What seemed like a good idea at the time?

[tjscraps]

We bought a new house last summer. It’s great - it has a garage (new to us!) and driveway (also new, we’ve never had one before). The driveway seemed amazing - we could fit 4 vehicles on it (4 full size trucks even), our 28 foot holiday trailer fits on it, all was good.

Fast forward to winter. In Canada. I am so sick of shoveling snow off this darn thing lol

What have you thought was a great idea, until it wasn’t??

 

[faerywings]

Having kids.


(JK, everyone knows that the sun rises and sets on my kids)

I will think about this, I know there has to be a lot in my life that I think this about

 

[Lynn Grieveson]

Oh dear!! Love the idea of a holiday trailer ... but that's quite some shovelling

As for me, I LOVE having Daughter-Two living at home but starting to wonder if telling her she could stay as long as she wanted and certainly as long as her sister, who left home in mid-20s, was the best idea! Downsizing is difficult with a 6'1" uni student in tow and DH and I have dreams of moving somewhere sunnier, but this is where her uni is!

 

[Lynn Grieveson]

Having kids.


(JK, everyone knows that the sun rises and sets on my kids)

I will think about this, I know there has to be a lot in my life that I think this about

Relatable, to be fair ;-)

 

[Caro]

I saw a tik tok of someone putting a big plastic sheet down so they just roll it up every day instead of shoveling

 

[Cherylndesigns]

Yes, I've had several of those. Telling dd and gs they could stay with us for awhile - 7 years later. Haha J/K (I think).

 

[LSlycord]

Love this question. Your house is beautiful...but I remember shoveling and that's not so much fun! Which leads me to my "not very good idea". I was so incredibly tired of winter and snow...and we moved halfway across the country to Florida with two kids in high school. Unfortunately, our timing was such that we moved right before a pandemic...which made it a very difficult time for our whole family, but especially for our kids. Now that we have been here for almost 3 years, I think it may have been a good idea after all!

 

[scribler]

Buying an SUV. Not that I think it was a bad idea but my feelings are definitely mixed. I hate pulling it in to our driveway. But I love driving it when it is raining (the AWD is handy then). I love the 360 look down. I wish my Civic had that. Luckily, it's a hybrid or with gas prices I'd be thinking very bad thoughts. It actually gets about as good as mileage as my Civic when I'm driving the Civic. (If David is driving the Civic it gets much better gas mileage. lol)

 

[tjscraps]

I saw a tik tok of someone putting a big plastic sheet down so they just roll it up every day instead of shoveling

I don't know if that would work here - we get 5-10 cm, it would be mighty hard to move the plastic sheet!

 

[faerywings]

@tjscraps I would ask and beg Santa for a snowblower!

I have one.

My daughter was dating this guy in HS and he was kicked out of his house by his stepfather. Because we are nice and welcoming, we told him he could stay on the sofa in the room upstairs while he got some money together and could find a place of his own or was allowed to move back home. He stayed with us for a YEAR AND A HALF!
We finally had to tell him that he needed to go home and work things out with his family. Then we found out he had not saved *any* more while he was living with us.
Needless to say, when he and DD broke up we were soooooooo happy.

 

[faerywings]

Buying an SUV. Not that I think it was a bad idea but my feelings are definitely mixed. I hate pulling it in to our driveway. But I love driving it when it is raining (the AWD is handy then). I love the 360 look down. I wish my Civic had that. Luckily, it's a hybrid or with gas prices I'd be thinking very bad thoughts. It actually gets about as good as mileage as my Civic when I'm driving the Civic. (If David is driving the Civic it gets much better gas mileage. lol)

Being short, I don't think I could go back to driving a car, even with gas prices. The way people drive in NJ, it would be scary!

 

[faerywings]

As for me, I LOVE having Daughter-Two living at home but starting to wonder if telling her she could stay as long as she wanted and certainly as long as her sister, who left home in mid-20s, was the best idea! Downsizing is difficult with a 6'1" uni student in tow and DH and I have dreams of moving somewhere sunnier, but this is where her uni is!

My "kids" are 23 and 25 and they both live at home. Scott was planning on graduating in May 2020, had a job offer in place, and a GF of 8 years and he thought they would be ready to move out soon after. Then COVID hit, the job lost its funding and the GF cheated on him with his best friend. The poor guy is going to be living here a little while longer.

 

[Lynn Grieveson]

@tjscraps I would ask and beg Santa for a snowblower!

I have one.

My daughter was dating this guy in HS and he was kicked out of his house by his stepfather. Because we are nice and welcoming, we told him he could stay on the sofa in the room upstairs while he got some money together and could find a place of his own or was allowed to move back home. He stayed with us for a YEAR AND A HALF!
We finally had to tell him that he needed to go home and work things out with his family. Then we found out he had not saved *any* more while he was living with us.
Needless to say, when he and DD broke up we were soooooooo happy.

Yikes!

 

[tjscraps]

@tjscraps I would ask and beg Santa for a snowblower!

We actually have one, we bought it in a garage sale in the summer and were assured that it worked. Alas, it doesn't

 

[Cherylndesigns]

Oh, I have another one - when we first moved to Florida - many years ago - my DD's BFF wanted to come down and "stay" with us and ended up "staying" for over a year. I had to convert my office into a bedroom for her. Joy.

