I am really so very tired of this. This being yet another day when the flooring didn't get done out at the house. The excuse a couple of weeks ago? The guy coming down from Seattle to help had something come up. The excuse today? The guy coming down from Seattle to help couldn't make it. Um...so do it without the guy from Seattle, okay? Because you claimed that the two of you could do it, why does person number three, who is clearly unreliable as all get out, need to be there?

They claim they will do it tomorrow. Why the heck does anyone ever remodel anything? Or maybe I should say how the heck, because what should have been a six week job that started last summer is still going on. The price is still the same, thank goodness, and the quality is high, but the timeliness is ridiculous.

I just want to get on with things. I want it done. I want it sold. And I want to buy my farm and move. It feels like I am being held hostage to someone else's whims. I am just so over it.

The wing of the house we live in is connected to the main house by two steps. They are very big steps, one foot deep by four feet long. Last night I managed to miss the top step and went sprawling forward at a 45 degree angle. I put my hands out to stop myself against the furnace closet doors and that did slow me down for a second, but then I went all the way down onto my knees and managed to end up on my elbows, too, somehow.

It took me five minutes to get myself together. I had to scoot on my butt to the bathroom because I had hurt my hands and knees enough I couldn't crawl and I couldn't push myself off the floor. I had to use my forearms on the bathtub to leverage myself back up.

I had to sleep on my back last night because I couldn't sleep on either arm and when I'd roll in my sleep I'd wake up from it. This morning my elbows have black bruises and my knees are very blue. Even the heels of my hands are bruised. Thankfully I can walk okay today except it hurts to climb the stairs. The part ofthe knees I hit was just under the knee caps, not on them, thank goodness. My hands are a bit sore, but not as bad as last night or even this morning. My neck and shoulders were stiff. I jarred myself good. It's the elbows that are the worst, though.

I am going to go sit in the hot tub at the health club tomorrow. I don't dare take a bath because getting up out of it might be impossible, even with handicapped grab bars, since my hands don't want to grip right. I can type okay, so I don't think it's more than bruising. I don't think any of it is more than bruising and muscle strain.

I went and got a massage today ($90) and it made a big difference in my functionality the rest of the day. I really wanted to work in the garden this weekend. Not sure what I can do because there will be no sitting on my knees, but I might be able to use a shovel to get the bigger weeds out. This will be the first dry weekend in ages and I really wanted to make use of it. I don't want to just lay around all weekend because I think that will make it worse, not better. At least my back is okay.

I need to do a payday post, but I haven't gotten my stuff together yet. I have food in the crockpot so no matter the temptation to eat out to take it easy on myself, the smell of the food cooking is preventing that. I did switch out my menu plan days though so I could have the ease of cooking a roast today. The nice thing about having plans for several meals is that when life throws you a curve ball like this you can adjust accordingly. So I did.

I added $8.24 to the coin jar...which was the change from our takeaway dinner tonight from the Polynesian place. I just didn't feel like cooking today. No one else did either. Most of what we got were stir-fries and egg fried rice. Lots of leftovers so we'll get several meals out of it. Trying to keep the eating out to once a week. I have a cold that keeps making me think it is going away and then it comes back a day or so later in full force.

Today was payday. I'll try to update on that tomorrow.

I found a ten dollar bill today, in of all places, the credit union parking lot. I mean, the one place that you think people would be careful with their money or at least be aware of the cash they have is there. Oh, well, finders keepers. It was an empty lot so not anyone around to see if it had been dropped. I put it in the coin jar so it will go to the EF.

I was at the CU getting money out since we never made it there Friday before they closed. I only took out $65. $25 of that was for the kiddos allowances. The rest was spent at the feed store getting more rabbit supplies. I will still need to get four more feeders and one more waterer this month or next, depending on when the new cages arrive. Still no info on the shipping delay. DH is going to call them tomorrow.

Mom is considering ducklings again. And turkeys. I have enough on my hands with the rabbits so I told her if she did, other than letting them out in the mornings once they were old enough, care would be up to her. Maybe next year when this is more of a routine, but not right now.

I'll need to pick up a bale of Timothy hay in about a week. The rabbits have gone through quite a bit of it. Fortunately a bale of hay is about $7. It's taken the rabbits 5 weeks to go through 1/2 a bale. We had 3/4 of a bale on hand already.

I still need to order the rabbit wringer and get a good set of poultry sheers. The rabbits will be ready for butchering in 3.5 weeks. Oh, that's going to be a tough one, but there is a reason why we are raising our own food, and this comes with it. Doesn't mean I am looking forward to it in the least. Still, I know they've had a great life with lots of snuggles, good care, and excellent food. I can't say the same of the plastic wrapped polystyrene trays of meat in the grocery store. And if it turns out we can't do this, the feed store wants to buy them so if nothing else, we can breed them for pets, right?

Today has been a rough day. Our city had 21 people in the Boston Marathon. As of the last news eighteen had been reported in to family as safe, including the pastor who married DH and me, and his wife. Sometimes I forget how easy it is to be affected by something that happens on the other side of the country. The world seem so big until it is suddenly made small by something like this.

Yesterday was my 7 year Blogoversary for this blog. I can't believe I missed it. Oh, well. Seven years since I started writing this thing. Goodness, that's a long time.

Things have sure changed in the last seven years. We are much closer to financial independence than I think I ever dared hope when I first began this adventure. There have been lots of ups and a few downs, but all in all we are so much better off than we used to be and I don't think we would have done so well without having this community as an outlet.

You guys have been my rock and a safe place to stay while I figured everything out. So thanks for all the years of great support in a nuturing environment!

We are safe in California and tomorrow:



I'm a trifle irritated with BoA at the moment. They put a fraud alert on our main VISA card. Disney accidentally processed our ticket purchase twice so we called BoA because it was showing up as pending twice. And with something that costs $2030 we wanted to make sure that the extra charge got off, so DH called them. So on the Disney end it was cleared up within 12 hours, but BoA decided it was going to lock us out of viewing our account online.

Even after I answered every single security question (and there were a lot of them) they still won't let us access that account online. We can, at least, still use the card, but I want to be able to get to it online, because I want to double check it got taken off. Then on Tuesday when the money arrives from ING to my regular CU account I wanted to pay off the tickets. *grumble growls*

They won't talk to me over the phone even though I am a joint account holder, not just an authorized user, because DH is the one that talked to them originally. It is stupid. Oh, I'm sure it is all for our "benefit" but it annoys me nonetheless. We did not ask them for a fraud alert and to lock us out of our internet access, we asked them to clear up a simple problem and instead they made it ten times more complicated.

