We still don't know anything about FIL's heart and what, if anything, his cardiologist plans to do. I guess he had an appointment this week, that basically told him nothing and he has to go back again on the 11th to "discuss options". Frustrating. The other frustrating issue is that DH tries to call him at least once a week, usually about every 5 days or so, and for weeks/months now something is wrong with their phones. They will be in mid conversation and suddenly FIL can't hear DH anymore and it usually happens a couple of times. DH is beyond frustrating to have to keep saying "can you hear me Dad?" and trying to call back, only to have it happen again. FIL thought maybe it was the battery in their cordless, so her put in a new one, but it also happens when he uses their phone plugged in direct to the wall. He's made a couple of suggestions to FIL to call their phone company and see if something is wrong in their lines. After another extremely frustrated dropped call the other night, DH asked his sis if she could look into it. Maybe they just need new telephone. Her reply was she doesn't have time and has already taken enough time off work. Seriously? First off, she works 4 days a week, so she has one business day she could look into it (how long could it take?) and you can call Comcast to report trouble anytime of day or night, weekday or weekend. So, it might take her 15-20 minutes to call and set up an appt time, if they need to come out and look. At a minimum she could at least maybe take a phone from her house and plug in at their house and see if it's maybe just a matter of they need a new phone. DH can't be there, but he at least tries to call very regularly, which I know his dad loves, so why not try to help make it less frustrating for both of them.
With my bonus (set to deposit on Monday) I am able to get our building expenses we are paying out of pocket and charged on the credit card (and Lowes) paid off and back to zero, so that makes me very happy.
The building of this shop is taking ridiculously long. It's a rectangle building with one room inside. We are now past 90 days into this and not even near completed. The stupid insulation guys showed up at 2:30 yesterday afternoon (after they said it took them 3 hours to get there - not our problem). Worked a whole 2 hours, and left to drive 3 hours back (probably more like less than 2 hours). Why bother even driving out here to work 2 hours? Plus there is some issue that they are not doing what the builder told us was being done for insulation. He told us (and it's on his bid to us) they were doing 1.5" of spray foam insulation and then R-13 batts on top of that, with R-50 blown in the ceiling. They say they aren't doing batts. They are spray foaming and then put up this netting stuff and blow in the insulation material. DH is not sure about this as he has heard the blow in type eventually settles down the walls and you lose some of your insulation value. He called builder who was like "oh, I didn't know they were doing it that way, but that is better". So, who knows. If that way was better to begin with why wasn't it bid that way then? It felt to DH like the builder was just accepting whatever they wanted to do to get it done, since he is so behind schedule. They told DH that the settling doesn't happen anymore and that they really "pack it in" when they blow it in.
Anyhow, since they didn't get done by the end of Friday, like they were supposed to, now the sheet rocker can't come Monday and supposedly will come Thursday now, but I'm not holding my breath, since it's holiday week. We'll be lucky if this thing is done by Labor Day! I'm having a feeling we won't be building our house until next spring! Yesterday was just completely mentally exhausting as DH did nothing but complain and yell about everything the whole day. I was so tired of my phone ringing and then had to listen to it all evening after he got home. Bleh!
DH is at the property again this morning, as one of the builder's guys (one of his sons) is coming to set the patio foundations. Monday those are supposed to be poured, with a stained concrete, and then stamped to look like wood planks. I'm so anxious to see how it turns out.
Saturday, June 30, 2018
Friday, June 29, 2018
It's Friday YAY!
Construction update: not much at all going on. Actually nothing's been going on for over a week. Insulation guys were supposed to show up Tuesday afternoon. Nope. Concrete patio guy was supposed to come this week. Nope. Wednesday builder said insulation will be done today/Friday....because dry wallers are coming Monday. We'll see. DH is out there this morning and I haven't heard yes or no from him. Builder says his son that does the concrete work is coming Saturday to set the patio forms. I wouldn't think that is too big of job, as I assume it's just some forms around the perimeter of the patio. Concrete is supposed to be poured Monday and Tuesday. I'm not sure why 2 days is needed. I didn't ask DH why. I'm pretty sure none of this is going to happen next week. It is the holiday week, after all. One day of holiday in the middle of the week will mean 4 days off for everyone.
