Friday

I didn't realize the reason dh hasn't been doing any of the projects on our list is because most of them involve building something and he gets too cold working out in the unheated garage and that is where his big work bench and table saw is. Well, I hadn't thought of that and don't blame him. It's cold out there.  When I go out there to get chicken food or scratch, half the time it feels colder in the garage than outside! With the weather starting to warm up, he should be able to get started in again on stuff fairly soon....as long as the lumber needed doesn't break the bank.  He said he looked up a sheet of plywood on Home Depot and said the price has like quadrupled since we built our house.

Gradually, parts of the lawn are turning green again. Some parts very green and some still completely winter brown. One part near the front corner of our fence is green and growing, it almost needs mowing already! The other side of the fence, where neighbors tried to plant grass is filling in, but very weedy, but I'm sure they will add that to their lawn fertilization they pay to have done several times a year. Which reminds me, I will need to pick up the lawn fertilizer we've started using. It's from the feed store in the city and we need about 3 bags at $25/bag. It seems to work well and easy to apply. DH just uses a bag thing we bought where he puts it over his shoulder and cranks the handle around and it spits out the fertilizer, or grass seed, or whatever he is putting down, as he walks around. Much cheaper than paying someone to take care of our lawn. He applies it around Mother's Day and then the same brand of fertilizer, in a different ratio, at the end of summer, at Labor Day.

I think I'll go see my mom on Sunday and get groceries while there. Sunday seems the better day, weather wise, as tomorrow is predicting some snow again. That gives me Saturday to concentrate on house cleaning. 

Our sheriff's dept (all 7 of them) finally got brand new vehicles to drive, instead of already 5 year old hand me downs from the state patrol. Like dh said, it's nice to see and makes a local citizen a bit more proud to see them being able to drive something nice (and 4 wheel drive, which of course they need around here). Lord knows they make squat in salary. I think our friend that stopped by last weekend said they make like $17 an hour....to be a cop! Ridiculous. Yet, friend said, someone can go work as a meter reader for the power company in our area and makes $30/hr. 

Our offices are going back to a part time office schedule starting in June. T-Th in the office and M and F work from home. No mask needed if you are fully vaccinated and wear a mask if you are not. Not that it affects me and a few other full time remote workers. I think I'm going to start taking either a Friday or a Monday off every few weeks. And figure out a week here and there, during this year.

We still haven't heard from our HVAC guy on when he's going to install our air exchanger system. As usual, with contractors here, SLOWWWWWWWW. But, our experience with him wasn't like that when doing our house. We can't start the master closet project, until he installs that, as he will be using a corner of my closet space to install this and vent to outside (to exchange the air).

I got my tax returns done and submitted yesterday. Yay for not procrastinating like I usually do with it.

I totally bungled up my federal tax withholdings for my paychecks yesterday afternoon. I didn't know the W-4's have been changed. I was actually wanting to take a look at what I had set up for State tax, as I always get a refund, so wanted to reduce that withholdings a bit. But, the system was telling me before I could click on state I needed to update my Federal. So, I was assuming I'd just open it and ok/keep what I had. Well, I don't know exactly what I did but it updated me and put my federal w/h quite a bit higher. I guess there are no more # of exemptions to claim. It wouldn't let me delete the new w-4 I had just inadvertently submitted. Finally, after spending some time looking over the new w-4 and worksheet I was able to figure out I needed to add in the $ amount I itemize in excess of the standard deduction. That took me back to close to where I was before. Luckily, I also have access to a calculation feature, where I can run a projected paycheck and see what all the deductions are, so I was able to know where I adjusted it to, now.

Back to work.