I'm not sure why I expected them to be able to do it right though. It is the Evil Empire, after all. I swear if Alaska Airlines partnered with any other bank I would drop them in a heartbeat.

You ever have one of those days that just gets away from you completely and before you know it's 4:30 in the afternoon and you are sitting in the driveway feeling like you are about to faint and realizing you have forgotten to eat all day long? Today was one of those days.

I spent the morning completely out of it. Didn't sleep terribly well and was trying to get a nap in before physical therapy. I don't usually eat before PT because it quite often makes me want to throw up if I do. By the time I got out I had to pick up DD from school and then I had to run to the credit union to pay the mortgage and get money out to buy the rabbits tomorrow and to buy feed and all the other rabbit stuff like feeders, waterers, hayracks and drip pans. The store only had two hay racks, so I figured the buck can do without one until they get another one in.

Then we ran to the pharmacy to pick up some medication and then went to the grocery store to do some shopping. I started feeling queasy in the grocery store, but I was okay until we got home and then everything started going fuzzy and I thought I was going to faint and that was when I realized I hadn't eaten today.

DD grabbed a honey oat bar and made me stay put while she and DS took all the groceries in. I was a bit better after I ate it, at least enough to go into the house. DD made me lay down and then brought me some better food and after about 20 minutes I was no longer in danger of fainting. She gave me a big lecture about letting my blood sugar get so low. I deserved it, but hearing my own words come back at me like that was a bit surrreal. I guess she's been listening to me these last few years. I think I better keep a stash of honey oat bars in the glove box from now on.

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I spent a ridiculous amount of money today. I mean, I know that the rabbit stuff will pay for itself eventually, but start up costs do hit the wallet hard.

I will do a payday post tomorrow. Right now I'm still not clear-headed enough to do finances and I still have a few medical bills to pay so wouldn't have a full report anyway.

Well, seems like the dairy industry is up to its old tricks. Bad enough that it fought to keep bovine growth hormones off dairy labels and won, and that those that label their milk as having no hormones have to also say that the government has shown no danger from it (in this country, anyway) but now they want to put synthetic sweetners into dairy products without having to put it on the label. I can't even... With my family's allergies, this could very well cause serious damage.

Artificial sweetners cause us hives, swelling, respiratory problems, and digestional upset to the point that you feel like your intestines are trying to become out-testines at the same time you are vomitting up your stomach. Making these changes without labelling them is irrepsonsible, reckless, and dangerous to many people. I don't like going to the hospital so that I can breathe and I don't like my kids having to do that, either.

This is taken verbatim from the Feingold Newsletter I received today. Feingold is the diet my son is on due to his food allergies. They fight hard for truth in labelling, because of what lying labels or lack of labels can do.

The dairy industry has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to change their rules governing what is allowed to be put in milk and other dairy products. The industry's main goal is to be able to add synthetic sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose (Splenda), and other such chemicals, to dairy products without having to tell the consumer.

The articles that are coming out on this proposal have been confusing, but that's not surprising since the wording of the dairy industry's petition is vague and confusing!

The petition discusses adding the sweeteners to flavored milks -- marketed widely to schools -- but without labeling the milk as being lower in sugar or calories because the children would not like that. (So they apparently believe that the typical student, with about 12 minutes to eat lunch, is going to actually read his milk carton!)

The dairy industry claims that this will help reduce childhood obesity, even though studies have shown that fake sweeteners actually increase the desire for sweet foods and can cause weight gain.

Moreover, the dairy industry claims consumers don't know that flavored milks are sweetened anyhow, and such changes will "promote honesty and fair dealing." What they have neglected to say is that with the sale of milk steadily declining, this is an effort to boost sales, especially in schools wanting to limit sugar.

/newsletter

Me again. What gets me is that they think we don't know that flavored milks are sweetened. I mean, BIG FAT DUH! We do so. It doesn't come out of the cow that way. And such changes will not promote honesty. How can it promote honesty when leaving it off the label is lying? No ethics whatsover in these people, if they're going to pull that.

The public is not stupid. Mostly. What the public is, more or less, is powerless. Don't stay powerless. At least let your voice be heard. Here is a link to give your opinion of this insane idea. It won't hurt them to put it on the label, but it will hurt countless people if they don't.

Spent $32.41 on fast food tonight out of my miscellaneous category. Don't even ask. It was good though. At least until it hit my poor stomach. Won't be doing that again for a long, long, long time.

Say it with me..."Chicken nuggets are not food."

I added $7.59 to the coin jar.

Or in this case the woman. The wind is still blowing here to the point that it made my van shake while I was driving today. I can hear it outside. It sounds like moaning and groaning. I'll have to use my fan on a higher setting tonight to block it out while I sleep.

I went back to the grocery store to get the stamps they forgot to give me. No problem at all since I had my receipt. I ran into my husband's aunt while I was there and had a short visit with her. I haven't seen her since last summer so that was nice.

I got the propane bill for the old house today. It was really high. I wonder if the workmen are forgetting to turn it down to 55 when they leave. I'll have to remind them, because this is a higher bill than any we've ever had out there before when we were living there 24/7.

This whole process is really dragging on forever. Now they're saying late April instead of March. *sighs* My mom is also pressuring us to put it up at $130K now. Last time it was $110K. I told her in no uncertain terms that we would price it according to what DH's uncle (the realtor) says it is worth and not with the idea that it's going to be any great sale that gets back all the repair money.

I honestly think we'll be lucky to get $100K. I wanted to sell it for $85K as is before all this repair work was done. I wish she would back off. It's not her house, it's not her sale, and it's not her money. I have told her to, but I don't think she is listening.

She's been really weird about money all around lately, freaking out about the gas bill and the electric bill (which we pay, not her) needing to be lower, yet insisting on using 60 watt incandesent lights in her end of the house (4 in the kitchen alone), leaving her TV on all day whether she is watching it or not, and keeping the furnace about 70 all the time. It's like she's got a bee in her bonnet and she won't leave it alone, but she's not willing to make any changes in her own behavior that lead to higher bills. Hopefully she will calm down again soon.

I think we all will be ready for the week long break in March when we go to Cali. I'm ready for some sunshine, that's for sure.

