I had a bunch of medical stuff come up with my daughter, so I ended up taking some money out of the Emergency Fund to pay for it. I also deposited $100 back into it from the last paycheck, plus $3 from an overpayment into another account.

New EF total: $8920.22

Who knows what is coming up, either? My daughter has to have an ultrasound next week. We are suspecting gall stones. She's also having some other issues that sound very much to me like the endometriosis I was plagued with before my hysterectomy. So I need to see if I can find a female gyno that is taking new patients and takes our insurance.

I also have my MRI for my knee next week.

If my husband ever gets around to submitting the information for the kids' glasses to his insurance company, we will have some money coming back. It should be around $400. That will get dumped back into the EF. Hopefully we won't have to then turn around and spend it on upcoming medical bills. I am hoping to absorb most of that into the budget, but it isn't always easy to do that.

I wish DH's company would be more forthcoming about raises. They are majorly dragging their feet. It was supposed to happen months ago. The new insurance withholding that should have coincided with raises is really wrecking the budget.

The guy who was interested in our house and had it down to our house and another house, of course went with the other house. Everyone who has seen the house loves the house, they just aren't thrilled with how far away it is from town. Or their credit sucks and they can't get a mortgage.

Sometimes I wish I had a time machine so we could go back and not buy in the mountains. We could have waited one more year and bought in a better location, but we were so eager to get out of where we were and so tired of waiting. If I knew then what I know now...but hindsight is 20/20.

I am trying to stay positive, but I've been in a lot of pain this week and it just makes me get cynical. I am still waiting to hear back from the doctor's office about the MRI. I called on Friday, had contact yesterday and was told I'd be contacted today, but it didn't happen, so I will call tomorrow and see where things stand.

We took a pickup load of compost out to the lady who we sold our first rabbits to and got to see several litters (2 at almost butcher age, and two one weeks old litters). Coriander doesn't remember me anymore. She did the last time I saw her, but now she doesn't. Her kits were beautiful. She'd been bred with a chocolate silver fox and there was a beautiful range of colors in the nesting box. She's a very good mother, though I expect no less from one of Serenity's daughters.

I am trying to keep a positive attitude right now, but I do feel like I am being overwhelmed somewhat. With them taking so much more out of DH's paycheck for medical now, I kind of feel like we are back to living paycheck to paycheck. I know we aren't really, but the only things I feel like I am able to plan ahead for anymore are property taxes, upcoming propane costs, and dues. Besides those and the EF, I haven't been able to fund any of my funds.

I like having an Appliance Fund, a Christmas Fund, a Computer Fund, and such that I send money to each month. Now I can't do that. And I can't do a college fund, either. My daughter has decided she is going to work for 2 years after high school and save everything for college. At this point, we can't contribute. I'm not even sure college is right for her anyway. She's not really cut out for it.

Every year for the past 3, things seem to have gotten tighter and tighter, despite paying more and more things off. Taxes went up and took $500 of take home pay away from us, just as we paid off the credit cards. When we paid off the mortgage this year, it finally felt like we were going to have breathing room, but we don't. The increased medical, the increased plane fare, and the increased storage fees basically replaced the mortgage.

I know this won't last forever. We have less than 3 years left on the van loan. It's gotten down enough that we are only paying about $70 in interest each month and the majority of the payment is going to principal. I love our van and I still think it was a good decision to buy it, but I don't think we will ever buy a new vehicle again. And we'll not finance one again, either.

We have 4 years and 9 months left on what we owe to Mom. That's the big thing. If we didn't have to pay that $1000 each month things would not be tight. Or they'd be tight by choice because we'd be saving part of it and funneling the rest to retirement.

If our house sells it will make some differences. We won't have to be paying electricity, phone, water/sewer, security, HoA dues, property tax, and house insurance. We can save that money until we are ready to buy a house. Which at this rate won't be until we pay off the van.

DH hasn't gotten a raise in over 3 years. Which, no one has, but this year is a new contract and they are supposed to be doing raises. The new contract was signed a while back. The new medical is being deducted, but so far no one has received raises and it has been months. I am starting to think the company is going back on its word. Each year, with more money being taken out or going to taxes or going to increased plane fare, it is like taking a pay cut.

I know we have enough. DH's income is excellent. We are in a lot better shape than so many people. But I want to get ahead, not just tread water. It feels like we sacrifice and sacrifice to pay off all this stupid medical debt and our house and still have nothing to show for it. Which is stupid, because we do. We've taken trips and we've got decent things. We have a paid for home. But it still doesn't feel like it. I just want to be free of it all. Free of all debt. Every single scrap of it. And with enough money in the bank that I don't ever have to worry about it again. I don't know. Maybe that's a fantasy. But it's how I feel.

Well, thanks for listening now. I feel better getting it all out and I think I can stop feeling sorry for myself for a while now.

My daughter seems to be improving a little. Her tailbone feels a lot better. Her head is still giving her a lot of pain and she still has full on concussion symptoms. She is certainly a bit perkier and has started to get her appetite back. I appreciate all of the prayers and please keep them coming.

Prayer request please for my daughter who has fractured her skull and tailbone when she slipped in the creek at the park and fell on the rocks. She has a bad concussion (worse than the one my son had when he was 12 and you know how bad that was). They do think she will be okay, and the CT scan did not show swelling in the brain, but it will be a long time to heal. She is coherent, but has lost most of her memories of Saturday. Mostly it is just very painful. The good news is that she did not break her ankle or elbow and her ribs are just bruised, not cracked.

