).

Hot chocolate at Godiva afterwards just topped it off!   We had hot chocolate two or three times after that at other places…just a disappointment.  Godiva hot cocoa is maybe the best ever, but when I think back to the hot chocolate at Cafe du Monde in New Orleans I’m not sure.  We also saw a couple of movies, one for the girls (Sing) and Stars Wars: Rogue One for me.  That was my favorite Star Wars since the original ones.

When the fam all comes together, it is sometimes hard to entertain everyone over a several-day visit.  Don’t you hate it when everyone just sits around the house and you know they are bored, but you don’t know what to do?!?!   Or you plan to get up and out early but with that many people it just doesn’t happen?   I tried to find things to do.  The day after Christmas, the day my daughter went into the hospital to be induced, we went to Park City.  I mean we couldn’t just sit in the room and stare at her, right?  I love to walk around Park City and have lunch at one of the cute little cafes.  Well, we missed the cute cafe (hint: don’t eat at the Blue Iguana).  But we did get enjoy Park City and peruse the cute shops and galleries for a couple of hours afterwards, so it eased the pain of driving all the way out to Park City and having a barely mediocre lunch.

Time to go to the hospital and drop everyone else back at the house and let them figure out how to entertain themselves.

Without the gory details…We have a new, beautiful, fabulous grandson!  Mother and baby are doing fine and the baby LOVES his Mimi!  I get to stay on for a few weeks to take care of mother and child while everyone else returns home.  I know it’s going to rip my heart out when I have to leave…but that’s another day so let’s not dwell on it.

I already miss having all of my family all together at the same time.  I will miss them for a long time…forever until I see them again.  I hate it that everyone lives so far away from each other.  We did miss having one child with us at Christmas this year as he decided it would be more exciting to go to Thailand for Christmas then be with us, especially when he is working on Kwajalein and I never get to see him normally.  I mean who would choose Thailand…Bangkok, Chiang Mai, beaches…over Utah and me?

That is not going to play out well for him though!  I talk big, but when he comes home again I’ll be so happy to see him that my ire will probably go right out of the window.

It’s time to get ready for the day.  Lots of errands to do and a baby to spoil.  Cheers and Happy New Year!

The Joys of Renovation 640 640 Mari Bickmore

The Joys of Renovation

We have flipped several houses in a few cities during our continual moving sojourn and I have never written about them.  Some things are just to painful to do whilst in the midst of chaos.  While living in Kansas we did a house in Overland Park and one in Independence and had two contractors directly from #*()#).  Well you get the idea.  One is being sued by the State of Missouri and the other should be being sued by several states and a multitude of people.  As far as I can tell he must be related to the Clintons.  It would take months and books to recreate what happened during that time…the lost sleep and anguish.  Now I know why people sue for things like that.  Really horrible people.   The best one we did was in Salt Lake City.  Loved the end product and the people we worked with.  Those are the two extremes of the spectrum.  Missouri contractors versus Salt Lake contractors.   At least the houses turned out well in the end.

Our most recent move was last summer, and this time we renovated the home we bought for ourselves.   We closed on the house while on a Scandinavian/Russian cruise, which was really weird, and at the same time went into contract on the home we were selling from the last place we lived.  Great stops by the way and Celebrity was a really great operator, but who am I to judge.  That was my first ocean cruise.  Cruises aren’t really my thing.  I like to rent a car and have tons of time to explore versus getting off the boat at 9 or 10 and then having to be back on by 4 or 5.  But I digress.

After we returned we moved out of our nice, midtown apartment to the burbs…to live in two bedrooms and a bathroom over the garage whilst our renovation commenced.  Did I say we were nuts.  Maybe not.  But you know the answer to that.  My darling daughter came to stay the first two weeks because not only was I starting demolition, I was having minor surgery.  Again, what was I thinking.

One of the first things we had done was removing all the hardwood and most of the tile in the house…kitchen, living room, great room, dining room, bathrooms, etc. and the carpet in the bedrooms (except for our “sanctuary”).  So first tip for any of you DIYer’s or those contemplating being in charge of your own renovation:  When someone quotes you on floor removal never sign anything other than a guaranteed price.  He ended up adding on charges that were over $2000 more than the original quoted price (Clean Site – don’t use them).  Not only that, they didn’t get close to the cabinets so I ended up having to pay extra to the floor installers to get that removed.  Not pleasant to deal with and not forthcoming, until later of course.   Then, of course, I had someone in for something else who said he could have done it for half the price…that really hurt.

One thing is weird, I would make appointments with three or four contractors for different parts of the project:  electric, plumbing, painting, etc. etc. and half the time they wouldn’t show.  Or if they did show they never got back with me to give me a bid.  Don’t these people need work?  Maybe they don’t.  In any event, that is a lot of time wasted and very frustrating.   Well, enough of this today.  I’ll continue with the saga in another few days.  But just to know it’s going to turn out okay in the end, here is a picture of before and after of my living room.  I think it’s great…but some of you may like the before better than the after.  Just let me know.  No, I won’t change it back if you do.  Needless to say,  it is not completely decorated yet, so I’ll repost later.

living room before after
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