We had more dental bills come in. My crown is paid off, but this is residual stuff from DH and the kids that the insurance didn't cover, $233.90. I am thinking I should really reschedule my second crown until after vacation. It doesn't hurt anymore so I don't think I'm grinding on it at night anymore. Well, we'll see. My appointment is not until the 21st. Who knows? Maybe the tax refund will come in quickly and I can just pay it all up front.

I am glad that dental counts for the HSA, but I sure wish it counted for the $2500 medical deductible, because by the time I'm done here, I would have met over half of it. I suppose this is a very first world country problem to have. At least I can get good dental care and have dental insurance that partially covers it.

There is a particular person that is ticking me off big time on another site I frequent. Her behavior is very deliberate and she is doing it on purpose. I keep telling myself to respond with dignity and grace, to not let her get under my skin, and to be the bigger person. She is just wanting to get a rise out of me and if I give it to her, she wins. So I am being careful to be nice, but what I really want to do to her is play whack-a-mole. And I could. But I won't. Dignity and grace and kill her with kindness. And vent where she can't possibly find me.

I've been doing some thinking about the next couple of months. In February we will buy our Disneyland Parkhopper tickets, which will set us back $2030 for 7 tickets (unless they go on sale), but we should be able to buy them outright in February. I will charge them for the benefits of charging, but then I will pay it off as soon as it posts to the account.

We already have enough saved up to cover prepaying the limo rental both ways, so that will get taken care of in the next few days. We chose to do a limo because it was actually cheaper for 7 people and all their stuff than two taxis or vanpools.

And then in March I will take $2500 for the trip itself. I think that should easily cover groceries, a few meals out and souvenirs. It's probably more than we need, but I'd rather have too much than too little and come home with money. SIL is paying for her own food for her and the girls. We are picking up everything else, but flights and the condo are long since taken care of.

Also in March we should have our taxes back. The Chase card will be at $4900 by then and our taxes will more than pay for that. (We will get a lot back because we fully used the HSA again this year and will get all of that back). We will also be getting DD's MacBook. If there is any money left it will go to the EF. Last year (and circumstances haven't changed) we got around $8750 back. $6150 is from the HSA alone. That should put the EF around $4000 to $5000.

After that I need to decide what I'm going to do. Our only two debts will be the mortgage and the van payment. The mortgage has a higher percentage rate than the van, but the house will be up for sale by then. I'm not sure if there is any point in paying down the mortgage, yet if it doesn't sell right away then there is.

I figured that we could have the mortgage paid off by September/October if we start paying $2500 a month in April. I keep going back and forth on this. Part of me says forget prepaying it, put that money in the EF and college fund instead. Or put it toward the van. It's like being on a merry-go-round. I just keep going around in circles trying to figure out the smartest thing to do.

My mother keeps butting into the house stuff. She's trying to be the one who will set the price. She's acting like she's the one who gets to okay any offers and it is driving me right up the wall. I want her out of it, but she has a way of squirming into our business and getting people to talk to her who legally should not be talking to her about any of it.

I don't particularly want her knowing A. What the amount of the mortgage is left on the house, and B. What the price is that we actually get for it. It's none of her business. She does like sticking her nose in. She wants to set the price far higher than what I think anyone will pay for it. I've seen how long houses sit on the market in that area if they are over-priced.

I love my mother very much, she has a lot of great qualities and I never have doubted that she loves me, but she is a difficult personality. She is very pushy and stubborn and manipulative when she chooses to be. I just can't figure out what she thinks she'll get out of any of this.

I will be glad when we are not living under the same roof again, even though I know I will worry about her. I am ready to worry about her from a slightly more removed area. Even if I know she will likely end up moving in with us several years in the future, it will be different. It will be her living in our home and not vice versa.

Right now she is very weird about money. She's been like this the last year. We pay for the gas, the electric, the water/sewer, the internet, and the garbage for the entire household, yet she worries about how high the utilities are. She often eats with us and spends very little on groceries herself, but worries constantly about the cost of food. She barely ever drives anywhere, but worries constantly about the cost of gasoline.

She gets $1000 from us every month as we pay back our loan, and $757 from social security. Her house is paid for, her SUV and pickup are paid for. She pays for some chicken feed, satellite TV, $100 in groceries each month, car and house insurance, and property taxes ($2500 a year) and that's about it. Her income is more than enough to cover it. She's always been a champion budgeter. Even after we move out and she takes back over the utilities (they'll drop), she'll still have more than enough to meet her needs.

I don't know why she's being so weird about money. I've even told her we will take care of her after our loan to her is paid off. She will not be on the street, she will always have enough to eat. I do have to wonder if maybe I'm seeing the beginning stages of dementia or if the two mini-strokes did more damage to her brain than they thought. It's something I'll have to keep an eye on.

Today is the 3rd anniversary of the murder of my daughter's friend F. She would have been 17. Murder is always senseless, the murder of children doubly so. F died at the hands of her mother's live in boyfriend. Domestic violence, alcohol, and a gun were responsible for her death.

I wish that she had left that house instead of going out and getting between her mom and her mom's boyfriend. I wish he had not disconnected their phone line. I wish she had run through the dark in the early hours of the morning and knocked on our door, on anyone else's door. I wish that I'd found out about it in a better way than reporters knocking on my front door and asking if we knew the murdered child. They hadn't even given us a name, but I could look down the block and see where everything was centered and I knew immediately who it was.

F had never said a thing about her situation, had never mentioned the abuse her mother was going through. She'd never gotten in the way of it before and like most children in such cases, she was a silent witness, until one day she wasn't.

It rocked our little neighborhood to the core and was the impetus for us leaving the area and moving back to town. My kids just could not handle living in a place where a child they had played with for years was killed. No one felt safe anymore, especially my kids, despite the fact that the murderer commited suicide and was no longer there.

I hope my daughter makes it through the school day without crumbling. We have decided not to remind my son of what day it is. He was 9 when it happened so his memories are not so sharp, but he adored F. She never minded when he tagged along with his sister. She was such a sweet girl and will always be missed. As a mother, it just broke my heart.

All of them. I'm not picking sides.

I do not like the hit we are going to be taking with the end of the payroll tax holiday. I'm estimating $500 a month on a normal month. Probably $750 this month due to the extra week of pay. I may come up short paying off the BoA VISA this month. I am still going to try to squeeze it out, because gosh, darn it, I want it gone, but any breathing room the extra week of pay gave us is gone. Your gubmint dollars at work.