Just got word from my niece that everything is all complete. It's a wonderful feeling knowing that no one can take my great niece away from her new parents. Welcome to the family, again, to the sweetest three-year-old I know.

Really, really, really rough day. I have been through the emotional wringer this week. We lost Lola, lost 3 of her 7 kits this week to whatever illness she had, and had an unexpected litter born today from a too young rabbit (not quite five months old yet) that we thought we had separated from her brother in time (clearly not) with one survivor out of six kits (that is nursing, thankfully). It just hurts to bury that many of them so close together.

Sometimes raising livestock sucks eggs. I don't even care about the lost production or the financial hit of it right now. I just want to cry instead. It may seem crazy to love animals that just end up feeding the family, but I do. I can't help myself. Sometimes farming is contradictory.

But the last dropper fed kit is thriving. And the survivor newborn kit seems like it might make it. I hope so. I'm not sure I can take another loss tomorrow. I just need one day off from death, please. Preferably many, many, many days, though.

Today was the day. We officially have a $0.00 balance on our mortgage. And I still have over $9000 in the Emergency Fund. I am really excited about finally having the house paid off. We bought it 16 years ago, so I think we did a pretty good job in getting it paid off early. Now if it will sell, I will be ecstatic.

We have been crazy busy these last two weeks. The last five days were spent building the turkey coop. We got enough done to move them in tomorrow, which is when DH leaves for Alaska. We will do the run when he comes back in two weeks. The turkeys aren't allowed to go outside for 3 more weeks so that will work out.

Here is a vid of the turkey coop being built if you are interested:

http://youtu.be/vbXeeVb3yP4

The ducks are getting very big and are now 7 weeks old. The turkeys will be 4 weeks old on the 7nth and the chicks will be 6 weeks old on the 8th. They are all growing very fast, too. I'll try to get some photos or vids rendered to put on here in the next couple of days.

Lola died today. Her kits are just 4 weeks old. It's a little early to wean for my comfort, but kits can be weaned at this age, and we have no choice. I am not going to breed from the genetic line anymore. There is a flaw somewhere and it is clearly not recessive in this generation. I don't care what they say about line-breeding being perfectly safe. I'm not doing it period, and I won't buy anymore stock that has been line-bred either.

Andromeda kindled today, but no idea how many are in her litter yet. I wasn't entirely sure she was done giving birth and didn't want to bother her.

Phoebe is due today or tomorrow, but no sign of kits yet.

It has been a day of mixed emotions. So far the good has outweighed the bad. The house is paid for and that frees up a ton of room in the budget and I can't stay sad on a day like that, but I can't be entirely happy either.

The mortgage is now officially under $5,000 left to pay it off. It should be $4882.62 plus or minus about 50 cents after this payment of $527. Last month's interest was $27, but it goes down a little each month and I paid it 3 days sooner this month than last so it'll be a little less than that. I should have exact numbers next week some time.

Regardless, it is a great feeling. A huge part of me wants to take half the Emergency Fund and pay it off. I'm not sure how much longer I can resist that. Once the car is gone the only official debt left is the van loan. I say official, because we still owe Mom money, but that is off any record anywhere. I keep thinking of how fast the van loan would go down if we were putting the mortgage money there.

Contract renewals are coming up soon. It has been a few years since DH has gotten a raise, since it has been a few years since contracts were done last. I hope he will get a raise that will at least make up for the higher medical costs and the higher plane ticket costs and if we are lucky the extra taxes they have been taking out since that tax break expired at the start of 2013. It is annoying when your take home pay goes down every year despite your gross staying the same.

Don't get me wrong. I am grateful that DH has a job and a job that pays so well, but I just want to be out of consumer debt and it feels like I am not making very much progress on that front since that tax break expired and took $500 a month away from us that was previously going to pay down debt.

We've been hit hard with medical this year, especially dental. And our medical insurance, Premera, the one that sucks eggs hard, I may have mentioned that before, has decided that they no longer want to pay the rates of any of the anesthesiologists in my county or the next county over, so if any of us need to have any kind of surgery again we have to go all the way to Everett, where none of our doctors work, or they won't pay for that portion.

Now the portion of the anesthetist we have always had to pay for was around $1000. I can't imagine how high it would be without the insurance kicking in for it. Hopefully no one will need surgery any time soon. I miss Aetna, which is bad enough, but it was world's better than Premera.

I've got a $1000 dental bill I'll have to pay off over 3 months and a $307 doctor bill that just came in, none of which is covered under our sky high deductibles. I sometimes really wonder what is the point of medical insurance at all anymore. I remember when it actually paid for stuff. Or we only had to pay a reasonable 20%. This is ridiculous. I miss the insurance DH had with his old company. Now they were excellent.

Okay, time to derail this pity party. I've hit the intersection of Suck it Up and Get Over It, so I shall do that now. For a while anyway.

I don't know what it is, but I sure don't seem to be into my finances this month. I mean, I'm not ignoring them or anything, I'm staying on track for my goals, I'm not overspending (though I am doing a lot of planned spending), but it all seems sort of boring at the moment.

I go through this from time to time and I guess it is normal not to want to always have a pinpoint focus or to track every cent. I pretty much just feel like I'm a well-oiled machine that just keeps on keeping on. I think about making blog posts, but they just feel like they lack a certain spark right now. I guess after eight years blogging (I totally missed my blogoversary on the 9th) there just isn't always that much left to talk about anymore.

