I am not motivated at all today. I am trying to get myself motivated to go to Water Zumba, which I would need to leave for in 20 minutes and it's like pulling teeth. I crawled back into bed this morning after chores and haven't wanted to budge. I don't feel sick. I don't know what it is. General lethergy? Laziness? Back of the mind worrying?

My FIL is having cancer surgery today. It is a 7 hour surgery if all goes to play. I won't know anything for quite some time yet. IF you all could pray for him or send out positive thoughts or healing vibes, that would be wonderful. His name is Rich.

Maybe going would help me take my mind off of things.

My niece, the one who is only a year older than my daughter, gave birth to a baby girl last night and named her Braelynn Alice. I like the combination of a very modern name with an old-fashioned name. I did much the same with my daughter's name. She was 8 lbs 5 oz and 20.5 inches long. I've been to see her twice and got to hold her today. She has masses of black hair and I think her eyes are brown. Baby eye color often changes, though.

I can't even imagine having a baby at 20 years old. I know women used to do it all the time, but I felt so young when I was 20, not at all ready to be as grown up as having a child makes you need to be. But I think she will be a fantastic mother. She has such a nurturing instinct and she has always loved babies (which I did not).

I didn't go to the pool for 2 days as I really overdid it and then I gave myself a massive bruise on one shoulder. I got back there today. I have decided not to do anymore back to back classes. One a day, every other day until I can build up my muscles, then I can consider going more days a week. But I don't think I will try back to back classes again any time soon.

DH got a confirmation on the overtime so that will be nice. I had to order new curriculum for my son. The program he's been using, which is online, is down all the time or glitches, and earlier this week, it erased all of the progress he has made in his English class. It's just gone. And half of the history lessons he's done vanished, too. He's going to finish his money management class and then I'm pulling the plug on that curriculum. If I'm paying $100 a month, I expect it to work all the time.

His first new books arrived yesterday. It is an integrated chemistry and applied physics course and is two full credits. The local high school would consider this two year's worth of science as they give .5 credit per semester. He is really excited about it and is already working on it. I think it is set up very well. And it's all offline, so no website to go down.

I also ordered Washington state history, World history, and Algebra 1 from Hooked on Schoolhouse, which is an interactive CD-ROM based program. DS has been struggling with Geometry, so we are going to go back and do Algebra 1 again first. He missed a lot of school when he took Algebra as a Freshman and he had a bad teacher who couldn't keep the class under control, which made it hard for him to focus. He's good at math when he has the foundation in place, so we are going back to make that foundation stronger.

I got Hooked on Schoolhouse French, too. Again, all interactive CD-ROM stuff with worksheets to print out.

I also ordered a 6th grade spelling book because his spelling is really bad, so we're going back to drill. They don't seem to make high school spelling books, so I figure we'll do 6th, 7nth, and 8th and that will give him plenty of practice.

I got him a tenth grade Vocabulary and a 9th grade writing. His essay writing is not very good and he needs practice in the fundamentals. He will do a tenth grade literature course at the same time, skipping the stuff he already did in the online English course that vanished on him, which was mostly Shakespeare and poetry.

He should be able to test through some of the World History fast since he's taken a semester's worth of it and start about halfway through. The WA state one is not very long, so he'll zip through that.

Once he gets through all of that, we'll get 11th grade curriculum, mostly from the same place we got the science curriculum. Except for French which will stay with Hooked on Schoolhouse.

I spent about $600 on curriculum, but it'll average out over the next several months, instead of paying $100 a month. It'll be paid for with some of the overtime money.

DH is going to have to take a 9% paycut at work. I am not thrilled about it, but one of the results of having no debt is that it won't send us topsy turvy. That'll be about $715 with my preliminary estimate, which is a big chunk. It means that we won't be able to save as much towards the down payment each month, but we still will be able to save towards it. And we won't have to reduce our 401K percentage either, though of course it will go down in dollars since he won't be making as much.

We still don't know what is going on with the contract and now it looks like we won't know until the end of June. I knew these low oil prices were going to do something to us, and while I don't like it, we can weather it. These cuts sound like they are across the board.

It is harder emotionally since he hasn't had a raise in several years, but health insurance went up every year. Our storage, car insurance, and life insurance have all gone up or are going up in the next month or two.

I don't think we will be able to save anything on the down payment this month. Paying the rest of the medical bills is going to be around $750 (with some of that actually being dental). And we are buying half a hog. I haven't heard from the seller yet this week, but he said the week of the 11th and it is that week, so I figure it will probably be right on Friday. They were estimating it will be around 200 pounds for our half.

I will also be getting all of the leaf fat from the whole hog, as the other person doesn't want any. They don't charge for the fat as they would just have to throw it away. I will render it into lard and then we won't need any cooking oil for the rest of the year, either. We still have beef fat I haven't made into tallow yet, either, so all of that together may take us well into 2017.

We won't have to buy any meat for the rest of the year, though I might still buy a lamb this fall. Right now we still have beef from our quarter cow share, plenty of rabbit meat, maybe 80 or 90 pounds, 2 or 3 whole ducks, and at least 30 pounds of chicken. I will still buy pepperoni and Canadian bacon for pizzas and breakfast sandwiches and if I don't raise a turkey or two this year we'll buy one for Thanksgiving and one for Christmas. I'm not sure if we will do meat chickens or not. But otherwise, we will be set.