Here's a funny: some of the light fixtures we ordered for the shop (and garage) were delivered (some were back ordered and now on the way). We are using recessed 4ft LED fixtures. So the other evening DH opened up one of the boxes to take a look at the fixture. He opens the cover to look inside. Nothings in there. Hmmm...I thought they came with the bulb. (great, now I gotta spend more money on bulbs) So, next morning I email my contact to ask her what type of bulbs I should by for them (since there are so many different kinds/wattages). She replies back "honey, these are an LED "light board" - you don't need bulbs!" HAHAHA! Obviously we had no idea what we were lookin' at! Who knew they don't need bulbs anymore?! They are supposed to last like 20 years, and that's with regular 8 hrs per day type of usage, so we should never have to replace them.
We are going to need a refrigerator/freezer in the shop. Mainly because we will be living it in for some time and also because for future use, DH would like to have some cold water, soda and ice cream bars in the freezer ;). I looked online at some pricing for some cheap smaller sized refrigerators. I think we are going to go with a compact refrigerator. There is one on sale at Lowe's for $250 that is 4.5 cu. ft. That should be enough for us to use while living in the shop. Obviously I'm not going to be able to do much in the way of cooking, so won't need a lot of refrigerator space. We'll go look at them sometime before the sale ends on 7/4 and see if we think it will be big enough. We had a full sized refrigerator (my mom's old one) in our old shop before and that size was just not needed at all. We also thought about just buying the fridge we will put in the house and using that in the shop until the house is built, but in the end we'll still need to put something out in the shop, so might as well by the one we want for the shop now instead.
DH was telling me about his conversation with that new neighbor lady at the property. One of the thing she said was "oh, you have a bathroom in your shop? Why? are you going to be living in the shop?" DH told her yes, that is the plan, while the house is being built. But why wouldn't he put a bathroom in his shop? who wants to always have to go back into the house every time he needs to go to the bathroom? Or if someone is at the shop visiting with him, it's right there and he wouldn't have to send them to the house. Or to be able to have a sink to go wash his hands off after working on stuff in the shop. Seems like a logical thing to have in it to me. Not to mention we'll probably end up using the shower to give dogs a bath, too. I wouldn't dream of standing down at their lot/house being built and saying "why are you doing it that way?" LOL. But, people do that to DH all the time.
Here's a funny: some of the light fixtures we ordered for the shop (and garage) were delivered (some were back ordered and now on the way). We are using recessed 4ft LED fixtures. So the other evening DH opened up one of the boxes to take a look at the fixture. He opens the cover to look inside. Nothings in there. Hmmm...I thought they came with the bulb. (great, now I gotta spend more money on bulbs) So, next morning I email my contact to ask her what type of bulbs I should by for them (since there are so many different kinds/wattages). She replies back "honey, these are an LED "light board" - you don't need bulbs!" HAHAHA! Obviously we had no idea what we were lookin' at! Who knew they don't need bulbs anymore?! They are supposed to last like 20 years, and that's with regular 8 hrs per day type of usage, so we should never have to replace them.
We are going to need a refrigerator/freezer in the shop. Mainly because we will be living it in for some time and also because for future use, DH would like to have some cold water, soda and ice cream bars in the freezer ;). I looked online at some pricing for some cheap smaller sized refrigerators. I think we are going to go with a compact refrigerator. There is one on sale at Lowe's for $250 that is 4.5 cu. ft. That should be enough for us to use while living in the shop. Obviously I'm not going to be able to do much in the way of cooking, so won't need a lot of refrigerator space. We'll go look at them sometime before the sale ends on 7/4 and see if we think it will be big enough. We had a full sized refrigerator (my mom's old one) in our old shop before and that size was just not needed at all. We also thought about just buying the fridge we will put in the house and using that in the shop until the house is built, but in the end we'll still need to put something out in the shop, so might as well by the one we want for the shop now instead.