I did do one frugal thing this week. I made and canned dandelion jelly. It turned out awesome and tastes like honey.



But you can read about that on the farm blog if you want:

http://whendidthisbecomeafarm.wordpress.com/2014/04/21/first...

I'm sure I'll get my mojo or whatever back in a while. These things come and go.

Meanwhile, I have cute animal stuff.

Rabbit kits:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7ZhLreFgkg

Sienna and Cinnabun:



Pekin duckling:



Welsh Harlequin and Pekin ducklings:



Royal Palm turkey poults (yellow ones) and Barnevelder chicks:

I can't believe that my youngest son turned 14 years old today.



He is 5 foot 10, starting to get a mustache, and his voice has more or less settled. He has shown some real maturity in the last six months. It amazes me when I think where he was just last summer, short, chubby, cracking voice, no body hair. Now he is tall, slender, steady, needing to learn how to shave pretty soon, and a nice baritone.

For his present he got a WiiU. We made him pay the first $210 out of his savings, though, and covered the remaining $100 plus the rest of the tax. He has been saving most of his allowance for half a year, most of his can money (he collects aluminum cans around the neighborhood from people who save them for him and takes them to the recycling center for cash), and even part of his rabbit money (he generally gets 33% of rabbit sales unless I need it for feed money).

He spent almost nothing on anything else during those six months. I am proud of how hard he worked to save the money. He is getting a really good work ethic. He still wants to start an egg business when we move, too.

We have been throwing around getting ducklings this year, but I'm not sure if we are going to. We got mom to okay it, but then at the last minute she said, "But I don't want any of those upright ducks." Well, that is what I wanted to get, Indian runner ducks. I'm not going to buy the ducks, pay for the feed, build a house for them, and then not get the good laying ducks that I wanted just because she thinks they look stupid. I'd rather not get them at all and wait until we move so I can get what I want. If I'm paying for them, I should get to choose.

Sometimes I really do not understand how my mother's brain works. But whatever. It's her property. Basically she wants ducks and wants the ones she wants, but doesn't want to take care of them or pay for them. I wish our house would sell. I am so tired of her random edicts. We pay enough to live here, but whatever. I love my mother, but man, she is the one person on this planet who can drive me right up a wall.

I'm participating in a pantry challenge right now on my other blog. Everything I make for the rest of this month (except milk) is to either come from our pantry/freezer stores or from what we grow or raise on the homestead. I'm not buying anything but milk and that is from a local farm. It's been interesting to figure out what my meals will be.

To be honest it is not all that different from my usual way of living, just without any eating out. But I can't just go to the store if I want something. I need to make do with what I have on hand. If I run out of onions or potatoes I can't just go pick up more, I have to break into my dehydrated ones. If I run out of bread I can't just pick up a loaf, I have to bake it. If I run out of garlic I have to use powdered.

If I am craving fresh greens, I need to make do with the herbs growing on my kitchen windowsill and try to jolly my lettuce starts into growing a little faster. I do have 3 cabbages and 10 pounds of carrots stored, so it's not like I won't have anything fresh veggie like. I do have some frozen veggies, too. But it does limit my choices a bit and make me stick to my inventory. But we've been needing to eat down the freezer for a while now, so it works.

The mortgage hit, or rather, I finally got around to checking whether the mortgage hit or not. I didn't send as much in this month, half of what I usually send since we're still recovering from the 4 weeks unpaid time off in January, but it's still going down. New balance is $6406.71.

It has been a difficult week here and we lost another animal, Sweetie Belle, one of our breeding doe rabbits died, so I haven't felt like posting or paying attention to finances until now. She had become one of my favorites and it just hurt to see her go from a thriving, beautiful girl to losing 4 pounds in 3 days, which is a lot for a rabbit that only weighed 10 pounds 6 ounces.

We have to make tough choices in farming and paying $145 just to get in the door at the vets before they even do anything for a $25 rabbit is just not going to happen. And they don't know anything about rabbits. These are dog and cat vets. Farm vets don't see small animals, either. Rabbits get caught in the no nothing zone it seems.

I know what was wrong with her and they couldn't have done anything about it. They could have given her intravenous fluids, but she still would have died. It just would have taken longer. We gave her medicine so she wasn't in discomfort and lots of attention. We gave her some parsley to try to entice her appetite, but even that she only ate a bit of.

I gave her water by syringe several times a day. But I knew what I was facing. You still have to try, though. I kept hoping I was wrong, but post mortem examination showed me she had an intestinal blockage. It happens in rabbits. We've had it once before with a kit.

We buried her in a place where the chickens couldn't dig her up and eat her. Even if we could have taken her to the raptor center for the recovering birds of prey (they won't take them if they have been treated with medicine), we wouldn't have. She was a working part of the farm, but she was also like a pet in that she was well loved in the short 10 months she was with us. She would have been one year old next month.

Premera sucks. It really sucks. Because our dentist is not in their network, they won't pay him directly, even though I've filled out the paperwork to do so and they are supposed to. Instead they send checks to me paid to the order of the dentist and my husband. And not or. Because of this, the dentist can't cash the checks without my husband's signature as well. And of course he's in Alaska for another week.

The dentist says this is the only insurance company that does this. They are trying to force us into their network. Well, we like our dentist and it was hard enough to find him. None of us wants to go elsewhere, that's why we pay a little more than we would in network. If we changed our dentist every time we had a new insurance we would have gone through about 10 dentists by now.