And the garden will start producing in May and we'll start getting strawberries at the end of May and then go through blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, plums, and apples so that will help, too. I see our grocery bills going way, way down.

I have found an English Muffin recipe that is easy and tastes great, so now I can completely do homemade breakfast sandwiches for a fraction of the cost. I love doing these because they are filling, but are a controlled amount of calories. I don't have to think about it, I know it is just under 300 calories for ones with Canadian bacon and just under 400 for ones with sausage. I don't get sick of them at all and it is a great way to use up all the duck eggs.

I am so frustrated with DH's work. We still haven't received his W-2 form. Which, you know, means at this point they're breaking the law. I want to get the taxes done so we can get our refund back. I don't know what the hold up is. It's the only thing we are waiting on. They've been a day late in the past, but never this many days late. I hope it's not lost in the mail.

This week my FIL (who I love like a father) was diagnosed with cancer, we lost 7 less than week old rabbit kits, and one of our hens jumped the fence and got eaten by a dog. I have an ingrown toenail that is driving me crazy and I think it is infected and I can't get in sooner than the 28th. I still have bronchitis. My knee is acting up. My son has to get a CT scan next week. And I am just ready for the week to be over.

On the bright side, and I do have one, I have lost 4 pounds this week. I found a toaster and can opener in teal to match my sea glass Kitchenaid mixer, and I found a gorgeous tablecloth with matching linen napkins, dish cloths, and hand towels that all match the teal, turquoise, and blue theme I am aiming towards. My kitchen is clean, really, really clean, all the way down to its bones and so is my bedroom.

My marriage is good. My daughter started her college classes online this week. My son is doing well with his online high school home school classes. I sold 2 dozen duck eggs, 1 dozen turkey eggs, and a buck breeding rabbit, and feel like I made a friend in the lady I sold him to.

I am trying to keep my chin up while we learn more about what will have to happen with FIL. They do think treatment will work, but I don't really have any details yet.

I'm totally ready for February now, though.

So my son has had the worst time in the last year trying to breathe and shake his chronic sinus infections. It had been 3 years since he had sinus x-rays, so the doctor ordered some when I took him in on the 31st.

We were all shocked to see how bad of a deviated septum he has. He hasn't broken his nose or had any trauma to it. The only thing I can think of is that about a year ago he started getting bruising on his nose that he couldn't trace to anything, but it was always coming up. It would fade and come back. It was a small bruise, but it was noticeable.

Anyway, almost his entire left side is blocked off. He is pretty much only getting air through his right nostril. On Monday we call the ENT doctor and make an appointment, but he will likely have to have surgery to repair this. I did and mine was not nearly so bad. Of course it might be now, being as I broke it in the summer, but that is neither here nor there.

So it is very possible we will be looking at a big bill coming up. Our deductible is $5000, so we would have to pay that before the insurance will even cover anything. It would be a major chunk from our Emergency Fund and it would take some time to get it back up to size, but that is what the fund is there for.

We will have a sizable tax refund again this year due to this year's medical expenses, so we will be able to build the fund back up, but I had been hoping to dump all but $1000 into the down payment fund and the $1000 would have gone into building the EF even higher.

It will slow everything down, but the kid has to be able to breathe. So priorities. But still.

Well, we are no worse the wear for our earthquake last night. For those who don't live in the PNW there was a 4.8 earthquake about 11 miles from Victoria. Vancouver Island is not that far from us as the crow (or seagull) flies. My bed rolled forward about a foot, then went backward the same way.

Normally I would have been asleep so close to midnight, but my daughter had a sleep study and it didn't start until 1 a.m. because her sleep pattern is that screwed up.

None of my canning jars fell off the open shelves, but they did move. Fortunately it was sideways. Number one priority is to get some guards in place. If I had lost any jars, it would have been a big mess of glass and food all over the carpet.

In the rabbit shed some of the cages had shifted and the water bottles on the shelves out there had also shifted. Again it was sideways so it wasn't a big deal.

The hay bucket had fallen over and so had the bucket of oats, but I didn't notice anything else amiss. It does get me thinking about a few more things I need to get in order though. We did have flashlights and water and plenty of food, but I still haven't bought a propane space heater or a small generator for my c-pap machine. We didn't lose power, but it is always a possibility. There is a solar rechargeable generator that I have been looking at. I guess it is time to start saving up for that.

It was a lot different than the baby earthquakes I've been through before which just sort of vibrated or lightly swayed things. But it still wasn't much more than just a big surprise. We have never had a bad one here in my lifetime, except the one that accompanied Mt. St. Helen erupting when I was a kid and I both felt and heard it, and it cracked a pane in my bedroom window even though we are quite a ways away.

Most people seem to have just slept through this one.

I was unable to pick up my turkey today because the road to the farm was underwater. Fortunately they called me before I left so I didn't make a wasted trip. Assuming the flooding has gone down I will be able to pick it up next Saturday. I am actually kind of glad I did not have to drive down there as I am still not 100% out of the brain fog department from being sick. DH will be home to drive down next Saturday if I am still out of it by then. Let's hope not.

