how to move your house the right way, Home Units, CD Units,Storage Units, Wall Units, cooking , Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner,Home Electrical Safety Tips, Keeping Children Safe In Traffic, Home Security Tips

How to move your house the right way

If you're thinking of adding a basement to your home or fixing that crumbling foundation under your home, you want to make sure it gets done right.

Home improvement projects don't get much bigger than the one taken on by the Leavitt family. Today, they added a home onto their home...yes, added a home onto their home. "It's mostly for my wife, she wanted a bigger house and that's where we are. We were going to build an addition, but then this was going to be cheaper," explains Dr. Richard Leavitt.

Dr. Leavitt calls the project a labor of love, but says it's not without stress. "There's a lot of work involved and there's a lot of things that can go wrong. It took six weeks just to get ready for the move," says Leavitt. The first order of business was hiring a general contractor to build the foundation and prep the old house for its new addition. But when a home improvement project includes moving a house, you don't want to rely on your general contractor. Your general contractor can build the foundation, but you need a professional home mover to reposition the house back onto the foundation.

For such a huge job, Leavitt says he wouldn't trust just anyone. So he turned to Rick Goodwin, whose made his living moving houses for over 30 years. "I take all the time I need...one hour, two hours, three hours, whatever it takes. I've been four to five hours going over things with a customers to make sure they're getting what they want," says Goodwin. And getting what they want is important when it comes to a family's most prized possession. "Sometimes there's people who've lived in it for years, sentimental, historical value or whatever reason. There's a lot of stuff there that means a lot to them. You gotta take care of it, you gotta be careful," explains Goodwin. "We like to hit the spot the first time," boasts Goodwin. And that's exactly what they did for the Leavitts. And with the house now in place, the Leavitts can sleep a little easier. "Yes, I'll have a happy wife," remarks Leavitt.

Moving a house is rare, but all the more reason you need to ask questions before you hire someone. Check out the house mover's proof of insurance. Make sure the policy covers a house move, not all insurance policies do. Also, get references and try to go watch a house move in progress. Finally, many movers belong to the Pan American International Movers Association, and that's a good place to start to find a reputable mover.

Finding a Mover

Obtain estimates from three licensed movers before you make a choice. Have an estimator from each company visit your house to examine the items you're moving before issuing a quote. Verbal quotes are not binding, so make sure each mover gives you a written estimate. In most cases, you'll want a "not to exceed" or "best price" estimate. This will limit your moving expense to the amount quoted. If the move ultimately costs less than the estimated amount, you will pay the lower price. Ask about discounts.

Trusting a Mover

Moving is stressful, even when it goes smoothly. Be wary of a bid significantly below all other estimates. A low bid can indicate that someone is trying to buy your business, or it can be a sign of inexperience. You have to trust a stranger with your personal belongings, so make sure you feel confident that you'll get the level of service you require.

Making Sure Your Move Goes Smoothly

Once your move is finished, you can start the process of settling in. But first, here are some ways to make your move an easy one:

• Save money by moving less. Sell, donate or throw away possessions you don't want before you get your estimate.
• Request good-credit letters from your utility companies. You can avoid putting down money for deposits if your utility company will notify the new company of your good credit status, or send you a letter of reference.
• Start working on your change of address notices. Send them to creditors, magazines, membership organizations, insurance companies and other regular correspondents. You may also want to send notices to your friends and relatives.
• Measure all openings in the house, or space in elevators and stairwells. You want to make sure there's enough clearance to accommodate your possessions.
• Prepare your own inventory of important possessions. Include box numbers so you can find these items quickly.
• Arrange utilities. Call at least two weeks before your move to have electricity, water, gas or telephone service switched on closing day or the day you move in.
• Arrange contractors. If there is time between your closing and move-in dates, you may want to have carpeting and painting done before you move in the furniture.
• Make a First Night box. Label it prominently and include towels, sheets, blanket, tissues, paper towels, plastic utensils, paper plates and cups, screw driver, hammer, can opener and other essentials.
• Change the locks on your doors. You may or may not choose to do this, but most security experts advise it.
• Save your receipts. You may be able to deduct some of your moving expenses.