Instead of behaving like grown ups, Premera plays these childish games. I wish DH's company would drop them and choose something else. I'd even prefer to go back to Aetna, who I used to think was really bad until we had to switch to Premera.

I had a dentist appointment yesterday and paid $74.40 from a previous balance. The dentist wants me to go see the orthodontist about my top teeth. I've been getting a gap between my front teeth for the last couple years and it is affecting my jaw and my bite.

I would like to do Invisalign, I think. I know it is $5000 for both top and bottom. I am hoping that means $2500 for just the top. DH is checking into whether or not we even have orthodontia on our insurance. And if we do if it covers the adults. A lot of ortho is only covered in children.

The do have see-through braces that will get the job done in 14 months. Invisalign takes 2 years. But you can take Invisalign out to eat and you can brush and floss your teeth easier because you can take them out. I have a very sensitive mouth, so the pokiness of braces would drive me crazy and hurt. I'd rather go the 2 years with an see-through appliance. Even if I have to pay for it all myself.

I'm in a bit of an annoyed at the world mood right now. I had 2 people in front of me make right hand turns from the left hand turn lane at two different 5-way intersections yesterday and it is still ticking me off. Both intersections had those giant arrows painted on the concrete, plus signs on the traffic light telling you what lane you are in.

Plus a lady tried to go the wrong way up a one way street in her giant jacked up pickup truck. She came out of a parking lot for a store. The only way to get to that store is to go down the obviously one way street and turn in, so she had to know it was one way going in. It shouldn't be something forgotten in the 20 minutes or so she was likely in the store for. Are people really this oblivious?

This has been a rollercoaster of a week. We lost 2 kits who had digestive issues making the change from nursing to solid foods. There isn't much that can be done in such a situation as it is the mama that limits the nursing. This is the first time we have lost kits for this reason. It was sad. We tried a special liquid food and feeding with a syringe, but it wasn't enough. Very sad.

This week we also got to meet the little girl that my niece and her husband are adopting. She's a lovely little girl, just 3.5 years old, sweet and shy and crazy about her new mom and dad.

We ground up a bunch more rabbit meat and made six pounds of sausage patties. We also got 2 pounds of stir-fry meat, 8 quarts of soup stock, 2 bags of boiled rib meat from the stock, and 1.75 pounds of burger.

So far I've not had to touch any of the money that we saved for January. But I did transfer the $3000 to my main account and it will arrive on Monday. We don't have a paycheck until the 24th and there are a couple of things that will need to be paid before then. The van loan, the BoA Visa, the internet, and the phone and power both out at the old house.

Not much else going on here. We haven't eaten out at all and we've gotten take away only twice in the last few weeks. We are getting much better at that and cooking a lot. I am still focusing on leftover management. The new fridge helps with that a lot because you can see everything and nothing gets invisible at the back of the fridge.

We will have to get gas tomorrow. The tank is running on fumes. Not much else on the agenda though.

The fridge is now registering at 60 degrees F. This is so frustrating. I just did not want to spend my Appliance Fund money for a fridge. I wanted to use it to buy a chest freezer. Now it looks like we have no choice. I just wish we hadn't spent the money on new gaskets now.

We saw a fridge that I liked and was more or less in our price range at Best Buy. But we are going to look at a locally owned appliance store, too, because I prefer to frequent local over box store when we can and if price is not too prohibitive.

I probably lost about $120 worth of food. We kept any condiment that had vinegar in it, like ketchup, pickles, steak sauce and mustard, and threw out salad dressings, mayonnaise, and picante sauce. We threw out all our pizza topping meats (prosciutto, pepperoni, Canadian bacon, salami) which I had just stocked up on. I had to throw out a pound of organic sausage and a package of bacon from the ranch. I also had an $20 ham that was going to be going into the crockpot, some leftover turkey necks from a big batch I did earlier in the week. We had to throw out a quart of goat milk, a bottle of lactaid milk, and a 1/2 gallon of milk from the local dairy that bottles in actual bottles.

Plus there was two cups of beef left of my home canned beef, 2 cups of leftover spaghetti, leftover meatballs, a package of uncured all natural beef hotdogs, a package of organic gelatin cups, 2 cups of natural peanut butter, my yeast, a bunch of green onions, 3 partially used 1/2 pints of applesauce, a bunch of kale, and a head of cauliflower.

What I was able to save were 2 leeks, a bag of carrots, 3 heads of broccoli, a purple cabbage, a jalapeno, a bunch of cilantro, a lime, a dozen oranges, and 2 apples. Also 2 bags of mozzarella cheese, 1 bag of cheddar cheese, 1 2 pound block of cheddar cheese, 1 8 oz block of extra sharp cheddar cheese, string cheese, gouda, parmesan and romano. I was also able to save all of my jams and jellies, but two that had been opened.

So everything we had left is crowded in the spare fridge that my mom and I both use. I am just really grateful the freezer is still working and that I have so much canned meat. Who knows when I'll get my freezer now. Maybe when we get our tax refund I can take some of that money and do it.

I'll have to find freezer space for what is in the fridge freezer at the worst possible time as we have to slaughter 13 rabbits in the next week and I hadn't been planning on canning it all. In fact I'd wanted to freeze at least half and then grind another quarter of the meat up for burger. Maybe if I pull out all the roasts and can them...I guess we'll see. But with 62 rabbits now in residence the one thing I can't do is put off slaughtering any longer.