I guess there was flooding in our county as well. Now that I don't live anywhere near the river I don't pay as much attention to those sorts of things, but I guess the mountain got 19 inches of snow and then it rained and caused the river to go a foot over its banks. There hasn't been much local coverage of such things because everything is on the events in Paris.

Luna kindled today. She gave birth to 4 kits. Since she missed on the last two breedings, missing today would have been her 3rd strike. At which point she would have been taken out of the breeding program become a house bunny because she is a love and totally would adapt to being a pet. I had my suspicions it wasn't her, but the bucks she had been bred with. This was a different buck who has never failed and he did his job.

I am still waiting to see the results from Ruby (who is building a crazy big nest), Serena, and Kalia. I'm pretty sure Kalia is pregnant as she is so like the woman who is 2 weeks over due and just plops down and doesn't move and prays for it to just be done already. She is always like that the last week of her pregnancy. She did build a nest last week. Serena has also built a nest, but it's hard to tell with her. She's a slim rabbit and doesn't show when she's pregnant. She also missed last time for the first time, so hopefully she won't this time.

These will be the last births of the year as I won't breed any of them again until February.

Why does our society have to be so throw it away? I have been trying for the last 10 days or so to replace the charger cord for my laptop. My laptop is only 3 years old. This should not be an issue. First I started by going to Toshiba direct and entering in my laptop model number in their search engine and them telling me that yes, we can replace that part. So they sent me the charger that was supposedly compatible. It's not. It's for the computers that came out the next model year.

Right after I bought my laptop, they decided to go to a universal type of charger for Toshibas. Mine is not one of those, it is still from when every model year had a different charger, but their search engine thinks it is. *sighs* So then I had to go through all of the rigamarole of trying to get a hold of their customer service. After a few days, I got that sorted out and finally got the mailing label to send it back to them.

Meanwhile I had ordered a different charger off of Amazon, that assured it was the correct one for my laptop, listing the model number in their title and everything. It even showed the correct tip in the photograph. It was not the one they sent me. That was, of course, just like the wrong one Toshiba sent me. They didn't actually have one that works with my laptop. At least getting a return mailing label from them was simple. So now I have two packages that I need to go drop off at the FedEx/UPS store (or Fed Up as I like to call it).

The universal chargers that Insignia and Targus makes do not have the right tip for my charger. Targus is supposed to have more tips available, but they haven't gotten back to me five days later, so I consider them to be a dead end.

We found a charger on e-bay and double checked with the guy with both the computer model number and the charger model number and he said it was the correct one, so here is hoping.

I will be so frustrated if I can't use my laptop, a perfectly good laptop with my beloved Windows 7 on it, anymore because I can't charge it. It has all of my spreadsheets on it. I have some of them backed up, but not the last few months, so I would have to recreate a lot of information. I pulled off what I could before the last 20 minutes of battery power drained.

I know we could take the hard drive out and transfer it, but I just love my old laptop. It has the wonderful keyboard and everything is set just the way I like it. Plus I just installed new software on it with only one license. Ugh.

I am struggling a little bit with wanting to eat out right now. I don't want to do it because it is expensive and I'm trying to save money. I know it is simply a reaction to being in pain. Well, it's more a reaction to having an almost constant headache.

Between the broken nose and the mild concussion, it just almost never goes away except when I am sleeping and that has more to do with the narcotics the doctor gave me knocking me out for the night. Headache pain has always been much harder for me to deal with than any other type of pain because it always makes me feel like I'm not myself.

It is really hard to want to make meals from scratch when you feel sick, but pain is even harder, at least for me. But I don't feel up to driving either. I had to drive Thursday to go to my doctor's appointment and my son's doctor's appointment. I don't want to drive again for a while. It takes too much focus. So that is keeping my spending in check.

Since I am fundamentally against paying extra to have food delivered to my home, and not much delivers here anyway, I am trying to focus on simpler meals, or meals my daughter can make while I am nearby for help or reassurance. I have been teaching her to cook more things this year, but she lacks confidence to do it without a lot of hand holding yet.

The doctor says the break still looks straight, but the swelling isn't fully gone and we can't determine everything until it is. So far it is looking good enough he doesn't think I will need to go to an ENT doctor. Now that there is a lot less swelling I can actually feel the break when I touch the bridge of my nose. There is a little ripple there that was not there before. It's nothing you can see, though. The abrasion has almost completely healed. I really wish I didn't wear glasses right now, though. I know they are adding to some of the discomfort.

More concerning are the concussion symptoms, at least to me. The doctor doesn't seem to be worried, though. I am a little forgetful and find myself searching for words a lot more than usual. And I feel like a space cadet. Just a lot of brain fog. I am not used to having headaches. I haven't had them since I took all of the additives and preservatives and MSG and stuff out of my diet several years ago, except on very rare occasions or with a sinus or kidney infection or lack of sleep or my neck was out of alignment. And those were quickly remedied.

I know I will get better with time, but it is hard to push through right now. I am getting as much rest as I can. That is what the doctor said to do. But I still have animals to take care of and a garden to keep under control. The kids are helping, but I can't just check out like I could if DH was home. He will be home the day after school starts so I won't have to do too much driving in the early a.m. when I am not alert and am very foggy. In fact, if DS rides his bike the first 2 days of school I won't have to drive at all. Hopefully it won't rain.