DH was telling me about his conversation with that new neighbor lady at the property. One of the thing she said was "oh, you have a bathroom in your shop? Why? are you going to be living in the shop?" DH told her yes, that is the plan, while the house is being built. But why wouldn't he put a bathroom in his shop? who wants to always have to go back into the house every time he needs to go to the bathroom? Or if someone is at the shop visiting with him, it's right there and he wouldn't have to send them to the house. Or to be able to have a sink to go wash his hands off after working on stuff in the shop. Seems like a logical thing to have in it to me. Not to mention we'll probably end up using the shower to give dogs a bath, too. I wouldn't dream of standing down at their lot/house being built and saying "why are you doing it that way?" LOL. But, people do that to DH all the time.
Thursday, June 28, 2018
Too much to do Thursday
My company made it's revenue goal for mid year (with 2 days to spare) and we will be getting our bonus checks! Woo! Rather than a live check, as they have always been in the past, they are just doing direct deposit and will be in our accounts on Tuesday. Even better. Now I do not have to wait for a check to come in the mail (since I'm not at the office to pick it up) nor do I have to then make a trip into the city to deposit my check (since it's too large to deposit via mobile deposit). We were also told that they are going to add an additional goal - if we can make that by the end of the year (on top of the original goal) we will get double our bonus at year end. Wouldn't that be nice!
I'm trying to get caught up on a couple of things with work and trying to get it done before the holiday. Next week will be a nice short work week. Tuesday is a half day and then we get Wednesday and Thursday off. I'm sure that also means nothing will get done out at the property, either. You know, because one day of holiday turns into 3,4, or 5 days...
The insulation guys have been supposed to come for over a week now. Still no show. Now builder says they will be here on Friday. Now supposedly his son that does the patio concrete work will be coming on Saturday to set the forms for it. I can't imagine that would be too hard to do or take too long. It's just around the outside edges of the patio. The concrete is scheduled to be poured Monday and Tuesday. I'm not sure why it needs 2 days for it, I didn't think to ask DH why.
Still no interest in our house. Zillow shows it with 10 saves and over 250 views. But, it's only been 2 weeks. Just figured we'd at least have a couple of showings by now. But, like I also told DH, we are just a bit outside of the "bubble" that is the hot market in the city near us. People around here just think a 45 minute drive (in zero traffic) to commute to work is too much. Everyone we know from where we used to live just laugh and say they wish they could have an easy 45 minute drive. After me emailing my list of what we did to the place, our realtor emailed me back that he added in the description that the garage and shop are heated (those are nice features! he said).
No email about book club tonight. I'm assuming they are just not having it anymore. From what I could tell (by their list of books read in the past) they have been together quite a few years. I wonder what seems to have made it fizzle out after all these years.
We went out to the property for a little bit after dinner last night and took the dogs with us. DH doesn't take them when there is work going on, not to mention it's been pouring rain the past 2-3 weekends, so we haven't taken them with us then, either. But they got to go last night. As we pulled in neighbor was outside with his 3 dogs. We chatted with him awhile and the dogs played together. Our older dog was having a ball playing with their youngest dog. It's nice to see our old dog run and play still. He really doesn't like to play with our other dog, LOL.
Speaking of neighbors, DH got to meet the wife of the people building down on lot 7. Eh....he said "you know when sometimes you just instantly like and click with someone.....well guess I didn't with her." Lots younger, which could be part of the reason. Plus he said she seemed kind of nosy, in a looking down at you kind of way. Guess we'll see, but first impressions are usually pretty accurate. We pretty much instantly clicked with the neighbors that already live out there, directly next door to us.
Back to work - lunch break over.
I'm trying to get caught up on a couple of things with work and trying to get it done before the holiday. Next week will be a nice short work week. Tuesday is a half day and then we get Wednesday and Thursday off. I'm sure that also means nothing will get done out at the property, either. You know, because one day of holiday turns into 3,4, or 5 days...