I know a bonus is just that, a bonus, but I'm pretty disappointed in DH's company this year. They had a really good year, the best year since he has worked there, but it seems like every year the benefits become less and less. Less medical, less dental, less vision. No vacation or sick leave time. And the bonus was a lot less than in any previous year. If this keeps up they won't even have them next year.

Well, all of my plans are for naught. DH will buy his new laptop. I'll save $1000 for getting through January on limited pay and the meager rest will go into the College Fund.

Some things really test my willingness to be charitable. I don't mean charitable in the sense of giving money, although I do in a way, but I mean more along the lines of having (or not having) kind thoughts towards people.

I have a friend-ish person, and I know I've mentioned the situation on here at least once, who was in very dire straits not too long ago. I mean, down to the last half cup of rice, power was turned off, propane tank was empty, was selling everything she could possibly sell just to afford her medications for chronic illnesses that she and her husband both have and was outright asking for money from people.

I put a lot of effort into trying to find help for her because I couldn't afford to donate any money at the time. And then eventually, a month later I could. She begged pretty incessantly for money from everyone in a certain circle. I scraped up $100 to help her and I do mean scraped. I mean, food, electric, heat, medicine...pretty dire.

And then she spent $1000 of the money that folks had donated to her to take her pet to the vet and have a surgery done. Which I am sorry, but if you are begging people for money for food and other essentials, you do not then take a sixteen-year-old deaf/blind/arthritic cat to the vet for $1000 knee surgery. I mean, I get that you love your pet, but at that point, quality of life for the pet is gone, surgery or none. You are not doing this for the cat, you are doing this for selfish reasons. And you have no bloody food to eat. Spare the amount for euthanasia and grieve, but don't waste what people worked hard to give you.

Well, it's been almost a year since it all began and now she is going around begging for money again, this time for a start up business that is going to save them once and for all. And it actually might. I mean there is a chance. It looks good on paper, she's got the experience, etc. But I feel like I got burned the last time I tried to help her. And I don't want to help her, because I don't trust she would use the money for what she claims she will use it for after wasting it last time. I will not give her more money, but I just...am having a very hard time keeping my mouth shut and my heart from being cynical when she puts out these pleas for help.

I know if I open my mouth the words that come out will not be ones I will be proud of. I have no idea what to even say. I know what I want to say, but I also know that that's not what I really want to say. I know the last money I gave her was a gift. I had no expectations for it other than that she spend it on what she said she needed it for.

I thought I had let this go. I really had. But all this renewed begging...well, I could have put that $100 to much better use at the time. And I do resent being lied to. I don't know what to do. There are reasons I don't want to burn this bridge. Very selfish reasons on my end. So I know I need to let this go, because once I gave her the money it was no longer my money. I know that in my head. But I still feel betrayed in my heart.

How do I let this go?

Lola had her kits yesterday and Serenity had hers today. We now have 16 more kits and a grand total of 52 rabbits in the rabbitry. We have two newly pregnant does who are due mid-December and then no more breeding until the weather warms up. We lost 2 kits. Lola and Serenity each had 9 and lost 1 each. They were born away from the rest of the litter so couldn't stay warm. Mama rabbits don't sit on their kits, they only cover them with pulled out fur, so they have to huddle together for warmth. We buried them together where the chickens can't get at them. All of the kits have been safely moved to nesting boxes and covered up with fur and hay.

We have plenty of rabbits for our meat needs for the winter, added to the beef and pork we have in the freezer. Now I just need to stock up on some chicken and we should be good until March or so. Although I do want to get some more beef and fish for canning.

We did get a turkey from the ranch. It will be ready for pick up on Saturday. We weren't sure we would get one, but we got on the list soon enough that we did. I am excited for that, because the one we got last year was the best turkey we have ever had.

Today is a no spend day, but tomorrow won't be.

Oh, I took a video of Lola's litter if anyone wants to see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hTadVgJNAA

You can read more about the last two days of kindling if you want on my farm blog, accessed from my side bar under sites I frequent. It's When Did This Become a Farm?

I went down and talked to the people who issue my homeowner's policy about the roof and it would be covered if we decide to make a claim. We have a $500 deductible, which I knew. I was a little worried about it, because since the house is vacant, we had to have a different policy than if we were living in it. One that didn't insure contents since there weren't any, etc., but still insured the building/structures. And there are always exclusions. But we did, in fact, take out the right policy when we moved, so it will cover this water/wind damage. So it is a big relief to know that is an option.

After that an appointment was made for later this week to have a roofer/repairer come and give an estimate. He will be able to track down where the actual damage is and follow the line of the leak. He's been in business 20 years and comes highly recommended. He is one of the few that will make repairs. A lot of roofers won't do that anymore, they will just roof.

And once we have the estimate I can decide whether it is enough to bother with a claim or to just eat it. I really don't want to trash the emergency fund. But I don't want sky high insurance rates in the future either. Right now we get a huge discount for never having submitted a claim on house or car insurance in 15 years/20 years.

I think my break point will be $2000. If it is much more than that we will submit a claim and deal with the insurance consequences. I can handle losing that much from the EF and still feel secure. And if we do a claim, it will be much easier to come up with the $500 deductible.

I forgot to ask if we pay first and then get reimbursed by insurance or if we have the roofer send the bill to the insurance and they pay it. I guess I'll have to do that once we get the estimate.