So far I am managing to stick to my meal plans. I know I haven't been posting them, but I have still been making them. They are generally easier foods, though. No one is up for super complicated.

I do find that I'm not eating much outside of dinner. It's too much work. I'll grab a string cheese so I can take my medicine without it making me queasy, but that's about it. Not very healthy. I ought to make up some hard-boiled eggs so I'd at least have something a little more substantial during the day. I do have my electric egg cooker and it turns off when done, so I don't have to pay attention to it. Maybe I should do that.

Okay, this is getting long and rambling and may or may not make sense. I am not the best judge of that right now. So I'll stop babbling for now.

Aw, life...you give me only one day off after getting over the stomach flu. I wouldn't call this a Murphy event, this was just a stupid freak thing, but I managed to drop a box fan on my face. I was sorting through a box of stuff under the window and I must have moved the box in such a way as to pull the cord on the box fan. The edge of it came down and hit me in the bridge of the nose sending my glasses flying across the room.

Well, the doctor had a cancellation and I was able to get in and it is definitely broken, but as far as breaks go it was real even and didn't need to be set and there isn't really anything to be done at this point. It just hurts a lot, and I'm to use 800 mg Ibuprofen and ice (which I had already done) and call if the pain gets worse and then they will give me something stronger.

My eyes are blood shot from it breaking some blood vessels and I am starting to get black eyes, but I put ice on right away so hopefully they won't be too bad. The swelling is affecting my breathing though, just a little, I can still breathe, but it is definitely not at full capacity, and I am not sure if I will be able to use my c-pap mask since it is the kind that goes up my nose.

And I had to go get my glasses fixed because they got bent out of shape. And she loosened the nose pads for me because of the swelling. She said to come back when the swelling went down. Of course the break is right where the glasses sit, plus there is a cut there, too, so I have to pull my glasses down my nose a bit to use them.

Hopefully this won't end up being too expensive. If I re-deviated my septum and have to go through sinus surgery again, I will be the unhappiest of campers.

At least the stomach flu is over though. I can't imagine doing the kind of throwing up where it comes out your nose right now. That's fun enough when the nose isn't broken.

Other than hurting, I actually have a pretty good attitude about it. It could be worse. I could have given myself a concussion while I was at it. And I have a ton of ice packs for my knee, so I will be able to keep ice on my nose as much as I need to, which really works far better than the ibuprofen at this point.

At least DH is home and DD is well. Since DS had ingrown toenail surgery on both big toes today and can't do anything, at least I will have help with farm chores.

My cousin's daughter died today. She was not much older than my daughter. I can't stop crying. Her life was just starting. I wish I could stop thinking about it. They are so far away from most of the family. I know she is with the Lord now and that helps my head, but it doesn't do much for my heart right now.

I am not sure what is going on with the blogs, but I can't get to my blog. When I click on the link it just takes me back to the home page. Or takes me to a page not found screen. If I try to click on anyone's blog it actually does that. It did let me open this posting page so hopefully it works and someone will see this. Am I the only one this one is happening to?

Well, it looks like DH will be able to get 4 extra days this hitch to make up for the 4 days he will miss by staying over for DD's graduation. There is plenty of work for him to do. It all hinges on whether or not they can find a bed for him at work for those 4 days. I really hope so, because to not have to scramble and cut back and take money from other savings categories to cover this would be very nice.

He will know sometime tomorrow. I was not looking forward to depleting the January Money Fund, which was what I would have to do if he can't get the extra time at work.

Househopeful asked what the January Money Fund is about. Every year over the Christmas holidays, DH's work shuts down for a couple of weeks. So he has to go his usual 2 weeks off from a regular 2 on/2 off shift, plus 2 more weeks off. So he ends up with 4 weeks off in a row with no pay. Now we are used to budgeting for the 2 weeks off and we stretch the money to cover the whole 4 week cycle. But when those four weeks off come up (be it in January or December, we never really know until closer to time), that gives us four weeks we have to stretch money over, which is a lot harder.

This year I started saving for that time period quite early. When we were paying off debt and the mortgage I generally didn't start saving for it until September or October, but now I can save all year for it. Usually we can count on DH's Christmas bonus to help some, but last year most of that went to fixing the leaking moon roofs in the van. So I don't want to depend on the Christmas bonus for anything, because who knows what might come up. So hence this fund.

Plus we still don't know what our tax situation is going to be for next year. Since we only lived in the house we sold 1 out of the last 5 years before it sold, we may have to pay some taxes on the sale. Maybe not, but we won't know for sure how much of the remodel and repairs and improvement we can deduct until we get all the tax paperwork.

I am thinking it will probably all be a wash, but if it is not, we won't owe more than we generally get back, which is around $7000 due to our medical costs. It'll be a bummer if we don't get a refund, because I usually use the money to bump up the Emergency Fund and in the past to pay down debt, but now to save for a down payment on our upcoming farm purchase. But we should at least walk away without having to pay out, which is better than having to pay in by a long shot.

I really do think it is criminal of them to tax our house sale this way, though. We lived in that house for many, many years, and it was our only house. The money that is in savings from the sale is intended for our next home and that should be allowed to be kept. It used to be you could keep it if you rolled it over into a new home, but not anymore. And it's not like it was a huge sale or anything. We're not talking about a $300K plus house here. Or even a $150K house.