I am just very, very glad we have spent the last few years buckling down hard and paying down our debt with a vengeance and that we are used to living on less than half our income. And if it is that bad for us with a good middle class income, I can't even imagine how hard this is going to slam those who are barely scraping by. Well, hello there Great Depression 2. I'm not an alarmist by nature but I don't see us coming out of this for a long time. I worry about what the world will be like when my kids are adults.

I am starting to think about putting the whole buying a new house thing on hold for a few more years. Well, I've been thinking it for the last few months, but this may just be the final nail in the coffin. It's going to take longer to build up an emergency fund with $500 a month missing from DH's paycheck. It's certainly going to make saving for and cash flowing college harder than I thought. And Mom isn't getting any younger. With two mini-strokes to her name already I really worry more about leaving her on her own.

It's even crossed my mind to cancel or postpone Disneyland. I'm not going to, but I think this is going to be the last vacation of consequence for a few years. I'm just really glad that we'll have a full kitchen in the condo.

It's possible DH might pick up another week in February. If he did I could bank that and it would go a long way towards making up the shortfall for the rest of the year.

I am worried about my knee. It has been swollen and painful since Christmas and it's started clicking. I am going to try to get a hold of the doctor tomorrow now that the holidays are over. I am hoping it is just needing to be drained of fluid. I do not want cortizone. I also do not want to end up having knee surgery again and having yet another medical debt to pay off.

Okay, I know I sound negative and down, but I am actually in a surprisingly good mood today despite everything. This has been more of a getting it out of my system rant. DS was pretty easy on me with his first day of homeschooling since the holidays ended. And I am totally understanding the math today, so go me. I thought I was going to struggle the whole year, but I think that this unit at least will be easy.

I transferred the money from savings that I saved for January and paid out the following:

$300.00 to Mom for her utilities
39.53 Life Insurance DH
32.70 Life Insurance Me
59.89 Car Insurance
45.63 House Insurance for Old House
41.16 ADT Security System for Old House
153.00 Storage
570.00 Mortgage
29.80 Electricity Old House
100.00 Chase VISA
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$1371.71

I have $227.43 left in checking and $28 of my allowance left in cash to get by on until the 11th. No problem.

I transferred $2000 from ING and it should arrive on Thursday and I will then send that to BoA VISA, my first of four $2000 payments to be made to it this month. I am so excited about putting this card to rest by month's end.

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I have decided that I will be sending my $100 January allowance to a friend of mine in New Hampshire who is in dire straights right now medically. She and her husband are in fear of losing their medical insurance and they both have numerous ailments. She has to take like 12 different medications a day just to stay alive and her husband has to take some too and is in need of surgery.

They have both been unemployed for a while, no more benefits, he's now got a seasonal job that bounces between 10 and 20 hours a week and could end at any time. They have been desperately looking for work and are down to eating one meal a day and were out of heating oil. I also asked her if she wanted me to ship her a 50 pound bag of rice. I have enough gift cards at Amazon to do that. Waiting to hear back from her on that.

They can't get food stamps or Medicaid because of the face value of a life insurance policy, their only asset, despite the fact that they are well below the poverty level at this point. That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. What sort of state denies someone food stamps and healthcare because if the wife dies they will then have $750,000? New Hampshire!

If she dies they won't need food stamps or the Medicaid, obviously. Basically she's been told she can either die or move to Vermont where they have different rules. Your tax payer dollars at work, people. If I lived in NH, I would seriously be yapping at the heels of my congressmen and my governor and any news channel or paper that would listen right about now.

Well, it's not really as bad as all that, I don't have to pay for it, but the furnace stopped working. It has to do with a control board, not the actual furnace itself, but it will be a week before they get the part. It is cold in the house. So DH and I broke our no shopping on Boxing Day rule and went to Lowe's (the parking lot was pretty empty) and bought two ceramic space heaters, spending $54.86. One is for the bathroom, which was registering at 40 degrees F and the other for the living room which has three huge windows and was about 45 degrees F. It is 34 degrees outside and raining ice.

There were already space heaters in two of our bedrooms and Mom had another one for the third bedroom. Fortunately for her there is a gas fireplace at her end of the house so she has it cranked and is doing just fine.

I certainly miss having a wood stove though. It's hard to keep our wing of the house warm, even with the heaters, sweaters and blankets. It'll be fine once we go to bed and can keep the doors shut. A wood stove would have had us toasty within 30 minutes. If our new house doesn't have one we are going to install one of the ones you can stick in a corner of a room and vent directly outside instead of up a chimney.

Well, it's not really as bad as all that, I don't have to pay for it, but the furnace stopped working. It has to do with a control board, not the actual furnace itself, but it will be a week before they get the part. It is cold in the house. So DH and I broke our no shopping on Boxing Day rule and went to Lowe's (the parking lot was pretty empty) and bought two ceramic space heaters, spending $54.86. One is for the bathroom, which was registering at 40 degrees F and the other for the living room which has three huge windows and was about 45 degrees F. It is 34 degrees outside and raining ice.

There were already space heaters in two of our bedrooms and Mom had another one for the third bedroom. Fortunately for her there is a gas fireplace at her end of the house so she has it cranked and is doing just fine.

I certainly miss having a wood stove though. It's hard to keep our wing of the house warm, even with the heaters, sweaters and blankets. It'll be fine once we go to bed and can keep the doors shut. A wood stove would have had us toasty within 30 minutes. If our new house doesn't have one we are going to install one of the ones you can stick in a corner of a room and vent directly outside instead of up a chimney.

Well, this project of mine is taking up quite a bit of time, I sacrificed my novel writing hour to it, but it sure is a fun and interesting challenge. But now back to my real world for a change.

I have three dentist appointments scheduled for next week. DD is on Monday, I am on Tuesday, and DS is on Wednesday, but thankfully DH will be back around 12:30 a.m. on next Wednesday morning. I am finally getting my teeth fixed. Or one of them. Yesterday was just a cleaning.

But yeah, it's finally my turn for something. I was going to have it done this summer, but then DS was assaulted and given that major concussion and neck issues. The bill on that ended up being $3000 out of pocket. We may or may not see some of it come back but I doubt it. Thankfully we had the HSA and we'll be deducting the full amount there again this year.