Right now I am just going to hope and pray this is a repair job and not a full roof job. I'd much prefer it to be a fast and easy fix. We really wanted to get the house on the market when DH comes home this time. Who knows now if that will happen? Depends on how fast it can be done, I guess.

The house is done. Yeah, really. Only...you knew there had to be an only, right? Well, as the workers were removing everything from the house and going through and doing the final checklist a storm moved in. And it moved in hard.

And the wind and the rain damaged the roof and water started leaking in around the skylights, but it is not the actual skylights that are leaking. So up went the head dude to see if he could patch the leak. Yes, in the storm. To no avail. The roof was fine last week when he was up there, but now it's not.

They took photos of the damage and covered the entire roof with two huge tarps. They also put stuff down to protect the flooring. And tomorrow I get to go see the insurance agent and see where to go from there. We may not file a claim at all, but we want to see if we need to have one of their people come out or just get a roofer to go out and figure stuff out and give us an estimate to take to them if we decide to file a claim.

We do have enough money in the EF to put on a new roof and certainly to just repair it if that is what needs to be done. I am not sure I want to file a claim and have our insurance be screwed for the next 10 years. I feel like insurance claims should be for catastrophic damage. Yet at the same time if there is coverage for this it might be worth doing. Ugh.

I really did not need this to happen. Though better it happened while the workers were still there, than after they were done and us not going out there until next weekend. We could have had damage to the new floors and not just to a small part of the ceiling in the skylight openings.

I was so looking forward to finally getting this thing on the market and without further expense, but it is not to be just yet.

I deposited $35.43 to the Emergency Fund from the coin jar yesterday.

$6059.89 Old EF Balance
+__35.43 Deposit Added
-----------
$6095.32 New EF Balance

I got an email notice that Best Buy had shipped my computer to Seattle for repair, but they never called when they finished transferring all my documents to the portable hard drive we had bought like they were supposed to. No one wanted to spend an hour on hold trying to talk to a human, though it was tried, but the automated system kept messing up. So DH is going to run over there today and pick it up as we are assuming they finished doing that like they were supposed to before the sent it off.

We are pretty sure I have a mild concussion so I won't be driving this week at all. The first time I tried showed me I should not make the attempt again any time soon.

My husband went out to see his parents last night and he came home with two checks for the kids of $250 each. Apparently they have been spending a ton of money on his sister's kids lately and they wanted to make it even. We have told them before that they do not need to do this as SIL lives below the poverty level and we are doing very well right now. But they want to be fair, so the kids got the money.

I have told each child that they must put $30 each into their savings account. That is 12% of the total. I've also told them that they have to start saving at least 1/4 of their allowances every week. I want them to get into a savings habit.

I managed to trip and spill a full glass of water on my laptop earlier in the week. I have been in the process of drying it out with a fan while searching for my service contract which I finally did find today. Meanwhile I raided the laptop fund and bought an inexpensive laptop (will replace another one eventually, anyway).

So Windows 8 bites. It really, really bites. I hate it. I loathe it. I cannot even describe the depths of my annoyance with this super user unfriendly system. And I got to know it pretty well, because about the fifth thing I did on it after installing antivirus software and antimalware software and ad block software and Office was contract a virus.

It should not take an act of congress to figure out how to reboot a system in safe mode. It should not be difficult to find the control panel. It should not be hard to get a text list of programs to easily search through for the suspected virus. All these things can be done in Windows 8, but it takes a ton of effort and a lot of internet searching to figure out how. What was Microsoft thinking?

Whoever designed this so-called upgrade should not be allowed to have children. Their DNA should be removed from the human gene pool. Okay, maybe I am overreacting a smidgeon, but it took me two days to get rid of the bloody thing and that only happened because I did a system recovery. Thank goodness I hadn't put much on it yet.

The stupid virus was Quick Share and datasrvrs and made pop up windows that talked. Ugh. Nasty, nasty piece of work.

Then Swagbucks pulled a stupid, but they fixed it for me. Awesome customer service, but then it had better be. I was ready to quit altogether if they didn't.

I also had a meat rabbit die on Sunday, which I don't think I mentioned, so that just set my mood for the week, between weepy and angry and slightly off-kilter. It was 13 weeks old when it died. If we'd have had the time we would have harvested at 12 weeks, but things got in the way, so we are waiting until DH gets back from Alaska. It was just over 6 pounds so it was at least 3.5 pounds of meat we lost. At least it didn't appear to have suffered.

On the bright side I have done really well at cooking meals this week. We had gotten pretty bad about eating out again so I've tried hard to get back on track again this week. One of my favorite things to make is fried potatoes, but I hate peeling them raw. I also hate that it takes quite a while to cook them from raw. So I baked them in the microwave first, which makes them very easy to peel and does not require any attention on my part. Then I cut them up and fried them and it only took ten minutes. A great short-cut and I can always bake them earlier in the day if I know I will be short for time later.

Also on the bright side, all of Piper's kits have their eyes open and have ventured out of the nesting box. And all of Phoebe's kits are turning into fat little butterballs. They are having so much fun playing in the grass and going through their tunnels or jumping over them or playing king of the mountain with them. Watching them makes it hard to keep a bad mood, but then I'd come back inside and growl at my computer again.

Well, venting helped. Thanks for listening.