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Home Security Tips

Home security is a basic component of Neighborhood Watch. If a burglar needs more than one or two minutes to break into a home, chances are he will leave for fear of being seen or of making too much noise. Although there is no guarantee against break-ins, there are a few simple steps residents can take to reduce their chances of victimization. The primary step is to take a security survey of your home to identify those areas that could be made more secure:

• Don't leave answering machine messages indicating that you will not be home.
• Having your yard and driveway kept up while you are gone is also a good way to pretend you are home.
• If you get home and things look suspicious (torn screen, door open etc.) Do not enter your home. Call the police from a neighbor's house.
• Have an alarm system installed in your home.
• Make sure you lock your doors when you're home, even during the daytime. Crime doesn't only occur at night or during the day when thieves think you're away.

• All windows should have locks and be sure to use them! And don't rely on the lock that your sliding glass doors came with. The best lock for sliding glass doors is a drilled hole at the top that goes through both frames. As an added security measure, place a piece of wood in the inside track of the sliding glass door frame to prevent anyone from pushing the door open.
• When going on a vacation, don't let mail pile up. Ask a friend or neighbor to pick it up for you or ask the post office to hold mail until you return. This includes your daily paper delivery.
• Make sure you get a good deadbolt lock for all your exterior doors. This provides your doors with an extra barrier of protection.
• Make sure that your address is visible on our house and can be read from the street, especially at night.
• Good outside lighting can be a deterrent to burglars. Light those areas that are accessible to prowlers and visible to your neighbors. These include all doors and windows.
• Any spotlights that you install should shine on those areas, not out into the yard.
• Install photoelectric timers on your outside lights so they will go on and off with the rising and setting of the sun.
• Do not leave porch lights on during the day--to burglars it's a sure sign that no one's home. Landscaping
• Expose your house to the neighborhood.

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Tires: Traffic Safety Tips

Buying new tires can be confusing. A major influence on tire life is how the tire is used, your driving style, the type of car you drive, where you drive and the tire maintenance you perform regularly. There are, however, several things you can do to select the best tires and take care of them.

Maintenance & Driving Tips

Maintain the proper air pressure in the tires. Check pressure every week for routine driving. Also check pressure before taking any long trips. Measure the pressure when the tires are cold.

Keep your tires at the recommended inflation pressure. This can be found in your owner's manual or on the label either in the glove box or near the door latch on the driver's side. The maximum inflation pressure is shown on the side of the tire. With the recommended air pressure, tires will last longer and be less likely to fail, and the car will use less fuel. Serious injury may result from tire failure because of under inflation or overloading.

Never overload your car. Your car and tires are designed to operate safely only up to their load limits. These limits are shown in your owner's manual and on the certification plate on the edge of the driver's door.

Parent Tips - Keeping Children Safe On The Bus

• Supervise children to make sure they get to the stop on time, wait far away from the road, and avoid rough play.
• Teach your child to ask the driver for help if he drops something near the bus. If a child stoops to pick up something, the driver cannot see him. Then he could be hit by the bus. A book bag or backpack helps keep loose items together.
• Make sure clothing has no loose drawstrings and backpack straps are short, so they don? get caught in the handrail or bus door.
• Encourage safe school bus loading and unloading.
• If you think a bus stop is in a dangerous place, talk with your school office or transportation director about changing the location.

Keeping Children Safe In Traffic

This latest version of Keeping Children Safe in Traffic draws on best practice and research results to show how child casualties can be reduced whilst at the same time encouraging children to develop into safe, active and independent road users. It focuses on the contribution education, training and publicity can make; measures related to the risks children face in the road environment; vehicle and bicycle standards; safety equipment and the importance of appropriate legislation. It outlines the progress that has been made in OECD countries in the last 20 years. It provides the latest statistics on children’s injuries, fatalities and trends in transport.

The report considers the relative levels of risks in OECD countries and the casualty reduction programmes and strategies that can improve children’s road safety. It identifies practices drawn from OECD member country experience that have proven to be most effective in improving children’s road safety. It also outlines possible further improvements based on research undertaken.

One of the report’s conclusions is that, currently, the best-performing countries have population-based road crash fatality rates for children that are less than half the OECD average and only a quarter of the rate in the worst-performing countries. Therefore, there is considerable potential for improving child road safety in most OECD countries. After examining the most effective strategies, based on the research undertaken, the report makes a series of policy-oriented recommendations for achieving such improvements in children’s road safety.

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CD LIBRARY WALL UNIT

This CD library is perfect for dorms, bedrooms, small offices or media centers. This complete library consists of 24 compartments that measures 7-3/4" L x 5-1/4" W x 4" D and will hold 15 CD's. Each compartment easily connects to another in any configuration desired.

Can be mounted to a wall horizontally, vertically or in any pattern around a system for easy access. 360 CD's can be stored in this one wall unit.