Well, this turned into a rant. I guess things have just been on my mind a lot lately.

As a quick update on my daughter, she finally, after 10.5 weeks has stopped bleeding. She's still in a lot of pain though. They are testing her for a clotting disorder and a bleeding disorder. We should find out in the next day or three. She is having nosebleeds, unexplained bruising, and severe cramping in her calves as well. She's still anemic. Please continue to pray for her.

Was there an announcement or anything that there are problems with the blogs? I am ten days behind on reading (hope to get caught up today) so haven't had a chance to look, but my blog statistics are missing that keep a running count of how many hits there have been to my blog. Also my comments will say 1 comment and there won't be any visible or 2 comments and only 1 is visible. I also haven't been receiving any email notifications for comments left, but that's been going on for weeks.

DH and I had to make a big decision this month. At the start of the month we still owed my mother $50,000 of the $110,000 we borrowed from her years ago to pay off medical debt. Since that time we have been paying her $1000 a month and paid off $60,000. She charges no interest and refuses to.

At the start of the month we were on track to have that paid off in 4 years and 2 months. But my mother came to us last month and offered to let us pay it back at a rate of $500 a month on the condition that we took the other $500 a month and put it in our down payment fund, which would put the repayment at 8 years and 4 months.

I (and DH to a lesser extent) went back and forth on this several times. This is the last debt we owe. When this is gone we will be debt free, at least until we buy another house. So I want it gone and I want it gone yesterday. But at the same time, I want to move as soon as we can which means having a big down payment, because I want reasonable mortgage payments (i.e. $1500 or less a month).

Mom, on the other hand, wants the loan to last as long as possible and by cutting in half the payments, she will be assured of some income beyond her social security for the next 8 years, instead of a higher amount for 4 years, and without having to keep much money in the bank. So I understand her motives.

But, my mother is a negative commenter. As in every time I buy something she makes some comment on it. For example, I finally replaced our wok that I threw out two years ago. I didn't want to buy a teflon one because we won't use it anymore and they flake so badly after a year or so.

Cast iron woks are way, way too heavy for me to manage. Hard anodized steel woks are also too heavy. Stainless steel is hard to clean. So when I finally found the ceramic coated one at Costco I bought it. It was not very expensive, though not cheap, and I had set money aside that I had saved out of our food budget. I waited 4 months from when I first saw it to when I bought it.

My mother's comment on seeing the new wok was, "Wow, it must be nice to be rich enough to afford to buy whatever you want whenever you want it."

We aren't rich, by any means, though DH does have a very good income. We've been paying off massive medical debt for years, and not just to her and she knows that. We lived below the poverty line for many years when we were first married (though we were fine because our mortgage was so low). But she still makes comments like this every single time we bring something new into the house. When we bought a $30 rice cooker, she made a snarky comment. It was part of our Christmas presents.

I found steak on a really good sale a couple of weeks ago and we've been eating it a fair bit. "Wow, you sure eat steak a lot. That's almost every night!" Umm, no, it was twice that week and twice the next, and we hadn't had steak for 4 months before that and anyway, it was chuck steak, not ribeye or something. She eats steak more than we do because she bought a quarter of a steer which goes very far when you are feeding 1 person instead of 4, but that doesn't matter, of course, because it is her and not us doing it.

I snuck my new camera into the house in my purse instead of in a bag, even though I paid for it with my birthday money and some of my leftover Christmas money that was given to me by my in-laws, just so I didn't have to hear her comments about a fancy expensive new camera (it is not fancy and based on camera prices not that expensive, either, but she'd think so).

Or if we bring home take out at all she comments. We do this maybe once a week. She does it, too, but that's not the same thing, either.

So I told her if we were to agree to the lesser amount she couldn't make all those negative comments every time we buy something we budgeted and saved up for. Or ate out. She said she'd try. At times I'm not even 100% sure she knows she's doing it because it is so much her nature, and other times I'm convinced she knows exactly what she is doing.

She does like to play the martyr and the poor me thing and pretend she is super poor. But she has a good social security income, plus what we pay her each month, and we pay for all of the electric, natural gas, garbage, water/sewer, and the internet. We do a lot of the upkeep here. The only thing she pays for besides taxes on the house and her groceries, gas, and insurances, are her land line phone which we don't use and her two satellite dishes, which we don't use. So she has plenty of money, and her savings. And she owns the house free and clear and it's worth $400K to $500K and she owns her two vehicles free and clear.

Anyway, even after she offered this we went back and forth on it a lot. But we ended up deciding to take the offer and cut our payments down to $500 a month and bank the other $500 each month we'd been paying her for the down payment. Because that means we will be able to get out of here much sooner. Though it is still going to be two years at least until we have enough saved to do so.

Our insurance company was hacked. I knew it was just a matter of time before putting all medical information online would lead to compromise, but it's not like I can control it. Still, it's going to be quite some time before we need to get any new credit for anything. I don't foresee needing it until we are ready to buy a house, so I was thinking freezing our credit would be the best thing to do. I just don't know how to go about it.

They have given us two free years of credit monitoring, so we will at least be able to keep an eye on things. It just makes me sick, though. We have been so very careful with our information, but these companies can't seem to be careful with it themselves. They leave themselves vulnerable to attack and then throw money at the clean-up instead of shoring themselves up from the start.

