I forgot to mention the CD player in my car is broken. It was working just fine and then it wouldn't turn on. This wouldn't be too bad but the radio is also part of the CD player and so is the clock. Fortunately the car does have another clock its just never been set, so I had to dig out the manual and set it.

If we didn't spend so much time in the car it wouldn't matter that much but I think I'll have to get a new one put in before I go insane with the kids and their constant backseat bickering. Whoever said music soothes the savage beast wasn't kidding. Not talking about me here. I'm talking about the kids.

First I'll talk to DH about it though and make sure it isn't a fuse. I don't think it could be and the CD player is 8 years old. The place that installed it doesn't even exist in our county anymore. It of course has a CD in it, too. Annoying especially because it is one of mine and not the kids's.

I'll price them on Wednesday when I come in for physical therapy. Hope its not too pricey. All I want is a simple one CD player with a radio. No 5 disc changer business. No MP3 adapter. I'd even settle for a tape deck.

Meanwhile, I have my tape recorder and I guess I will bring it and my old tapes along. That should be a hoot. Have to be careful. My taste in music in high school and college ran the gammut between Paula Abdul, Heart, Howard Jones, David Bowie and Alice Cooper. Can't be playing Alice Cooper in front of the children. Ever.

Well, obviously. Everyone else does, too, I'm sure. DH found out why they took so much out of his bonus check this year. Apparently our wonderful IRS branch of our government has a new tax law in effect. (If you didn't recognize it, that last sentence was dripping with sarcasm). Bonuses are now considered income and are taxed at the higher 25% rate as well.

But you know what really sucks? Reimbursements are taxable this year. Reimbursements? How the heck can they consider the company giving you your own money back as taxable income!?! And at the higher 25% also. I mean come on. This one is utterly ridiculous!

I know we will get it back with a few thousand dollars with the next refund. But they already take way more out than they should. As I've moaned about many times before, we can't do anything about it. Because he works 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off, he only gets paychecks for 2 weeks out of every four, but they have to tax his checks as if he were making the same amount all four weeks (which would like double our income and put us in a way higher tax bracket). Our lovely IRS does not allow exceptions to this rule. And that extra $3600 each year would have come in handy during the year. That's $300 a month more we would net if we could have it through the year.

I really wish something could be done. We already take the maximum of allowable exemptions, just to get as much as we can. DH plagues HR each new tax year to see if it has changed, but nope. Of course it is in the government's best interests to not change the laws, they get a whopping (to me) $3600 a year from us that they get to earn interest on.

Anyway, just a rant. I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

And today is one of those boring days.

I did not do much today in the vein of saving money. I did take photographs of the three brand name spring sweaters I am going to put on e-bay and will try to download the camera tonight. I am not very good at that as I have only done it once and DH had to hold my hand through it.

I am totally backwards about technology sometimes. Although I have always been able to intuitively figure out any VCR or microwave (or word processing program) I've crossed paths with, the more advanced stuff waylays me. Once I get it I'm good. It's just a question of getting it.

I mean, how hard is it to take the little thingy out of the camera compartment and stick it in the dealy on the printer and let it sort itself out between the CPU and monitor? Doesn't seem like it should be such a challenge. Most of it is automatic. But then again, it took me two years to remember how to look at my photos on the camera without asking DH how do I do it. Sometimes it really is a case of PEBKAC.

And we won't even talk about locking and unlocking my cell phone keyboard so it can be on without accidentally dialing somewhere exotic like Mozambique or Zimbabwe or South Central Los Angeles.

I will muddle through, I always do, I just wish the learning curve wasn't so high. Then I just have to go into DH's e-bay account and figure out how to post what I want to post, which should fall under the intuitive grasping of knowledge (software) instead of the "darn technology and all its advances that are supposed to make life easier if you have at least the retention of a kitchen sponge," (or hardware).

I am so right-brained, left-brained stuff is just a challenge. So if I learn left-brained stuff in a creative right-brained way, I ought to get it eventually. Right?

I posted this in response to Lux's blog but thought I'd put it here, also. TinklyCash is not paying out right now, especially not in the less than 72 hours that they promise. I'm 438th in the payout queue and no payments have been made in weeks.

Now, I was a big supporter of them because they always paid out quickly last year but ever since the big earthquake in Taiwan they have not been paying out. It supposedly damaged undersea cables that were used for international banking.

Doing PTR's is incredibly time consuming, which is fine if you are doing something else while doing them, but doing them and not getting paid? That's just irritating. If and when I ever get paid from them again I'll post it here for those interested in doing it, but until they are back on their feet, I don't think you should waste your time on them.