The insulation guys have been supposed to come for over a week now. Still no show. Now builder says they will be here on Friday. Now supposedly his son that does the patio concrete work will be coming on Saturday to set the forms for it. I can't imagine that would be too hard to do or take too long. It's just around the outside edges of the patio. The concrete is scheduled to be poured Monday and Tuesday. I'm not sure why it needs 2 days for it, I didn't think to ask DH why.
Still no interest in our house. Zillow shows it with 10 saves and over 250 views. But, it's only been 2 weeks. Just figured we'd at least have a couple of showings by now. But, like I also told DH, we are just a bit outside of the "bubble" that is the hot market in the city near us. People around here just think a 45 minute drive (in zero traffic) to commute to work is too much. Everyone we know from where we used to live just laugh and say they wish they could have an easy 45 minute drive. After me emailing my list of what we did to the place, our realtor emailed me back that he added in the description that the garage and shop are heated (those are nice features! he said).
No email about book club tonight. I'm assuming they are just not having it anymore. From what I could tell (by their list of books read in the past) they have been together quite a few years. I wonder what seems to have made it fizzle out after all these years.
We went out to the property for a little bit after dinner last night and took the dogs with us. DH doesn't take them when there is work going on, not to mention it's been pouring rain the past 2-3 weekends, so we haven't taken them with us then, either. But they got to go last night. As we pulled in neighbor was outside with his 3 dogs. We chatted with him awhile and the dogs played together. Our older dog was having a ball playing with their youngest dog. It's nice to see our old dog run and play still. He really doesn't like to play with our other dog, LOL.
Speaking of neighbors, DH got to meet the wife of the people building down on lot 7. Eh....he said "you know when sometimes you just instantly like and click with someone.....well guess I didn't with her." Lots younger, which could be part of the reason. Plus he said she seemed kind of nosy, in a looking down at you kind of way. Guess we'll see, but first impressions are usually pretty accurate. We pretty much instantly clicked with the neighbors that already live out there, directly next door to us.
Back to work - lunch break over.
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Refunds
A couple of weeks ago I had to spend another $96 on our electrical meter panel. The electrician said it was missing parts. The electrical distributor said that's how it comes, without those parts. So, I made a special trip to the city to pick up the 2 parts. Then our electrician decided to call the mfg because he just didn't think the panel was complete and should have come with the missing parts. Turns out it was not and somehow got shipped that way. (wouldn't you know we would be the one's to get it?!). He spent some time on the phone with them and the distributor and in the end the mfg. said they would ship out a whole new meter panel (with all the parts it's supposed to have) and we don't need to bring back the bad one. So, electrician installed all of it that he could. When he gets the new one, he's taking the parts out of it he needs and then just keep the rest for spare parts. Works for us. Last Friday afternoon DH and I stopped back in the electrical distributor with those two parts I bought a couple weeks ago (that we didn't need now) and they let us return, so I got the $96 back. The electrician texted DH on Saturday that he also found the breaker we need, for less than $100. That was the part I ordered from the Amazon seller that was supposed to be new. It wasn't new, let alone it didn't even work. I got that $65 credited back from the seller. I hadn't ordered another one yet, the cheapest I found was $120, so he saved us about $25.
I also need to pick up a vanity light for over the shop bathroom sink. We looked at Lowe's while we were there. Seemed like most on display were expensive or too fancy and didn't see any really cheap ones. I looked at Home Depot online and they have lots of really cheap ones. We don't need anything fancy in there at all, so might as well save where we can. This one is like 13 bucks
That's all we need. There will also be an overhead ceiling light, so it should be plenty bright in there. I also need to get 3 outdoor lights. Here is what I think I am going to get, which will also be what we use on the house.
These are $26 on Amazon and have lots of good reviews. I also googled it to see if it was cheaper anywhere else. No, but last summer it was actually on sale at Amazon for like $15. Maybe I'll get lucky and another sale will happen. Everything else I liked (like from Lowe's or Home Depot or other lighting websites) were at least $35. Most that I liked were closer to $100 each. I think these will look nice. I also added it to my "droplist" with Honey, so I will get notified if the price drops. We need 3 on the shop. I'm not sure how many on the house. I think 6. One on each side of front door. One on each laundry room door (we have a door on each end of laundry room, (one goes out front and one goes out back of house) and one on each end of the garage.