Someone broke into the neighbor's house while I was taking DH to the airport early this evening. I guess they had been going door to door to see who was home and broke in when they found an empty house. They stood out in this neighborhood which is mostly full of doctors, nurses, and other professional families. You don't see a lot of shaved heads (except on the retired marine) and tattoos (except on the retired marine) around here that aren't of the delicate ankle flower variety.

Of course they had aroused suspicion and we all knew the neighbors were out at the lake today (our thriving neighborhood watch gets told of most absences) so when someone saw them go into the backyard they called the police, who were here for a couple of hours. They had three cop cars and one cop SUV with a big German Shepherd. The thieves had time to gather a lot of stuff in backpacks, but when the police arrived with their K-9 unit they dropped them and ran, so it doesn't look like the neighbors lost anything. They tracked them but we never heard whether they caught them or not.

The thieves jimmied the sliding glass door. This is one reason I don't want a sliding glass door when we buy a house. They are so easy to move off their tracks. Our neighbors out at the old house also had a sliding glass door that was jimmied by thieves so I've always been wary of them.

After the airport we had gone to the library and the grocery store, so we were gone about 1.5 hours. It was disconcerting to come back home without DH and see all that police activity. I was really glad I had locked the door when we left. I don't always when Mom is home, but I had a very strong, distinct thought that I should lock it. I am glad it is cool enough tonight that we won't need to sleep with the windows open. I am also very grateful for such a strong and active neighborhood watch and that our neighbors were safe.

I don't think I've mentioned, but I've been dealing with a stomach virus since Sunday. I've been fighting with the insurance company since last Wednesday (going without my blood pressure and cholesterol meds for a week because of it, and the one that helps me walk), which makes me grumpy, vindictive, and...well, it's not a word I use but it rhymes with itchy.

I go to the doctor tomorrow, but for a sinus infection that has been reoccurring for months. I have a feeling I'm going to have to fight the insurance company on the medication I'll need, too. Because I'm resistant to Amoxicillan, Augmentin makes me barf, Biaxin gives me violent stomach cramps, generic penicillin in general gives me yeast infections, and I'm allergic to the sulfa family of drugs.

Which basically leaves me with Zithromax, which does have a generic, but then I have to take two packs in a row, not take a pack, wait five days, then take another pack. All that does is give me even more resistant sinus infections. There is a generic for Zithromax now that works fine for me, so hopefully it won't be an issue. And after all the fighting I've had to do for my medications, it turns out they are cheaper without the insurance. What the heck, Premera, you whiny, grasping, idiot company? Why are you throwing such tantrums over every bloody prescription when it turns out with you it costs $40 and without you it costs $15?

DH is going to talk to the benefit plan person (hopefully) when he gets back up there and let them know just how unhelpful Premera is being. Hopefully other folks are talking to them, too and they'll maybe ditch Premera. At this point, I'd rather go back to Aetna. Oh, and the stupid heads at Premera are sending the checks to reimburse the doctors to us in their name instead of to them even though we signed the paperwork saying to directly reimburse them. This should not surprise me from a company that listed my daughter as spouse and me as a child, but got our ages right. We are still trying to get new cards issued. Um, hello? Anyone home over there? I can't even properly describe how much I loathe this company. Although I think by now you have a good idea of it. *sighs*

Sorry to be such a grumperpotamus. I just really needed to vent. I did get my blood pressure and high cholesterol meds today. Still waiting on the one that helps me to walk.

I added $3.41 to the coin jar.

I paid the dues for the HoA at the old house. I read the enclosed letter and am mightily irked. Because so many people are letting their homes go into foreclosure, they are charging a $299 transfer fee. This really makes me furious with them. I have always paid my dues on time, I have always abided by all of their stupid rules, and when I sell my house I am going to have to pay them $299. It feels punitive and should not be put onto the folks who don't walk away. Also, if people are in foreclosure, it's not like they will have $299 to hand over to the HoA.

It certainly isn't in the CC&R's I signed. Of course the CC&R's I signed were for free use of the golf course, which they sold to a developer a few years later without input from the homeowners, free use of the swimming pool, which they charged special dues for to repair, and then the next year filled in with concrete so no more pool. They are supposed to maintain the greenways, but never did. Certainly not the one next to my house that I mowed weedeated for years every time it got 18 inches tall. They have $85,000 in the road repair fund (again raised with special dues), but almost never fix the potholes. They are whining about the clubhouse roof again, even though it was roofed five years ago, again with special dues.

I think I will send a "demand" letter when we sell asking them to waive the fee because of their failure to do anything out there and it generally being a sucky move on their part for all the reasons given above. Only in grown up speak. Also, it wasn't voted on. And if I have to pay it to avoid a lien then I am seriously considering trying to recoup it in small claims court. I don't think they can enforce something that wasn't in the contract I signed. They haven't put forth new contracts in 15 years. But who knows?

I darn well will never, ever buy a home with an HoA again.

So one of my neighbors out at the old house has some family in Michigan who are looking to move to our county. He asked if he could video the outside of the house, the yard, and the inside of the house to send to them. We let him and he sent it to them and they really liked what they saw. Proximity to him is key in their decision.

Of course they want to wait until it is finished, which will likely be another couple of weeks or months considering, but it is possible they will want to buy it. Man, if I could avoid the whole putting it on the market process entirely and not have to worry about realtor commission, that would be wonderful. Mom told him we are wanting $150K and they seemed okay with that. Of course I am only wanting $100K, but if they'll pay $150K...