I went to check up on my payment from TinklyCash and I am 441st in line waiting to receive payment. Well, that doesn't sound good. I have not received a note from them that payment will be delayed, so I am kind of surprised that there is such a huge backlog, usually if they are late they are very good about sending stuff out.

They have always paid in the past, even though it took 3 weeks one time, they told us why beforehand. Usually they paid the next day. I hate to give up on them, so I think I will wait a bit longer and see if I at least move up the list at all.

I know there was an earthquake in the islands where this is based, they sent that note out beginning of January that it had messed with some undersea cables or something that interferred with online banking, so I'm more likely to give them more of a chance.

Well, I have a feeling that Dayslook is a non-legitimate PTR. On my first cash out, they are several days late on payment already. Oh, they sent out a notice saying they were waiting on payment from someone else before they did payouts themselves, but its been quite some time now, a couple of weeks, so I will eliminate them from use. They are right up there with SeekBizs, non-payers.

I am sorry to say this but I have to withdraw my recommendation of ReadRevenue as a good PTR site. They claim payment within 48 hours and for all of 2006 they made payments promptly and I never had a problem with them. But they have paid out nothing since December. I've cashed out twice with them, hoping the first time was a glitch.

The first time was on January 13, 2007 and despite 8 emails that I have sent starting within 5 days of the missing payment, I have had absolutely no response from them. I cashed out again 0n February 21. Today is the 26th. Well past the 48 hours they post on their website that they will pay to paypal by. It should have come on Friday.

I did some research and from what I can find online, no one else has received payment from this company since December. So don't waste your time on it anymore if you had signed up because I said it was legitimate. It no longer is.

So, my kidneys are acting up and I'm going to have to get an x-ray as regular doctor thinks there is more going on than just a simple infection. Because they are recurrent. I'm of the mind that I just have to be on antibiotics longer than 2 weeks. Give me 5 weeks and it'll kill those bacteria suckers. They're resistant, what does he expect after all these years of treating them? So an x-ray, but so far no glow in the dark juice and being run through the giant Lifesaver.

Of course, I may be in denial because I really don't want my life turned upside down again by another medical crisis. I am so done with that. I mean, the insurance is relatively decent now, but still...I do not want anymore hospital bills, anymore surgeries, anymore bits of me taken out than have been. True, what's one kidney? Just a spare part anyway, but still, I'm attatched. I've lost enough odds and ends already.

I used to joke that the only things left that they could take out without replacing were a kidney, a spleen and part of my liver. Guess I shouldn't tempt fate that way, should I now?

I mean, I didn't have a clue when they went in for other stuff that they'd find a big honking tumor growing through my appendix, or a year after that my gall bladder would be 90% dead and the remaining 10% diseased. I knew stuff was wrong with the gall bladder because I was turning yellow and couldn't do anything and was having nasty attacks and they noticed it was "a bit odd" during the first surgery but it never occurred to me that it was mostly a dead organ sitting there.

So now with the kidney, I'm either going to be in complete and utter denial or I'm going to go in the opposite direction and completely freak out and think there is a tumor pressing into the kidney and that is the problem. I'm trying to sit here and be numbly in the middle until next week when they take the x-ray.

I'm more worried about what will happen to our financial health if this is serious than I am about myself. Which I recognize as being tweaked but there you go. I'm tweaked. Well, maybe its simply a coping mechanism. My daughter is now the age I was when my mother had cancer. That brings up all sort of issues with my own kids. Or would do if I told them what was going on.

We can't take out another loan, I won't charge anything on a credit card, and I can't visit the bank of MOM because of the fact that she already took out that mortgage for us for the last go around and we'll be paying it off forever and a half. It's probably nothing serious. But...what if it is? What am I going to do?

Sell the house, maybe. Pay off all our debts and the mortgage on our own house, go move back in with mom and work on paying off that mortgage.

Then there's the whole Dad thing. Dad has cataracts, early to middle stage dementia, and MS. Mom's overwhelmed. But coping. If there is one thing my mother can do it is soldier on no matter what. I don't want to make her have to cope with me, too. Not right now.

Well, I'll muddle through, I always do. I will bend, I will not break because that is what I do.

Anyway, probably too much information. But thanks for listening. I needed that.

Seems like a lot of people on the blogs right now are waiting for raises. I hate it, waiting. Last year, DH got what his boss called a partial raise. Contracts had not been signed and it was promised to him that when they were signed, which was supposed to be last summer, he would get the rest of his raise and it would be substantial. And retroactive.