Then I was about to get it done and DH broke a crown and cracked another one, so then he pushed in front of me, because you cannot walk around with a broken molar if you can at all afford to fix it. Well, now all those things are paid for so it's my turn. I told everyone else that they are not to injure themselves at all until after my teeth are done. Because I am seriously tired of soft foods. So far our portion is looking like $505.

Remember when I said there would be $521 left for me to do something with this month, but I wasn't sure what? I am pretty sure God was laughing at my plans. But hey, at least we have the money to pay for it and that is the important thing.

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I've been picking up a large amount of blog traffic from somewhere during the past couple of months. I'm getting over 3000 hits a day most days. Whereas I hit the 1,000,000 mark on April 19th, and that took me six years of blogging (well, five if you count the year I took off), I'm now close to hitting the 1.5 million mark and at the rate it's been building I may just do that before the end of the year. I sure wish I knew where it was all coming from, but I'm happy to have the readership. My traffic for last month was 111,670, but it had a weird spike in the middle with 30,000 some hits on one day that was just ridiculous, but even taking that away it was 80K. The month before was 52,895 and in July it was 34,577. I think before October my highest was around 38,000 and more were closer to the 30,000 mark.

I don't often think what I have to say is all that interesting or appealing to many people besides myself, unless I'm posting to a theme. Normally I just post for daily accountability, though I strive not to be boring. I mean the coin jar updates are just plain old tedious. I wander off topic quite a bit. I occasionally rant about things like cable television. I get silly and want to spend far too much money on things like Doctor Who action figures or memorabilia because I am that type of fangirl. Most of my posts don't have pictures to grab the eye.

But I am digging my way out of a hole built years ago, not giving up, taking it step by stubborn step. I am proving that it can be done even if it takes years and years. And maybe that's what people come around for. To see someone else who is working hard to get the debt put behind them. I am glad that there is some appeal to someone though. It's always nice to know it's not disappearing into the ether. That people are actually reading what I write. So thank you to all of you who have been bump, bump, bumping my stats along. I'm grateful to every reader I have.

I think someone looked down on me and said, "Well, she's done with those hurdles, let's throw some even bigger ones at her and see how she does."

So FIL may also have something wrong with his kidney. At least something showed up on his MRI. We knew this could happen, they told him so after his last surgery, but all seemed to be going well. So on top of more heart surgery, he may end up losing a kidney. So he's going to the doctor again for his heart tomorrow and a different doctor on Monday for his kidney.

If that weren't enough, my mother got back her MRI results as she's been having severe headaches. (Is there anyone not getting an MRI lately? It seems the thing to do.) She has had two mini-strokes since the last MRI six months ago. And she doesn't tell me this. I was teasing her about forgetting to put soap in the dishwasher (she teases me for similar things) and she says, "Well, maybe it's because I had two mini-strokes." I mean, come on, that is not the way you tell someone you've had a stroke, mini or not.

They were relatively minor, but I had noticed one side of her face was a little slacker than the other, but she still had control of it. And I have noticed her being slower on the uptake. I suppose I watch for these things because her mother had Alzheimers and my father did, so I've seen it up close and personal. It didn't seem like Alzheimers in her, just...something not quite right.

So I don't really know what that means for her health. She doesn't seem worried about it. She's 73, but I always figured she'd outlive me out of sheer stubborness. Now maybe it's going to happen sooner than I thought. At least I have her living will, her regular will, her pre-paid funeral stuff, and medical power of attorney.

We are prepared (well, maybe not mentally) and have been for a couple of years, but I still don't want to even think about it. In a couple of days I'm going to sit down with her and go through everything again. We haven't looked at it together since Dad died and she made a couple changes to reflect that.

At least WA state law does not require filial support to pay for long term care. 29 states legally can make you pay for your parents' care (though many don't enforce these laws). I can't even fathom what that would do to DH and I if we had to pay for long-term nursing home care for either of his parents or my mother. We've spent so much time paying off our own catastrophic medical debt. To have to start all over again would be so destructive to our lives.

I don't even know what any of this means to our future plans. We've been talking about buying a smaller house, but now I'm wondering about whether or not we will have to take in MIL or my mother at some point and if we did that, we'd need the space. I know from us living with my mother that lots of space is a very good thing. I am pretty sure either way it would fall on us. DH's sister couldn't afford it and I don't think my middle sister would allow the world to stop revolving around her long enough to take care of someone else. My eldest sister, much less the ice queen since she became a grandmother, might move in with my mom so long as Mom was still able, but I don't think she'd care for her if her mind started to go.

Can I be an ostrich just for a day or two? Because I'd really like to stick my head in the sand now.

Life can be a real pain in the neck sometimes. It seems as if you get through one thing only to be slammed with something else. Earlier this year my father died. With elderly parents you always have it in the back of your mind that something could go wrong. I was expecting it to be with my mother. I wasn't expecting it to be with DH's much younger father.

If you'll recall a couple of years ago FIL had an aortic infarction (I think that was what it was called). He had some kind of attack which took him to the hospital ER and just as they were opening him up to do surgery it burst. If it had happened at any other time, he would have been dead because that's how fast it happens. They were able to repair the bulging part of the aorta that comes right out of the heart, and they've been keeping an eye on the rest of the aorta.

A few months ago they said he would likely have to have that part repaired in a year. He had an appointment a couple of days ago and they've moved up the timetable to he needs to get it done in the next six months.

The part of the aorta that is bulging is the part that goes into the spinal column and feeds it with blood. It is a very delicate surgery in which the flow of blood will be cut off to the spinal column while it is repaired. It has with it a chance of paralysis from the chest down. If he doesn't have it done it will lead to certain death.

Unfortunately there are not many doctors who have done this type of surgery more than once or twice. To have the best shot at surviving without being paralyzed, he needs to go to a doctor who has a lot of experience with this procedure. There is no place he can go locally. His choices are Minnesota and Texas. Either place will involve FIL and MIL getting there (either flying or driving) and hotel and food costs. MIL doesn't really drive anymore, but there are lots of problems involved with flying, the most important of which is MIL's morbid obesity. We don't think she can fit into even a first class chair. It's a mess.

Last time FIL had surgery it took six weeks in a nursing home to recover and even after that it was a slow road. FIL takes care of MIL because she isn't physically able to do much. She has a hard time even walking out to the mail box. He does the shopping and most of the cooking. I can't even imagine what would happen if FIL is paralyzed.