 

[taxed4ever]

We let a friend of our daughter live with us for what was only supposed to be a few days. She stayed for three weeks and neglected to tell us that she had a baby that she was bringing with her. She also neglected to let us know that she had left her drug addicted boyfriend and he was looking for her. After many, many threatening phone calls we told her it was time to pack her bags and move back to Saskatchewan with her parents. Even our daughter had no idea that she had a baby. .

 

[taxed4ever]

I have to say @tjscraps at least your driveway is relatively flat, we live on a hill and the driveway is a nightmare to shovel. So my DH purchased himself a nice little snowblower that I can even use with no problem at all. It runs on lithium batteries and works like a charm even with our wet and heavy snow!

 

[tjscraps]

I have to say @tjscraps at least your driveway is relatively flat, we live on a hill and the driveway is a nightmare to shovel. So my DH purchased himself a nice little snowblower that I can even use with no problem at all. It runs on lithium batteries and works like a charm even with our wet and heavy snow!

View attachment 366906

That looks exactly like the one we bought that doesn’t work - also electric. It won’t run though, and we aren’t handy people

 

[tjscraps]

We let a friend of our daughter live with us for what was only supposed to be a few days. She stayed for three weeks and neglected to tell us that she had a baby that she was bringing with her. She also neglected to let us know that she had left her drug addicted boyfriend and he was looking for her. After many, many threatening phone calls we told her it was time to pack her bags and move back to Saskatchewan with her parents. Even our daughter had no idea that she had a baby. .

Holy that’s crazy! This thread is a note to self - don’t let anyone move in with us lol

 

[bcgal00]

We did enjoy it for many years but we sure are regretting not selling our trailer in Washington before COVID. Now we've been stuck with it for 2 yrs without being able to go there yet still having to pay maintenance dues to the ranch. We're moving about 4-5 hrs away so going over there to sell it when we can is going to be a major PITA. We are going to try to sell fairly cheap when we can, just to be rid of it.

 

[Kythe]

We bought a new house last summer. It’s great - it has a garage (new to us!) and driveway (also new, we’ve never had one before). The driveway seemed amazing - we could fit 4 vehicles on it (4 full size trucks even), our 28 foot holiday trailer fits on it, all was good.

Fast forward to winter. In Canada. I am so sick of shoveling snow off this darn thing lol

What have you thought was a great idea, until it wasn’t??

I just have to laugh and shake my head. We don't usually get much snow here in BC except this year felt like so much more. I think it has to do with age and willingness to get out and shovel. That is one long driveway Next time keep the vehicles on it so the snow doesn't cover the whole thing.

 

[tjscraps]

I just have to laugh and shake my head. We don't usually get much snow here in BC except this year felt like so much more. I think it has to do with age and willingness to get out and shovel. That is one long driveway Next time keep the vehicles on it so the snow doesn't cover the whole thing.

Haha - but then I have to brush off my car .... no win! My hubby parks on the driveway, as we have a convertible we store for the winter and his truck doesn't fit in the garage.

 

[keepscrappin]

We had problems after we bought our first house. It was priced right, super clean (almost new) and just right for us, but we soon found out that it had problems. First it was on the corner of a frontage road so the freeway noise was loud and lots of traffic coming and going from the neighborhood. Not good with kids, but we didn't have any when we bought it. It was also north facing, so the snow never melted. We always had to shovel, shovel and shovel more. Having walks on 2 sides of the house was killer.

Fast forward to our next and current home of almost 21 years, and we love our south facing house. We rarely have to shovel the 3 car driveway, RV pad and walks. We bought a snowblower when we moved into this house, and haven't used it much the last few years. We finally got snow yesterday (3-4 inches) but I saw that it had all melted off by afternoon when I looked out the window and saw the neighbor across the street blowing the snow of his walks and driveway.

 

[keepscrappin]

We actually have one, we bought it in a garage sale in the summer and were assured that it worked. Alas, it doesn't

We've had to take our snowblower to the small engine repair shop a few times over the years. They've given it a tune-up and cleaned the gunk out of the carburetor, new sparks plugs, etc and it works like a charm. They also told us one year that the Maverick had bad gas and that's why everyone's snowblowers weren't working. Yours might just need a tune up and some new gas.

 

[tjscraps]

We've had to take our snowblower to the small engine repair shop a few times over the years. They've given it a tune-up and cleaned the gunk out of the carburetor, new sparks plugs, etc and it works like a charm. They also told us one year that the Maverick had bad gas and that's why everyone's snowblowers weren't working. Yours might just need a tune up and some new gas.

We will have to take it in - it's electric (no gas) so could be the starter or something? I dunno, that's a 'blue' job lol

 

[Rachel Jefferies]

Pretty light hearted but how about a flipping Peppa Pig Tee-Pee (like a wig wam) tent that is allowed for indoor play. And nope we don't have a large house, far from it. We actually bought it during the Pandemic and actually it's been a life saver, it's provided a little safe place for her and a comfort zone, but half the house goes there - dinner is eaten in there, I have been bribed to lie in there (of course with half my body protruding through the doorway as I'm too big for it) and well it just gets in the way lol. But it's a really cute thing, I remember when I was little and used to have a 'wendy house' and how much time i'd spend in there. We go through phases of it being up and right now I'm lucky that it's back packed away in it's box. I'm sure it will make a appearance during the summer holidays