I am not a greedy person by nature, but I really don't like waiting for what was promised. See, the raise last year was pretty much eaten up by the huge jump in medical premiums. Add on the new taxes for bumping up a tax bracket by just a few dollars, seriously by $5. Afterwards we were left with about $25 more each month net. Now this year the premiums went up again. Not by a couple hundered a month like last year, just by $28 a month. So now, DH is bringing home $3 less than he was a year ago before the raise. Ain't life grand?

So anyhow, last week we learned that the contracts were finally signed. Then his alternate called to say that there had been a meeting and raises were not being given out across the board. Which means selective raises will still be given out, but not everyone gets one this year.

Now I am worried that his boss will go back on his word. Not because he wants to but because of pressure from higher-ups. And of course, it'll probably be week's end before we know anything at all. He had a great direct boss, who will fight for him, but that doesn't mean he will be successful.

Meanwhile, DH's alternate was just offered a job for another company up there doing the exact same thing she is doing now. The starting wage for this same job there is $1.50 more per hour than what DH makes now. The wage range ends at $11.50 an hour more than what DH makes now. DH is currently at the top of his wage range with the current company after 11 years.

Now we are both starting to wonder if his company is actually paying the differential or not. Because there is supposed to be one for working up there, the employees are supposed to make a lot more money than the ones in town (like $10 an hour more) as they are working outside civilization and all and are away from their families.

Finding out something like that is close to impossible as the company won't release the information, so the only way to find out is to ask an employee in the same job how much they make. Awkward. Finding it out from another company, a bit easier, but not by much.

So anyway, his alternate may leave for this other company. If she does, he's back to doing the work of two people again. Which he's usually done for at least half the years he has worked there. And never been compensated for. And I feel he should be because it means more time away from the family. Its all just very frustrating. I feel bad for DH because I think they take advantage of him. He is extremely loyal. It's been a good job and a good company, but...its things like this that make you question your loyalty to the company.

I know I'm probably just blowing everything out of proportion and that it will all work out just fine, but if it doesn't...I'm going to encourage DH to actively pursue other opportunities, because we can't afford not to get compensated appropriately.

We will survive, raise or not. But I was looking forward to actually making some headway this year, instead of walking in place.

...or what happens when the power goes out and you can't see where you are walking.

48 hours without power is about 40 hours more than I can handle. 40 hours without a phone line really drove me nuts. Not being able to access this site or the internet? 3 hours of that was about enough. 2 days with the school closed due to a power failure, no ability to watch movies, use the computer, use the game cube, and reading by candlelight in the evenings made for 2 stir-crazy children and 2 just plain crazy parents.

But thank heavens it is back on now. Phone came back first, then power. We ended up spending an unbudgeted $100 on food, some eating out and some to restock the fridge. We had to throw away much of what was in the fridge, managed to save some apples and oranges and some veggies, but tossed out all the meats and salad dressings, cream cheese, sour cream, yogurt, the pre-chopped veggies had turned brown, and some of the condiments.

I had moved some stuff to a cooler, milk, eggs, butter, turkey and ham (the organic nitrate/nitrite free stuff for sandwiches), mayonnaise, jelly and peanutbutter. And it was still cold and good, so we didn't lose it all. Just some.

We had quite an adventure yesterday morning with the kids getting trapped at the school, a tree down across the road halfway between the school and our house, a tree down further down the road in the other direction, a tree down across the exit, but not the entrance driveway to our development. We called the school, they were keeping the kids at school until the roads were cleared even though there was no power.

So we decided to walk down to the school, which is 1.2 miles one way. We told the school we were coming and to tell our kids. It was raining pretty hard and the wind was whipping pretty good, but we wanted our kids home with us and the fireman said it could be several hours before they cleared the road in either direction. So we walked and the one tree was really big and had brought down the messanger cable as well as the power line, and the cable line. When they did end up cutting the tree up, they accidently brought down the phone line as well.

There was a safe place to get around the downed line on a side road that came out again further down the highway. So we finally made it to the school after about twenty minutes of fast walking. So we go to find our kids. "Oh, that bus decided to go on a reverse route and try to deliver as many kids as they could. But they'll bring back the ones who they can't deliver." They couldn't tell us that on the phone? So now we are at the school with the possibility that our kids could be at home, or they could be brought back to the school. You could say I was one p.o.'d parent.

We couldn't get ahold of the bus driver on his radio as he had turned it off, due to too much chatter on it. Argh! So we told the school that if they kids did come back to hold them there and we would come back when the road was clear. Then we walked back home. Just as we were passing the tree, they finally got it cleared (several hours, my eye!), so we got to walk the highway with a ton of cars zipping by to make up for having to wait in a really long line for so long. Fun.