Maybe SIL would move in with them and become qualified to be a caregiver under medicare. I think it pays more than the job she works, which is minimum wage. She's being required to sell her house under the divorce settlement (ex-BIL waited a few years to enforce this) so she'll need a place to go anyway.

I don't know how FIL and MIL will afford this. FIL is still working, but is also old enough to get his full social security check. MIL doesn't get social security because she never worked. Once FIL can't work anymore they won't have much income. It's not like we can really help financially. We're still paying off our own medical debt that we put on the credit cards years ago.

I don't know what they did with their inheritance from FIL's mother's house (around $50,000). I don't know where they stand financially anymore. They used to have a lot of debt, so hopefully they paid that off and maybe all they have is the mortgage. That would be nice, but somehow I doubt that's what happened.

The uncertainty of life sure can leave you staggering. Medical debt can be crushing. All I can do is hope for the best scenario, but even the best scenario will cost thousands of dollars. I don't even want to think about the worst.

Racoons should not be strong enough to pull out 1 inch construction staples. They just should not. It's been a very tough day today. That bleeping racoon managed to pull just enough of the chicken wire loose on the duck den in the middle of the night to reach inside and try to get at the ducks. Patches went down defending Lady and that darn critter tried to pull him through a 3 inch opening. He did not survive it. At least his body blocked the racoon from getting in and killing Lady, too.

Lady is tucked into one of the nesting boxes in the chicken coop for the night. At least racoons can't yet seem to pull out 4 inch screws. I am just so upset and angry at that racoon. It's hard to lose 3 animals in the space of a few days, especially when you have raised them since they were a day old. The ducks were not pets, but they were more than just livestock. They were productive members of the household, producing eggs for food and lots of antics for our enjoyment.

After the first attack we reinforced the duck den but commissioned a new one made with screws and locks. It'll be delivered tomorrow. I'm not sure if Lady will want to go in by herself, though. I just wish Patches had made it; then there would be two.

We put a notice up at the Feed Co-op saying we were seeking 2 to 3 grown ducks, preferrably Cayuga to keep Lady company. Don't know if we'll get a response or not, but hopefully there will be someone who got baby ducks at Easter time and now are done with them (a frequent occurrence, sadly).

Hopefully I'll feel up to doing my payday post tomorrow. Right now all I can think about is those poor ducks.

I utterly hate them. They are savage, evil animals in a deceptively cute package. Early this morning a raccon killed two of our female ducks. Did it bother to fully consume either of them? No. It ate half of one and killed the other without eating it. I understand nature, but you know, take what you need, don't kill more than necessary. I swear those racoons are having a good time with it.

So Noisy and Len Tao are gone, laid to rest, leaving us with only Patches and Lady Henry Inigo Montoya. We won't be letting them out until at least 9 a.m. from now on. At least by then we can be sure the predators are gone. At least the chickens are fine. Times like this, I wish we had a dog.

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Last night I transferred the money from ING to pay the property taxes on Wednesday. Since I set aside $100 a month and property tax is $518.17, I had some surplus money in that category, so I took $1.61 to even out my Emergency Fund, which now sits at $1000 exactly, and then the rest of it I dumped into the Freezer Fund. Along with another $10 I shifted, the Freezer Fund now sits at $851.03.

That's basically it, I'm just saving up for the sales tax now. My usual $100 per month will be added next month, plus whatever coin jar scrapings there are and it will be done. I think an even $1000 is a good place to stop. So nice to see a goal within sight. Once I hit it, I'll resume adding money to my emergency fund to build it back up.

I'm not exactly sure when we will purchase the freezer. I guess it will depend on how fast our house sells. If I know we are going to move away from here shortly after it sells, it feels kind of senseless to have it here and then have to move it again. Seems like it would be easier to just have it delivered to our new place when we buy it than to have to move it later and risk the damages that always seem to happen during moving. Well, it won't hurt the money to sit there collecting interest until we know what we are doing.

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This morning when I took DD to school the rain was pretty fierce. The street was flooded about six inches, because leaves were clogging the drain. Our basement is flooding too, but we turned on the sump pump early so it's not too bad. We're actually having a clear patch right now with more rain due tonight. But a little sun is better than no sun. And a little rain is better than what they are getting over on the East coast.

So the plan for tonight was pizza for dinner. Homemade, mind you. There was absolutely no reason for me to think that would be a problem, but when I went to make the dough all I had left was one cup of flour. Um...what? I always have flour. Always. And I'm the only one who gets into it. And since I haven't made bread in a couple of weeks I've had no need to keep an eye on the flour level. I always know how much I have on hand and when I need to buy more. Then I remembered DS's paper mache project with his dad last weekend. Made me sick to my stomach because I realized they had used the organic flour to do it, too.

So, no pizza for dinner. Don't think the idea of delivery didn't flit through my head because it did. Instead I threw together a meatloaf, the ingredients of which were easily at hand. I will buy some flour tomorrow. I just couldn't stand the thought of driving today, not even the six blocks to the store and with my cough it is too cold and rainy outside to walk. Not that I have the energy today anyway.

Seriously, today was a day when I really felt my disability. I just did not have enough spoons.

I really don't like these invented holidays, like Columbus Day, that places seem to pick and choose whether or not they are going to shut down or stay open. Things like government services and the library are closed, but the schools are not. Big bank Chase was open for me to pay my credit card bill at, but my little credit union was closed so I couldn't pay the mortgage or get any cash out.

The kids were too sick on Friday to drag them anywhere and I wasn't thinking about the fact that things might be closed today, because it's just a made up holiday. No one in the real world takes it off or even remembers it's there until they try to go somewhere that is closed and has a sign posted. *sighs* To celebrate a day for the man who did not actually discover America (hello, Vikings) or even make it here, but landed himself somewhere in the West Indies, is silly.

I am just cranky because it is interfering with my desire to get budgety stuff taken care of. Oh, phooey, and I just realized that means none of the stuff out in the mailbox is going to go out today. Guess a trip to the post office is in order.

I really, really hate it when the blogs malfunction in such a way as that when you go to post your entry it tells you that their records show that you are already logged in as yourself. I'm like, no duh, and thanks for eating my entry. And then it says you're logged out, even though you just logged in before you sent in the entry, so you go to log back in and guess what? You're not logged out after all. Still, your entry has been eaten. I wish there was an autosave feature like on livejournal so you could just backtrack and get your entry back.