I also just received a check in the mail for $145 for an escrow adjustment on our house mortgage. Nice, better than owing!
We also just received our first little electricity bill from our property. This is through a different power company. A co op. In looking at their rates it appears we are going to be saving about 25% over what we are paying the big electric company we have to use here in town. That will be nice! Plus we are installing a heat pump, so that will save on electricity usage too. We were on a co op at our old house and it was so much cheaper than the main electric company that serviced most of the area.
And! it looks like we will be getting our mid year bonus next week. We are so close and still have 3 work days to make it. We should hit it by Friday.
I also need to pick up a vanity light for over the shop bathroom sink. We looked at Lowe's while we were there. Seemed like most on display were expensive or too fancy and didn't see any really cheap ones. I looked at Home Depot online and they have lots of really cheap ones. We don't need anything fancy in there at all, so might as well save where we can. This one is like 13 bucks
That's all we need. There will also be an overhead ceiling light, so it should be plenty bright in there. I also need to get 3 outdoor lights. Here is what I think I am going to get, which will also be what we use on the house.
I also just received a check in the mail for $145 for an escrow adjustment on our house mortgage. Nice, better than owing!
We also just received our first little electricity bill from our property. This is through a different power company. A co op. In looking at their rates it appears we are going to be saving about 25% over what we are paying the big electric company we have to use here in town. That will be nice! Plus we are installing a heat pump, so that will save on electricity usage too. We were on a co op at our old house and it was so much cheaper than the main electric company that serviced most of the area.
And! it looks like we will be getting our mid year bonus next week. We are so close and still have 3 work days to make it. We should hit it by Friday.
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
House value
DH got a nice surprise while out working at the property yesterday
morning. His best buddy, who now lives in Texas, pulled in. He was so
surprised. He was on his way to visit his brother and stopped to say hi. Spent a
couple hours there and then DH picked me up at the house and we 3 had
lunch in town before he headed back on the road. So good to see him.
He's lost like 66 pounds. He still has a lot more to lose, but he looks
(and feels!) so much better than last we saw him! He looks like this big
bad biker dude (and he kinda is) but he's actually the biggest
sweetheart there is. He'll cry at the drop of a hat. LOL.
While we were eating lunch our realtor called me. He said he had an agent ask him what all upgrades we did - to justify what we are asking compared to what we bought it for 2 years ago. I had already told him everything we did, but I went over it again. He then said - well, you should probably give it a few more weeks and then maybe consider dropping the price.
Later that evening, the more I thought about that question the more irked I got. Two years is quite a bit of time in the real estate market. Obviously the market has gone up in price since then. I sent him an email listing out in writing what we did to the house after purchasing, so he has the detail if anyone else asks:
Shop: (672 sq ft)
spray foam insulated
ran electricity to shop for power and lights
added a heating unit
added a man door
repaired the roll up doors, so they worked properly
this morning I realized I also forgot to add that we installed these insulated panels that fit on the inside of the garage door panels, to insulate it even more.
had the old (in bad shape and no top rail) fence that only covered front yard torn down and replaced with new fencing around the whole lot, as well as a large gate in back for rv access to the back, next to shop.
completely landscaped (there wasn't a tree or shrub on this lot)
Garage:
tape/textured/painted walls and ceiling
added heating unit
added shelving
House:
added hickory medicine cabinet to master bath
added laundry room cabinets
replaced blinds in office/bedroom with bali blinds
I didn't mention all the crap the previous owners left that we had to clean up and get rid of. What would the place still look like if we had just left all the forms, lumber, metal siding and crap out behind the shop?
I added that per some info left with the house (the previous owner was the builder of it) it had appraised at $183,500 back in 2008, when built, and that was with no shop and no fencing. Our neighbor across the street is putting a metal shop up. Just a bare shop, no electricity and no insulation is costing him $20,000.