Got home to a note on the door that the kids had gone to the neighbor's house, like we figured they would, so it all turned out okay, but the kids told me that the bus was driven over some downed wires and he had squeezed it through under some wires that were angled down across the road and went around a tree. That I am not happy about. The kids safety should come first, so I am calling the bus garage tomorrow to complain now that we have phones again and school and buses should be running tomorrow.

School conferences were supposed to be this week but obviously they were cancelled. I hope we can reschedule for tomorrow as DH flies out on Monday and he really wanted to go. He almost always misses them and this one just coincided with his being home for a change. Also basketball practice was cancelled, too.

So anyway that has been my last two days in a nutshell. A very large, very full nutshell.

Oh, and today was the automatic deposit to savings of $10 so I will send that off to ING tomorrow. I'm not sure where my total is at right now and I'm too tired to look it up.

Sigh. We blew a tire on the way into town tonight. This is one that has already been repaired 3 times so I knew there was no fix to it and I was right. Fortunately DH did not lose control of the car and we were able to pull off to the side of the road within 1/10 of a mile on a nice wide piece of shoulder. And it was a good place to pull off, too, which was a relief because of course it was on the driver's side, closest to the highway traffic.

I am so grateful DH was home. Two days ago I would have been trying to figure out how to change it by myself. I learned many years ago but that was on my old Nova. Even DH had to look in the owner's manual to figure out where the jack went. I'm just really glad I had the locking nuts removed the last time we bought new tires. Had to have them cut off at the time as the tool got tossed out accidently years ago.

Our spare went on as easy as can be but the tire pressure was different between the two front tires and that pulled the alignment out worse than it was already. We decided to go ahead and get two new tires as the tire place had a sale on right now, instead of just one. The other tire was still okay but the wear pattern was a little off and I prefer not to mess around with stuff like that too much when DH is gone so often.

So we bought the two tires that were on sale but ended up getting a free upgrade when they couldn't find the sale tires, even though the computer said they had them. We went ahead and had it realigned since it was so badly out of whack. I had planned on getting it realigned next week anyway when we got the oil change done, so I did have the money for that set aside. It was the tires and their installation money I didn't have.

Well, we charged the extra and we will pay that off next month. It means less eating out again, but we are getting used to that. We were lucky in that we got to the tire shop at 6:10 and they closed at 6:30. The only tire shop in the area that is open past 6:00. And we have bought tires there before and like the shop, too.

We are also lucky this did not happen tomorrow when we were on the way to the fair. I would have hated to have spoiled our day that we have been planning.

If an incident like this has to happen, it happened under all the best possible circumstances. I feel watched over today.

Okay, I have a situation I'd like some opinions on. Back in May, before I'd even set up a paypal account, I got an email saying there was money in a paypal account connected to my email. There was no paypal account connected to my email when I checked. But I wanted to set one up, so I did, and sure enough, as soon as I did, there was $70 sitting in my account. I asked paypal and it was legitimate.

So DH tracked it for me and found out it was related to a certain numbered ebay sale of an item I had certainly not sold, because I did not have an ebay account and had never used ebay (only DH has, and its a different account).

However it did have an email the money came from, so I emaled and asked what the money was for, since I didn't have an ebay account at all, and I had only just set up the paypal account and there was the money.

This person insisted that she had bought the item from me. I explained patiently, and ad naseum, with smaller and smaller words over the course of 6 emails that she had made a mistake somewhere and sent the money to the wrong person. It appeared that she simply wasn't reading what I wrote, only continuing to respond that the money was for something she'd ordered from me.

This went on for about 3 weeks. Well, finally I got an email from someone who had been forwarded the entire string of emails I'd sent to the idiot (sorry, I have low tolerance for people who won't listen or act stupid when they are not). This happened to be the real person she had bought the item from, whose email address was the same as mine, except it had 3 numbers following the letters.

She had also gone round and round with this woman about her not having sent it to the right email addy, and finally had gotten the sale rescinded due to lack of payment and the result was the other woman was kicked off ebay. She got my email from the list of emails that had been forwarded to her and she emailed me to explain what had happened or I'd still not know.

I asked her if she wanted me to transfer the money to her. She did not, she wasn't going to send the product now, and so the money wasn't hers. Well, I tried one more time to explain what had happened to the first woman and she responded with a profanity laced email that I had gotten her kicked off ebay and stolen her money. She still didn't get it, and I was trying to return the money!

Well, I checked with paypal and supposedly if I did nothing to withdraw the money, it would be returned to the sender on June 28th. Well, guess what? It wasn't and there it sits in my paypal account.