Can you guess what just happened to me? The first time in three weeks that I didn't copy paste because the blogs have been behaving themselves, too. Grrrr. Now off to recreate a post.

DH just called and it looks like he will have to work an extra week in November and an extra week in December. That will be approximately $8000 net income (possibly more depending on where they take stuff out at, could be as much as $8500, but I'm guesstimating on the low side). Actually, it might be more than that also based on when they stop taking out that one tax which usually hits some time towards the end of October. DH is going to run the numbers tonight in his withholding spreadsheet and get back to me with the real numbers.

There will be two more plane tickets he will have to buy, which will be about $650 each, and two extra hotel nights, at $100 each, so after that, we should have an extra $6000 at the least to work with that was not expected. That will be nice after having things be so tight with all these medical expenses. At least this means we don't have to come up with extra money for the four weeks off he would have normally had to take off at Christmas time. We can use that $6000 to get us through that and he will only have 3 weeks off with no pay at Christmas. God always seems to provide.

Of course he won't be coming home until Christmas Day, but oh, well. At least we'll be doing a little more than treading water. It has been such a tough year with all the unexpected medical bills. I am really looking forward to 2013 being a fresh start. It should be a good year for us. 13 is this family's lucky number. Like crazy lucky in ways we've never been able to explain. Here's hoping that continues.

Well, with 147,530 miles on it, our 20 year old Crown Victoria has gone to its new home. After putting in $1000 worth of labor fixing up and painting our old house, it's gone to one of the workman who bartered that labor for it. It was a little sad seeing it being driven away, but also nice knowing it's gone to a good home with people who really needed a nice family car. And he knows how to pop the dent out that my mother gave it when she backed her truck into it with the tailgate down.



I think this is the only nice photo I have of it that doesn't have a family member in it. That was the first nice car we ever bought and only the second car I'd ever owned. It was a 1992 that we bought in 1998 for $13,000 with only 19,500 miles on it. It had been beautifully maintained and it purred like a kitten. It was one of the most comfortable riding cars I've ever owned. When we bought her they said she should get to 200,000 miles easy, possibly 250,000 on that engine. She was still beautiful.

We weren't driving it because it needed brake work and a new battery, so we've essentially been a one car family for quite some time, but now it's official. On Monday DH takes the little paper down to the courthouse to make it legal and then he goes to the insurance company to drop the insurance on it. It won't be much of a difference because it only had the most basic stuff on it as it was so old, but it will be a little less.

It kind of feels like the end of an era seeing it go, but I'm glad it went to be reused instead of recycled. It was in too nice of a physical shape for me to be happy with the idea of it going to a junk heap when with a little work on the brakes it is perfectly useable for several more years.

It will cost us $5 to transfer title, but that's an acceptable amount to us for the amount of work we got on the house for it.

I feel like I have been sick with one thing after another since we came back from our mini-vacation to the Tacoma zoo a few weeks back. First it was food poisoning or a stomach virus that lasted for three weeks, then a head cold, then I was just getting better from that and came down with a sinus infection. Now in the middle of being treated for a sinus infection I've got this tremendous ear ache. I sent DH to the pharmacy to pick up some ear drops for me because it was hurting so bad. I think my eustation tube is blocked. I've tried to pop it to no avail.

Anyway DH got me Hylands homeopathic drops and they have eased the pain a great deal. I really like Hylands as a brand. We used their flavorless teething gel and teething tablets for our kids when they were little (and the gel I've used a couple of times myself when I bit my tongue, it's good stuff). I am able to eat now without it hurting so bad I want to give up food.

It's been a hard week to get through between that and homeschooling. I don't know what WAVA has done between now and when DD took 7nth grade through them, but the work seems a lot more advanced and to take a lot longer for DS to get through. Where DD would be done with her work in 3 to 4 hours, DS is taking more than the allotted 6 to get through it. The math is really difficult. I've been going through it with him. Well, it's not hard for him, it's just that there is so much of it and so much explanation. Last year at the middle school his homework was usually 5 or 6 problems and with WAVA there are 20 problems on top of the stuff he does online. I do not think this is the change from regular public school to online public homeschool.

The same thing is going on in literature. At the public school it's reading one chapter a day and answering a few questions. In the online school it's reading 4 chapters a day, answering several discussion questions, answering several multiple choice questions, and writing an essay question answer daily. I actually think he does more in the course of one day's assignment than he did for one week's worth of work before. This feels like high school level work to me and not middle school.

He's perfectly capable of it, don't get me wrong, but we haven't even gotten all of the books yet. We are only doing literature, math, science, art, and history. We haven't even gotten vocabulary or grammar yet. We're already clocking about 7 hours. Add in another 40 minutes of work...I just hope it eases up a bit. Otherwise I'm jumping ship and designing my own curriculum.

DH leaves on Monday, too, which means it will all fall on me. I really hope I will not go nuts. I really need to get well so I don't feel so overwhelmed by it all.

It was nice to hit the weekend and not have to do any school work. I had a chance to catch up on all the blogs I've missed this week. I had planned to go to the farmer's market to get tomatoes today and start more sauce going, but I'm not sure I have the energy. I might just send DH by himself. I don't think I should wait another week, because the weather has swung and there may not be tomatoes by then.

I have broccoli! I know that is a silly thing to be excited about, but I really did not think it was ever going to produce heads and what do you know, it did. Or at least two of them have and I think the others can’t be too far behind them. They have been taunting me for ages with big, lush leaves and were well past the 90 days it should have taken. Maybe the weird weather in July messed with it or something, but at least it looks like I am going to have a harvest.

I need to make some space in the freezer for some of it just in case each plant does actually produce. I planted an awful lot of it and I’d like to have some in the freezer for December to June when it’s expensive. It’s super cheap right now, even the organic, because it’s in season summer to late fall, but once the price jacks up it will be nice to have some frozen the day it was picked broccoli for meals.

When I was out watering tonight, I spied 3 cucumbers growing, 2 slicers and 1 pickling. The 4th plant is a pickling cucumber that has never even flowered. It was nice to see some cukes because I adore them and there is nothing like them freshly picked. I’ve only gotten 1 cuke so far this summer so I was really happy to see them.