Then I added to him that it might be worth noting that the 6 lots for sale in our subdivision have increased in asking price by 40% in the last 2 years. Not to mention our cost to build our new home and shop increased by that same percentage compared to what our builder quoted us 2 years ago vs. what we are paying now.
I told him I'm not really too concerned that we are asking more than we paid for it. Not to mention I don't really know for sure why the previous owner priced it so low and accepted an even lower price, other than he had told my DH that he wanted to sell it quickly because he was working/living out of state. We also found out during closing that the developer still had a lien of $25,000 for the lot on it and it sounds like one of the reasons they wanted to sell was so they could get the money out of it and finally get him paid back. They had never intended to live in the house, and were going to pay the developer for the lot when this house sold. Right after building is when the economy crashed and so they ended up moving into it because nothing was selling.
Not to mention the neighbor! 2 years ago it looked like a parts/wrecked car lot there. Now it's clean and looks like a house should. While I'm sure it's hard to put a dollar value on that, it does have an effect on home values and curb appeal. In my book there is some value to the time, effort and headaches we put forth last year to get this issue resolved and make our neighborhood look nice.
I'm certainly no real estate expert, but I'm also not going to give my house away, just because I got a good deal on it 2 years ago.
While we were eating lunch our realtor called me. He said he had an agent ask him what all upgrades we did - to justify what we are asking compared to what we bought it for 2 years ago. I had already told him everything we did, but I went over it again. He then said - well, you should probably give it a few more weeks and then maybe consider dropping the price.
Later that evening, the more I thought about that question the more irked I got. Two years is quite a bit of time in the real estate market. Obviously the market has gone up in price since then. I sent him an email listing out in writing what we did to the house after purchasing, so he has the detail if anyone else asks:
Shop: (672 sq ft)
spray foam insulated
ran electricity to shop for power and lights
added a heating unit
added a man door
repaired the roll up doors, so they worked properly
this morning I realized I also forgot to add that we installed these insulated panels that fit on the inside of the garage door panels, to insulate it even more.
had the old (in bad shape and no top rail) fence that only covered front yard torn down and replaced with new fencing around the whole lot, as well as a large gate in back for rv access to the back, next to shop.
completely landscaped (there wasn't a tree or shrub on this lot)
Garage:
tape/textured/painted walls and ceiling
added heating unit
added shelving
House:
added hickory medicine cabinet to master bath
added laundry room cabinets
replaced blinds in office/bedroom with bali blinds
I didn't mention all the crap the previous owners left that we had to clean up and get rid of. What would the place still look like if we had just left all the forms, lumber, metal siding and crap out behind the shop?
I added that per some info left with the house (the previous owner was the builder of it) it had appraised at $183,500 back in 2008, when built, and that was with no shop and no fencing. Our neighbor across the street is putting a metal shop up. Just a bare shop, no electricity and no insulation is costing him $20,000.
Then I added to him that it might be worth noting that the 6 lots for sale in our subdivision have increased in asking price by 40% in the last 2 years. Not to mention our cost to build our new home and shop increased by that same percentage compared to what our builder quoted us 2 years ago vs. what we are paying now.
I told him I'm not really too concerned that we are asking more than we paid for it. Not to mention I don't really know for sure why the previous owner priced it so low and accepted an even lower price, other than he had told my DH that he wanted to sell it quickly because he was working/living out of state. We also found out during closing that the developer still had a lien of $25,000 for the lot on it and it sounds like one of the reasons they wanted to sell was so they could get the money out of it and finally get him paid back. They had never intended to live in the house, and were going to pay the developer for the lot when this house sold. Right after building is when the economy crashed and so they ended up moving into it because nothing was selling.
Not to mention the neighbor! 2 years ago it looked like a parts/wrecked car lot there. Now it's clean and looks like a house should. While I'm sure it's hard to put a dollar value on that, it does have an effect on home values and curb appeal. In my book there is some value to the time, effort and headaches we put forth last year to get this issue resolved and make our neighborhood look nice.