I am not counting any chickens before they are hatched though. Sometimes it seems like things do work out after not working out for a long time. It would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath. If we could actually get $150K we could put down an $80K down payment on a new house, pay for the remodel, and pay off the van.

Part of me is getting anxious about the mortgage and thinking about emptying out savings to pay it down as much as possible. Which is stupid, I know, but the urge is really strong. We could pay off $10,000 by the end of the month if we did. It would leave us with $1300 which I think we could pay off by the end of July if we really, really scrimped, and August for sure. Of course that would leave us with no emergency fund. But it would leave us with no debt but the van loan, too.

And we do have credit cards if a real emergency came up. And I'd slam as much money back into the EF and all of the funds as I could as soon as it was paid off. Having it free and clear when we sold it seems like a better position to be in.

What do you guys think? Should I stay the course and not empty out my savings, or should I go for it and pay off the mortgage ASAP? What really makes sense here? I need some sensible advice.

My husband made it home safely last night, but his luggage did not. This is the first time he's even checked a bag in ages. He usually just travels with his carry on. Anyway the airport (the local one) said they would deliver his bag in the morning and he would get a $25 off his next flight coupon, or he could come get it himself and get a $50 off his next flight coupon. He opted for the second choice, since the airport is five miles away and it doesn't (yet) take $50 worth of gas to go there.

He also got a $20 off your next flight coupon for some other reason. I didn't ask. But anyway they can be used together, so he'll get $70 off his next purchased ticket, which is great.

He went to the dentist this morning and there was a balance on my daughter's account, so he paid it with the credit card. *sighs* He is not supposed to do that. They hadn't even billed us for it yet. Well, the bill arrived this afternoon. But I like to pay medical/dental/vision out of checking because it makes it easier to track it for the HSA. And I like to plan for it.

If he hadn't paid it, it would have come out of Friday's paycheck. Anyway, I told him not to do that again, please. I don't like it when my budgeting gets messed up, especially with HSA stuff, and unnecessary charges get made to the credit card. And of course he got the mail so I have no idea where the heck the bill is so I can write down on it the information for the HSA. Love him to pieces, but he messes with my system something fierce sometimes.

I don't even know if he got a payment receipt and even if he did, the likelihood that I will ever see it is pretty small, since I'm sure it's been misplaced by now. So I may not even be able to use this for the HSA at all. Urgh. I know he was just trying to be helpful. *shakes head* I'm trying not to be a complete control freak over this, but I'm afraid I'm not doing very well at it!

I spent a lot of time playing with the numbers last night and I figured out that if I start with the $205 I’ve already set aside, take the $900 that is in the funds (not counting the college fund), and then don’t fund the other four non-essential funds for July and August, which will equal $800, I’ll have $1905 with which to send DH to Wisconsin. The other $95 I can scrape up from somewhere.

We might actually be able to do it somewhat differently, too. I think I can take $700 from the 6/21 paycheck, $100 from the 6/7 paycheck, and $200 from the 6/14 paycheck, along with the July and August $800 from not funding funds, and not even touch what is currently in the funds at all. Plus the $205 we already have. That gives us $2005.

I might even be able to fund one of the funds each month if I am extra careful with the grocery budget. We have a lot of meat in the freezer so eliminating the June trip to the ranch to buy meat wouldn’t hurt anything. Plus we are going to have rabbit meat then so that will give us even more leeway. If I only use the grocery money for flour, tortillas, produce, milk and fish, we should be able to get away with using only half of the grocery budget for June.

The big thing will be not eating out much. DH is only going to be home for six days this month so that will help. And then once DS is done with homeschooling, I won’t feel so stressed and exhausted, so I’ll cook more and that will help, too. Part of my exhaustion is that I haven’t been eating as well as I used to and I need to get that back. Dinners have been okay, but there has been a lot of snacking on junk that needs to stop or at least be replaced with something better.

It is possible that DH won’t have to be there for as many days as I am thinking. It is even possible he won’t have to go at all, since neither of his parents have approached him about going at all. Just his sister said that their mom would like it. Of course, DH would probably still want to go regardless. We can squeak it out so if it’s something he wants to do, we’ll certainly try.

On an unrelated note to self: Put the tabs on the license plate. They expire June 6th and they don’t belong in the glove box!

And whoa, is the posting box different? And the font? Not so sure it's an improvement. It looks faded and more greyscale than black and white. Of course I'm sensitive to changes like that because of my vision problems, (I still haven't forgiven LJ for it's last mess) and this coloring is definitely irritating my eyes. Maybe I'm hallucinating from lack of sleep. Oh, do we have spellcheck now, too? The word for the eye rolling symbol is underlined. Well, that I do like.

We go over this bridge all the time, once or twice a month. We were just on it 11 days ago. There are people trapped in the water. It is really scary to see something like this on the news, happening in a place I am so familiar with. First thing we did was make sure our neighbor was home safe. She works in Seattle and commutes over this bridge ten times a week.

That part of the freeway people are going 60 to 65 MPH. It's four lanes of traffic. I can't even imagine. I am just glad that rush hour was over when it happened because it could have been so much worse. My mother was going to be going over that bridge tomorrow on her way to visit relatives in Eastern Washington. It's a very unsettling thought.

I hope they get the people out soon. A couple are sitting on top of their cars and one person is trapped inside a truck. Head above water, apparently, but they are worried about hypothermia. It just seems crazy that something like this can just happen. One minute a solid foundation, the next plunging into the water.

I think I'll be glued to the news tonight.