I’ve got some red tomatoes that need a couple more days on the vine and I picked another kohlrabi
today. I also filled the harvest basket with Italian prunes and picked a few more handfuls of green beans. This green bean teepee has the little plants that could, I tell you. It will be ready to pick again in two days.

I’ve had enough produce picked this week that I haven’t had to buy anything from the grocery store except milk and pure maple syrup. And my mom gave us some lovely sweet corn that was delicious.

I am gearing up to do another major tomato sauce canning session this weekend. I am hoping to buy enough to finish our sauce needs for the year, but that may take another weekend as well.

I’ve nearly filled two big shelves with home canned food this summer and I hope to still do green beans, of which I’d like to have 52 quarts, total. That might not be possible, but it sure would be nice not to have to worry about our major low carb vegetable for a whole year. Canned green beans have gotten quite expensive in the store, to the point where it’s much cheaper to buy them fresh in season and do it myself. And it would sure make my future grocery budgets that much lower.

I’d also like to do corn, but I can still get corn for .79 a can from Trader Joe’s and it’s a BPA free can liners so it’s pretty low on the agenda. Plus, I haven’t been able to source organic corn. Not that corn is on my list of things that should be organic. I just prefer them to be not GMO, and that can be pretty hard outside of places like TJ’s or food co-ops. One of these years I’ll start growing some heirloom Bantam corn, but that’s also pretty low on my list of priorities. I have potatoes for the starch gap so as much as we like corn, it’s such a space hog and needy feeder that so far it’s not been worth it to grow much of it.

We built a new duck den today. Mom and I recycled the box springs that broke (right after the warranty was up) from the new mattress set DH and I bought in January. We were able to expand their habitat quite a bit and they seem happier having more space. There were Bungie cords and zip ties involved, because we are women and don’t believe in “man tools” like drills and screws unless we have to use them, but so far it seems very serviceable. And I’ve never met a raccoon that can undo a zip tie, while I have seen the results of one that managed to unscrew a screw. Part of the fence still needs repair, but hopefully that will come soon.

Mom managed to do a face plant at the end of the day, tripping over a windfall apple. She seems to be doing okay, though, but I imagine she’s going to be one big bruise in the morning. This is one of the reasons I am going to worry about her when we move out. She takes a lot of tumbles. She seems no worse for wear afterwards, but one of these days she’s going to break something. Well, once we’re going all I can do is make sure I check up on her every day so that I know she’s not laying out there helpless. And eldest sister might just move back in when we move out. She’s 11 years older than me, on her own, and she gets lonely. I would feel better if she did come stay with Mom. Mom’s 73 now and she needs someone around, but I have two other sisters and I can’t do it all myself forever.

I made a $300 error in my checkbook. I transposed a number. I found it today when I went to check my bank account to see the amount of the paycheck. Unfortunately the error meant that a couple of checks that went through yesterday weren't backed and the credit union did our privilege pay (overdraft protection good for 10 days to be paid back) twice, which is $13 plus a $2 fee for transferring .69 out of our savings account because if there is any money in the savings account they transfer it first, even if it is a stupid amount that won't cover anything. That is one thing I really hate. Anyway, so that's $28 of fees.

I feel like an idiot, but I'm trying not to be too hard on myself. Here I was thinking I had $92 in that account and I have been so on top of things. I am always so careful about balancing the checkbook and checking the account every other day. I know it's just an accident, but for crying out loud, my degree was in accounting, I know to check for transposed numbers. Thing was, I still couldn't figure it out. DH had to find the error for me. *sighs*

Well, it's sorted now and the checkbook has been rebalanced and life goes on. This is one of the few times I regret not having my EF at the same credit union as my checking, where they could have just transferred the money with the $2 fee. If I need to I'll take the money out of the vacation fund and the laptop fund. We still might be able to squeak by without, but since I am buying those tomatoes tomorrow it might be a little harder to just get by.

I'll try to get a budget post up tomorrow. I feel better when I do that, and not let it slip like I did for several months this year.

DH is home now and I totally caved on the no eating out thing. It was early dismissal at the high school and it already felt like a long day when we picked DD up at 11:15. After running a few errands we ended up getting pizza out. So NorthGeorgiaGal, you are not alone in not only eating out, but choosing pizza! We must totally be on the same wavelength. I don't feel as bad about it as I might. It's been about 4 weeks for me of no eating out and I plan to go the rest of the month without doing it again. I had to rearrange some money, and I'll pay it back on Friday. Progress, not perfection, right?

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WAVA finally has taken its head out of its backside and we should be able to get into the system within 24 hours. I'll believe it when I see it. If all goes well we could be doing lessons as early as Friday, but I am still not holding my breath.

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I harvested a pint of green beans, 2 strawberries, 4 blackberries, a handful raspberries, a half pint of blueberries and a half gallon bag of Italian prunes from the garden today. And there were 2 duck eggs and 9 chicken eggs.

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I've been looking for ways of using beef heart, liver, and tongue for when we buy our beef. It seems silly to me to pay for an entire beef and then leave several pounds behind just because we've never eaten organ meat. I was thinking we could just have it ground and I could mix it with ground beef and pork to make sausages. But then it occurred to me that even if we don't like it, the chickens are omnivores and can eat any meat but chicken and they would eat the ground beef organs happily, so it wouldn't go to waste.

I am also planning to get the fat for rendering so we have it for cooking and maybe for soap and candle making, too. But at least for cooking. It would be nice not to have to buy cooking oil anymore, although I'd still have olive oil for some things.

I'm still trying to track down a farm that will sell a whole hog. Most places seem to just do $300 boxes of pork. I'd like a whole one or at least a half, and the fat to render into lard. That's still quite a ways off, even further off than the beef, so hopefully one will turn up by the time I need it.

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This Saturday I hope to make it to the farmer's market so that I can buy the rest of the organic tomatoes I need to finish off our diced tomato needs for the year. I need 25 pounds of tomatoes to do 24 pints of diced. If I can get those put up next week then I'll see about making more sauce. The greater value for me though is in putting up diced ones.

I still have a ton of green tomatoes, but I just don't think I will have enough of them ripe before the first frost hits. Anything is possible, but it's just been a weird year for growing tomatoes. We've had the heat, but...I don't know. And now nights are around 50 and if they drop much lower than that we won't see a lot of these making it to red, at least not on the vine. It's too bad June was constant rainfall. I think that is half the problem. Still if we don't frost until mid to late October I might get enough to put up. We'll see.