I'm certainly no real estate expert, but I'm also not going to give my house away, just because I got a good deal on it 2 years ago.
Monday, June 25, 2018
Weekend recap
Another weekend went by too quickly. Saturday morning we went out to the property to do a little "hvac" work, haha. It was another pouring rain Saturday. Ugh. He installed the flexible ducting from the bathroom fan to outside. When we were at Lowe's on Friday afternoon we also bought another fan/light set. Up above the bathroom he had them build a small "room" where he will put his air compressor and decided to put a fan up there, too. I don't know how many times I was up and down that scaffolding to grab this or that. My job was also to tear off pieces of hvac foil tape, as he was also insulating the ducting. We had brought 2 rolls, and while sticky, the stuff tore easily. When we ran out we had to use some leftover tape he had purchased here at local lumber store. That stuff was the worst. You couldn't pay me to buy that brand again! LOL. It didn't tear, so I also had to have a pair of scissors in my hand, making the job even more cumbersome. But, this stuff needed to get done before all the insulation is put in.
While we were there the people who are building on lot 7 pulled in with their camper trailer. They are going to live there while there house is being finished. Still haven't met them yet. Their lot is too far down that we can't even see them from our property (as the lot next to us is up higher than our lot, too).
Our neighbors out there also had to put their oldest dog down on Friday. So sad. She came over to the shop and told us about it. I think we all almost were going to cry.
I'm not sure what, if anything will be going on at the property this week. The builder still hasn't said when the insulation guys are coming. I thought the guy doing concrete/patio work is coming this week, but we still haven't had that confirmed either.
DH went out to the property again yesterday afternoon, but I stayed home and vacuumed. He took his pick up so he could move his dump trailer. I guess our neighbor across the street, here in town, is going to borrow it this week, so DH got it moved where he could hook up easily and pull it out. The telephone company contractors will probably be there today to do some work. They had left their equipment parked there at the end of last week.
Nothing on interest to look at our house for sale :( So, of course that has DH upset, too. It's all the realtor's fault. I don't even try to rationalize that argument with him anymore. I just nod and say yep. I do think a few people have driven by too look. We don't get much traffic on our street and 2 or 3 have driven by and then driven down the alley. I am a bit surprised we haven't even had anyone even come look at it.Especially since the similar quality houses that have been on the market the past year or so (just a few of them) have sold in a few weeks. I don't think we've over priced it - maybe a bit, but someone can certainly make an offer. But in looking at what else is for sale in the area, I don't think we are out of line. One place is $5k less asking price, but it's an older home built in the 1950's and very dated. Another one in town for same price as us, much larger (has a basement) but it's also super dated (built in 60's). The next closest priced one is a nice newer home, but it's only 2 bedrooms, but on 2 acres, but no shop. They want $260k. For what's out there for sale, I think we are in the ballpark. Other than that one at $260k, we are landscaped, the others are not. After that the homes for sale are in the low $300-400k and that's a whole different price range for what you get for that money. If you want to get under $200k....well, you aren't getting much...two are mobile homes and one is a very old house in town that doesn't have a garage. There's an older restored home in the next town (closer to the big city), no garage, only two bedrooms and they are asking $280k. The next cheapest houses in that town are some newer/larger ones, starting at $300k. The cheapest comparison in the city is $100k more than what we are asking. I think we'll get a sale, it's just not going to happen in 3 weeks. Probably a month or two is my guess. Which doesn't help for getting our new house started, but it is what it is.
While we were there the people who are building on lot 7 pulled in with their camper trailer. They are going to live there while there house is being finished. Still haven't met them yet. Their lot is too far down that we can't even see them from our property (as the lot next to us is up higher than our lot, too).
Our neighbors out there also had to put their oldest dog down on Friday. So sad. She came over to the shop and told us about it. I think we all almost were going to cry.
I'm not sure what, if anything will be going on at the property this week. The builder still hasn't said when the insulation guys are coming. I thought the guy doing concrete/patio work is coming this week, but we still haven't had that confirmed either.