Additional units can be purchased to add for expansion. Each slot is 11mm wide and will accommodate a single CD case. Don't miss out on this low cost way to finally organize your music! Quantities are limited.

Pilates Equipment: Wall Unit and Mat

The Wall Unit provides trapeze table or Cadillac functions in a very compact space. Built from highly polished, chrome-plated tubular steel, the Wall Unit features push-through bar positions for the mat and all Reformer heights. Mat and Moon Boxes sold separately

BUSINESS SERVICES' STORAGE UNITS

Business Services recently completed the construction of a new warehouse designed to include ten individual, self-contained storage units. These units are now available for rent to University departments. The warehouse is conveniently located off Roberts Avenue, in the same compound as the Property Records warehouses.

The ten units consist of one 270 square foot unit and nine 172.5 square foot units. All units are semi-climate controlled* through the main portion of the warehouse. (*Air temperture controlled so as not to exceed 85 degrees Fahrenheit).

Eames Storage Unit

Our Price: with FREE SHIPPING! Introduced in 1952, the Eames Storage Units helped establish an exciting new residential furniture look. Today, they are as fresh looking as when they were introduced.

• Available in 1, 2, or 4 units high and 1 or 2 units wide with 5 configurations of shelves, drawers, and enclosed storage
• Dimpled plywood doors
• Plywood drawer units and shelves
• Laminate sides and back panels
• Steel uprights, cross supports, and perforated panels
• Comes in your choice of multi-color or natural color

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Cooking by Recipe

The next step for me was learning to cook by recipe, step by step. In doing this, I inverted the way in which I believe most people learn about how to cook. For the most part, one starts by following recipes and then improvising on them. I suggest that if you are interested in learning how to enjoy cooking, you might want to start here. Of course there are recipes that are more complex than others, and it is advisable to stick to those things that are more simple and have fewer ingredients to start with. Moreover, the ingredients should be less complex to start with, less sensitive to being burned, overcooked, or undercooked.

A recipe consists of two things: A list of ingredients you will need and a step by step guide to putting these ingredients together to make something useful. I personally believe the French technique of ingredient preparation works the best in terms of effective cooking, and so I will suggest you use it. Before you begin going through the steps, look at your little list of ingredients. Make sure you have every ingredient before you start taking things out lest you take out almost everything and suddenly realize you don't have any eggs or squash. Put them all out in front of you in the quantities specified in the recipe. More specifically, separate them out into small bowls. If you save the plastic soup containers you get every time you do take-out at a restaurant, you can use those. Use smaller bowls for smaller quantities, and plates for larger items which are not in liquid form.

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Some Cooking Recipe

Classic Sausage-and-Pepper Grill ingredients

Ingredients:

• 1 pound red potatoes, quartered
• 5 cloves garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon salt, divided
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, divided
• 1 red onion, peeled and cut in half crosswise
• 4 red bell peppers, quartered
• 2 yellow bell peppers, quartered
• 5 (3 ounce) turkey Italian sausage links
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh oregano

Directions:

• Prepare grill. Coat the grill rack with cooking spray.
• Cut an 18 x 12-inch sheet of heavy-duty foil. Place potatoes and garlic in center of foil; sprinkle with 1/8 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon black pepper. Fold foil over vegetables, tightly sealing edges. Add foil pouch to grill rack. Grill 30 minutes, turning foil pouch occasionally.
• Lightly coat onion and bell peppers with cooking spray; sprinkle with 1/8 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon black pepper. Place onion on grill rack; grill 15 minutes. Turn onion over; add bell peppers and sausage. Grill an additional 15 minutes or until vegetables are tender and sausage is done; turn occasionally. Remove from grill.
• Slice bell peppers into strips; coarsely chop onion. Combine bell peppers, onion, and potatoes in a large bowl. Squeeze garlic cloves into a small bowl to extract garlic pulp, and discard skins. Add parsley and oregano, tossing well. Slice grilled sausage links into 1/2-inch-thick slices, and serve with bell pepper mixture.

Filet Mignon With Mushroom-Wine Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon margarine, divided
• Vegetable cooking spray
• 1/3 cup finely chopped shallots
• 1/2 pound fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems removed
• 1 1/2 cups dry red wine, divided
• 1 (10.5 ounce) can beef consomme, undiluted and divided
• Cracked pepper
• 4 (4 ounce) filet mignon steaks (about 1 inch thick)
• 1 tablespoon low-sodium soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1 tablespoon fresh chopped thyme
• Fresh thyme sprigs (optional)

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