I really do not have the energy to deal with identity theft right now. I have seen what some of you have gone through and I really don't want to have to go through it myself. Especially after we have worked so hard these last ten years to have pristine credit. I hate thieves and I hate hackers, even more than I hate my insurance company.

So the buyers went in to sign today and it turns out there was one paper that the bank did not have there when Chris and I signed before he left for Alaska. So for a couple of hours I had thought it would be done today, but then this paper cropped up so it won't be. They emailed it to DH and he signed it in front of the notary up there, and I have to go down and sign it in the morning, since I didn't even find this out until an hour ago and the place was closed.

But hopefully after signing that paper tomorrow it means they actually will close this week and I'll have the money in the bank soon. Because honestly, until that money is actually in my bank account, I still don't believe anything is a done deal. We gave the keys to the realtor today, though. So I'm finding it just a little harder to remain cynical on this deal than previously. I still feel like Murphy is going to come out of left field and smack me upside the head, you know?

Yet, at the same time I want to be hopeful. Because when this goes through we can stop holding our breath and waiting for the other shoe to drop. We can finally move out of the holding pattern we've been in for the past few years.

And some days you are just lucky to get dinner on the table. Despite having a meal plan, despite being well prepared, some days just throw you for a loop. My mother decided to tie up the entire oven for hours, so there was no way to cook anything I had planned. Of course, she did not tell me she was doing this. I didn't expect her to cook as she has been mooching off of us for the past five days straight and I'd assumed she would again today since she liked what I was making, so it didn't even occur to me that she would cook.

She knew what I was going to make tonight, too, and when. But tying both ovens and the entire stove top up between 3 and 8 when she knows I have kids to feed, and that there are blood sugar issues, irritates me. I just don't even... I will be glad when we can move out. I am so tired of sharing a kitchen.

I was tempted to eat out, but I figured I could scrounge up something, and I did. I ended up making toasted waffles (from the last batch cooking session I did), microwaved ham, strawberries, and coleslaw. Yeah, it was a weird dinner, but it was good and it hit fruit, veg, starch, and protein.

I am too frustrated to make up a menu for the week tonight. I'll do it tomorrow or it'll end up being chocolate everything.

Potato peeler: 5
DH: 0

We spent a couple of hours in the emergency room today. DH managed to peel a chunk of flesh off his finger when he was peeling potatoes and we couldn't get the bleeding to stop. It wasn't the sort of injury they could stitch up, either. It took a long time get it to stop and even now it's still leaking a bit.

We got to spend a couple hours alone together. It was much more restful at the ER than at the in-laws house. SIL and her daughters were fighting as usual and it was particularly obnoxious, so it was nice to be able to get away from that for a while, even if it wasn't good circumstances. The ER was deserted so we got taken right back.

They did numb it for him and put on a vasoconstrictor (sp?) gel that helped constrict the blood vessels. Cautery would have been the best thing for it, but I guess they don't do that anymore. It's going to leave a dime-sized scar anyway. They also gave him a tetanus shot because it has been a long time since he had one.

If this had to happen, I'm glad it did before the deductible resets in January. ER visits are usually a few hundred dollars. We only saw a nurse and PA, though, no doctor, so that should help with costs.

I'm not sure how we're going to get the rabbits butchered now. I knew DH putting it off this long was going to come back and bite him in the butt. Hopefully we can get someone to come help.

I hope everyone else had a less eventful Christmas. Now my wish for the new year is to have far less crazy!

Well, it is going to cost around $2100 to fix the leaky roof of the van. I will never buy a vehicle with a moon roof or sun roof ever again. I didn't care one way or the other about having them. We almost never even use the things. If we lived in a better climate I wouldn't worry about it, but since it rains here 8 to 9 months out of the year almost every day, this isn't something we can ignore or we'll end up with a mold problem.

The whole point of buying a new car was so we could avoid expensive repairs for a good seven to ten years. I won't go for that logic ever again. This thing is only 3.5 years old. The whole point of buying a Toyota was that it had the reputation of being solid and not having major issues (well, that and good resale value). We plan to drive this vehicle for many years, drive it into the ground actually, but I think next time we'll be going back to Ford (used, of course). Never had a problem with them. Lesson learned.

Two and a half hours waiting in the cold with two children on a AAA tow truck. That is how I spent my late afternoon and early evening. The starter on our van is the problem, completely out of the blue. It hasn't been acting up at all. But it is definitely the starter. On our flipping three and a half year old van. Hello, Toyota? I expect better than this from you. Who knows how much it will cost to fix or replace.

Also, AAA and your promised one hour wait time, can bite me. Single A, more like. I told them I was disabled and had kids in the car, too. Seriously thinking about switching to Allstate's road side service instead. My leg is in spasm from sitting in the van so long and I don't know if I will be able to walk without using a cane tomorrow. I am icing it now.

So I have recently been encouraged to see the positive side of things. So here it is: At least we had just bought dinner to take home. And were in a well-lit drive-in restaurant. And I didn't order the fish and chips because I can't use their ketchup. I usually order the fish and chips but was in a strange mood for a burger instead. Which comes with secret sauce, which doesn't make me get stomach cramps like their ketchup does. And I ordered onion rings so I did not need ketchup. So nobody went hungry.