So my question is, what am I supposed to do with the money? I have made several good faith efforts to give it back. Part of me says that I should just keep it to pay for all the hassle I've been put through trying to do the right thing. Ethically this is wrong and I really feel at a rate of about 98% that I would feel tremendous guilt doing this and that it would bother me. 2% of me says I deserve it after all the garbage she put me through.

I guess I could try one more time to talk with paypal about it and see if they'll return it to her account. I'm really just so tired of dealing with it I want it to be done.

I didn't have time to post twice on Thursday but DH and I had a rare date, while the kids spent the night at my mother's house. It was a very spendy date, too. But DH got a bonus check for some extra stuff he does on a safety committee at work and that's how he wanted to spend it.

So we went to Black Angus and had the special of a small lobster tail, King crab leg, and prime rib, with 2 sides. DH got the same. I got double veggies and he got veggies and a baked potato, loaded. No dessert and I drank only water, but DH had Coke. We took the bread home.

Afterwards we went to the movies and paid (gasp!) full price. I haven't paid full price in years, we always go to matinees and even that has gotten pricey. But he really wanted to use the money this way, and I wanted to see the movies. We so rarely go to movies. The last one we saw was the Narnia one, and before that The Day After Tomorrow. And we had gift certificates both times from my mother.

Anyway, we saw X3, which we had both wanted to see on the big screen before it was gone. There were 9 other people in the theater with us and we got to sit in the seats that would be behind the wheel chair seats, which means complete legroom. I've never been so comfy at a movie theater in my life. That movie went fast and it was good, but it made me cry a couple of times. I was expecting to cry at the second movie, not the science fiction one.

The second movie we saw was The Lake House. I adored it. Made me cry more than the other movie, but it was wonderful. A true romance. I hope those two don't wait over a decade to make another moive together. They have such good chemistry I hate to see it not used.

Anyway, DH and I had a marvelous time and in the end it was worth it, the money we spent. It will be a long time before I pay full price for a movie again. DH wants to see Superman next time he comes home. I may order the entertainment book as it has movie coupons. I don't know if our regular budget can swing another movie for awhile. That's what Netflix is for, it just means waiting a bit more.

I think this goes firmly in the Not My Fault category.

Well, I was right about never seeing that $5 from the neighbor again. And I probably never will.

Yesterday my DH let him use our lawn mower, despite the fact that it was the first sunny day in over a week and our own lawn was way too long and the forecast said it would rain today (which it did). And of course, the idiot neighbor promptly plowed it into a rock that bent the blade at a 90 degree angle from its previous direction.

Did he come tell us right away? Oh, no. He tried to "fix" it himself. With a sledge hammer. When he couldn't fix it, then he finally came over and told DH. DH tried to fix it, but because of the sledge hammer, there was no fixing it.

The neighbor did some hemming and hawing and said "Guess it looks like you need a new one." DH goes "Yep." Neighbor goes, "I guess I should buy it." DH goes "Yep." Neighbor says, "Well, I can't buy it until Tuesday, why don't you go buy it and I'll pay you back." Right. Like he paid back the $5. I don't think so.

We had the kids's recital last night so we took off shortly after and didn't get home until really late. First thing we see when we pull in is that the neighbor has left both our gas mower and our old fashioned push mower on his front lawn instead of bringing them back or locking them up in his garage.

So DH went and got them. He left a note saying he had so they wouldn't think they were stolen, though I was tempted to just let him think they were stolen and see if he came over to even tell us. But DH said no, and added to the note that we were sleeping in and not to come over in the morning. We were exhausted from the recital.

Anyway, the guy had the nerve to come over this afternoon and ask if he could borrow the mower once we got the part fixed. DH said no and that he couldn't borrow it anymore at all. Neighbor wasn't happy and DH was even less happy. The guy has been there 2 months. Its about time he bought his own lawnmower or asked for one on freecycle.

FIL came out tonight with the replacement part and it is at least working again. It only cost $17.55, but that is $17.55 that could have been used for something else.

Oh, well. We are done being good neighbors. Now we will just be indifferent neighbors. I like it better that way anyway. And besides that, the guy was starting to give me the creeps.

I didn't actually blog about this, but the post office misplaced a paid bill I sent off for almost two weeks! It finally cleared this morning as an ACH, and Cingular said that since the envelope was postmarked the 16th of May they would not count it as a late payment and there would be no interest charges added to the account.

Tomorrow I am going down to the CU and fill out the paperwork to make that an autopayment. It's the same every month so no surprises. I am just glad Cingular was rational about it. As soon as we knew there was a problem we talked to them and they were very nice about it, especially as we have never been late before.

It bugs me. Our CU has just finished updating its webtools so now we can pay any bill directly out of our account, but I like the convenience of autopay a little better than that.