And my mother was home and could take care of putting away the ducks, turkeys, and chickens, so they didn't stay out after dark where predators could have killed them.

And I had a book and the kids had the tablets my in-laws gave them at Thanksgiving, so they had entertainment. No one was bored, only cold.

Tomorrow I will borrow my mother's car to do the grocery shopping. I had planned to do it tonight, but that is out. I am hoping my leg works as I really hate using those electric ride on carts at the grocery store.

Well, I am off to feed and water and cuddle the rabbits. They always improve a bad mood!

She hasn't posted in ages. I'm a little worried about her.

Now that I know that the 4 to 5 weeks without pay is taken care of, I need to turn my thoughts to Christmas and figuring out what I'm going to do about it. I've already told the kids we have a lower limit this year on how much we are spending. Usually we spend about $150 per kid, but this year it is $100. I'm pretty sure it'll just be videogames, that's usually all they want, though I may get the daughter some jewelry or something off etsy.

I know that I want a new breadmaker and a new purse, but the purse may wait until my birthday in February. If I can repair my old purse one more time, I think I can make it that long. I want season 7 of The Big Bang Theory, but I'm pretty sure my in-laws will get me that. Otherwise there is nothing else I really want or need, except a couple of metal dropping pans for two of the rabbit cages and that isn't really a Christmas present sort of thing.

I don't now what my husband wants. He usually takes care of himself, though.

MIL collects carousel horses and FIL collects nutcrackers so I usually try to find them some unique ones on etsy. Last year I found a stamped tin carousel music box and a steampunk nutcracker that were so cool.

I don't know if DH has talked to his sister about not exchanging gifts this year or not, but eldest niece there has aged out anyway. We stop giving gifts after high school. So that leaves youngest niece and SIL if we do need to give gifts. J is pretty easy to shop for. SIL we usually just give a gift card, but it's not going to be near as high as the last 2 years this year. We usually give her $200 on a Target since she is below the poverty level, and that way she can buy stuff for household use for a while. She's good at making it last a few months. But we can't afford to help her out like that this year.

We don't exchange gifts on my side of the family. My sisters and I quit years ago, and my mother quit for anyone not a grandkid or great grandkid about 4 years ago. So my side is easy.

I am trying to distract myself today. We lost Sienna last night, our nicest red doe rabbit. She broke her back. That is very easy for a rabbit to do if they get too hyper and jump around a lot. She was pretty hyper having her cage to herself again after weaning the kits. It was so sad and like a punch in the gut to go out there and see her like that. I will really miss her.

Today was kind of a Murphy day. Not in a horrible, awful way, but just there. I'm off the no eating out challenge. I ordered a pizza today. It didn't cost me anything though, because I ordered a Montague's All Meat Pizza and they made a King Arthur's Supreme instead. Now we do on occasion get the King Arthur's, but never with mushrooms and olives because I'm allergic to mushrooms and the kids and I hate olives. And the kids heard me order the correct one, so I know I didn't screw it up.

So they offered to give us the wrong pizza as well as make us a new one, but since I didn't want the wrong pizza, they made us the right one and refunded our money, which we had already paid before they brought out the pizza. Which is their policy when they mess up. So free pizza, even if we did have to wait and extra 20 minutes. Worth it, because it was Friday and we weren't in a hurry to get home and do homework.

Then this afternoon I went to the feed store to buy crimped oats. Which I did. The feed bag tag even says crimped oats, but when I went to open it tonight to give to the rabbits, it was chicken scratch grains, which was heavy on the corn. Rabbits can't eat corn. So tomorrow I will have to take it back to the feed store, which won't be a lot of fun because it is an open 50 pound bag. We've got it seat-belted into one of the seats in the car so it will hopefully ride back there without spilling. Fortunately I did not replace my receipt. I doubt I will get a free bag of oats out of this one, though. It was too late to take it back tonight, so the rabbits were out of luck. No bunny crack for them.

Then my physical therapy session was cancelled this afternoon. I'm not actually all that put out since I am still really tired from having had the flu. And still have a really runny nose, which is not fun at PT. I thought I might get some stuff done, but ended up just laying in bed watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix. I don't feel bad about it, though. Clearly my body still needed the rest.

There was a shooting in a high school not too far from us today. It is the same high school that my eldest nephew and niece attended. My nephew was trying to get a meeting this morning with someone to talk about speaking at the school, but it didn't happen. It was one of those crazy things where he could have been there. He's the father of two with a baby due in December, so thank goodness he wasn't able to make the appointment. I like to think that maybe my bad luck day balanced out his good luck. I'll take it, if that's the outcome.

I think I am finally starting to come out of the flu. I have not been this tired in a long, long time. Now the kids are down with it and both stayed home from school today. Fortunately all they want to do is sleep, so I can still rest.

Last night DH went back to Alaska, so I don't have him to fall back on. And of course last night was a major wind storm that managed to rip one panel of roofing off the turkey coop and leave one panel dangling down the front of it. The piece of roofing that he jury rigged to keep the rain from going in the duck coop window was also ripped off.

I can fix the duck coop, but I don't know what I am going to do about the turkey coop as that requires going up on a ladder and I can't climb ladders with my knee. Maybe I can throw a tarp over that half of it. The turkeys will just have to stay on one side of the coop, I guess.

DH wanted to loan his sister money and I had to say no, because we don't have it. I mean, we physically have it, but it has to pay for all the expenses of December when he is off work for 5 weeks with no pay. And if we loan money to her, we won't be able to meet our own expenses. December is only a month away and there is no way she'd be paying us back on time.

I feel bad for SIL. She was in a car accident that was not her fault and has been off work for a month. She will eventually get a settlement, but it certainly won't be in time to pay us back for December bills. We have helped her where we could, but we just can't do it this time. I can't put my own family and finances in jeopardy for her.

I don't think DH gets how tight things are. I think he thinks that things are as good as they were 4 years ago. But he's bringing home $1000 less each month than he was even two years ago due to higher taxes and bigger medical deductions. I have told him and told him, but it doesn't seem to sink in. The fact that he even asked me shows that. And I end up feeling like the bad guy in this.

But I know if it comes down to it, SIL and niece can move in with MIL and FIL. Or she can get money from her boyfriend. Or from her rich uncle. She's been holding onto a house she can't afford since her divorce several years ago.

I'm very frustrated. I don't like being made to feel guilty. It makes me resentful. Her situation is not my fault. I plan hard to take care of emergencies and times of no income and she doesn't and never has. And I feel like I'm being penalized for it, just because I said no. But I have every right to say no. I know DH doesn't mean to make me feel this way, but that doesn't stop me from feeling it. He just wants to help his sister. I do, too, but not at the expense of our own family. /rant

Well, our buyer's really screwed things up and now they can't get a loan, even though they'd been pre-approved, so our house sale has fallen through. It's rough luck, but just goes to show how important it is for young people to do their research before trying to buy a house. They made some big mistakes that I guess are not common knowledge, except around here on the blogs.

Strike one was buying a new car a few months ago. You always wait to buy the car after you buy a house, not before. The debts are looked at in different ways and it is always easier to get a car after buying a house, but not the other way around.

Strike two was listening to the loan officer when she told them to pay off some old debt to raise their credit scores...old debt that had fallen off their credit reports, but was reactivated by them paying them off. It tanked their credit scores even worse. They should have paid down debts that were current.

Strike three was that in paying off those debts they no longer had enough money for the down payment we would have required for a seller carried mortgage.

So it's over and the house will go back on the MLS. Hopefully the Canadians that were interested in buying it as a vacation home still are, but they were with a different agent, not ours. Or else someone else will want it, someone who felt like they missed the opportunity when it went under contract.

Please pray for us that we will see a new buyer and soon.

We got the roof and the ceiling leak repaired. The roof cost $160 and the ceiling cost $20 for his time since we had all the supplies on hand from the last time we had to do it.

The buyers have an inspection scheduled for Wednesday. We've got the permit application in and paid for ($80.70) for the wood stove. Apparently the people who put the stove in before we bought it never had it permitted when they put it in, so now we have to do it. Not that big a deal, but you'd think our realtor back when we bought the house would have caught that then. Or maybe the WA state laws have changed since then, who knows?

The only problem with that that I foresee is that there is only one guy who checks the wood stoves for three counties, so it might be a while. Hopefully it will be before the closing date, though.

Not sure when their bank will do their appraisal for the loan. Hopefully not too long. I'd like to know one way or the other. They do have way more than a 20% down payment though, so hopefully if the bank does think it is overpriced it won't be too much of an issue. Zillow thinks it is worth more than we are selling it for, so hopefully their bank will, too.

I know that they want to move in as soon as possible, so hopefully they will stay on top of things.

I am trying not to worry that it will all fall apart, but I'm not so good at that. And I hate living in limbo. It drives me right up the wall.

Well, my hit counter went over 60 million hits last night. I find that absolutely crazy, even if I have been writing this blog for almost 8.5 years. How neat is that? Thank you to all my readers. Your help, advice, loyalty, prayers, and readership mean a lot to me.

We have people meeting with their loan officer today to see if they can get a mortgage to buy our house. We haven't gotten the offer yet, no earnest money has been put down, but our realtor is very hopeful. This is the closest we've come to actually selling the thing. Prayers and crossed fingers would be appreciated. There were also two more showings this week.

Unfortunately the nasty rain storm we had last Monday moved some flashing on the roof and caused a small leak in the hallway by the furnace. So now we have to get a roofer out to fix the flashing around the furnace outtake pipe and/or patch the roof. Then our handyman will redo the inside ceiling where the rain damage came through.

That roof is 14 years old. It's supposed to be a 20 year roof, but we've had several leaks. If the original roofer hadn't had a heart attack and gone out of business, this would be covered in the warranty, but as it is, we have to come up with the money to pay to have it fixed. Last time flashing came loose it cost $150 to have it repaired. If it is more than flashing, it may be much more.

If it turns out the roof is bad altogether, we will offer a reduction in the price of the house so they can afford to get it reroofed. The only way we could do it would be to take out a home equity loan and then pay it off with the house sale. I don't want to do that, especially if the sale falls through.

Things are going fairly well on the farm front. The newborn kits are all still alive and doing well. They have their fur in now and they should be opening their eyes today or tomorrow. Aren't they adorable?