DH went out to the property again yesterday afternoon, but I stayed home and vacuumed. He took his pick up so he could move his dump trailer. I guess our neighbor across the street, here in town, is going to borrow it this week, so DH got it moved where he could hook up easily and pull it out. The telephone company contractors will probably be there today to do some work. They had left their equipment parked there at the end of last week.
Nothing on interest to look at our house for sale :( So, of course that has DH upset, too. It's all the realtor's fault. I don't even try to rationalize that argument with him anymore. I just nod and say yep. I do think a few people have driven by too look. We don't get much traffic on our street and 2 or 3 have driven by and then driven down the alley. I am a bit surprised we haven't even had anyone even come look at it.Especially since the similar quality houses that have been on the market the past year or so (just a few of them) have sold in a few weeks. I don't think we've over priced it - maybe a bit, but someone can certainly make an offer. But in looking at what else is for sale in the area, I don't think we are out of line. One place is $5k less asking price, but it's an older home built in the 1950's and very dated. Another one in town for same price as us, much larger (has a basement) but it's also super dated (built in 60's). The next closest priced one is a nice newer home, but it's only 2 bedrooms, but on 2 acres, but no shop. They want $260k. For what's out there for sale, I think we are in the ballpark. Other than that one at $260k, we are landscaped, the others are not. After that the homes for sale are in the low $300-400k and that's a whole different price range for what you get for that money. If you want to get under $200k....well, you aren't getting much...two are mobile homes and one is a very old house in town that doesn't have a garage. There's an older restored home in the next town (closer to the big city), no garage, only two bedrooms and they are asking $280k. The next cheapest houses in that town are some newer/larger ones, starting at $300k. The cheapest comparison in the city is $100k more than what we are asking. I think we'll get a sale, it's just not going to happen in 3 weeks. Probably a month or two is my guess. Which doesn't help for getting our new house started, but it is what it is.
Thursday, June 21, 2018
Working on some small details
Our electrician was working on the shop yesterday. It was decided we needed to get the bathroom fan/light installed now, so that he could wire and it would be up there when installation got done. Plus we needed to meet with the builder to sign off on all his invoices to submit to the bank for a draw. I stopped work at 2:30 and we headed into the city to go to Lowe's for the fan/light. DH had texted the builder we were headed in to stop at Lowes and then we'd meet up. We were trying to find what aisle the dryer venting stuff was in. I was standing there looking it up on my phone (so DH didn't have to use up muscles walking around the whole store) and DH was wheeling the cart back towards me. All of a sudden the builder came up behind me and said "boo". Scared the crap out of me LOL. He saw our car in the parking lot, so he came in and found us. Worked out good - he helped DH pick out some different things and answered DH's questions.
DH had the electrician put a plug in up in the outside top of shop - for xmas lights :)
The local painter lady had stopped by the property and left DH an envelope with her bid. We opened it up on the way to Lowes. No thank you. She was $2000 higher than the builder's painter. Plus she was kind of annoying. Just for the shop painting she wanted $5400 - and she doesn't even have to paint siding - it's all pre-painted. We've used local contractors when we can: excavator, rockery, electrician and water well hook up. When all is said and done, I'll have to add up how much we contributed to the local economy here in our little town/county for this build.
I had thought DH or the builder had said he had to wait on our back ordered windows to do the siding, but that's not the case. The installation guys are supposed to be out soon (maybe tomorrow). Then the sheetrocking can start. I think the siding is getting delivered soon, too. Also, next week, the builder's son that does the concrete work is coming back to do our back patio on the house. I cannot wait to see that! It will be concrete stamped to make it look like wood with a stone look border around it. I was joking with DH that even though we won't have a house yet, we'll have a patio we can sit on this summer and watch the river, LOL.
DH had the electrician put a plug in up in the outside top of shop - for xmas lights :)
The local painter lady had stopped by the property and left DH an envelope with her bid. We opened it up on the way to Lowes. No thank you. She was $2000 higher than the builder's painter. Plus she was kind of annoying. Just for the shop painting she wanted $5400 - and she doesn't even have to paint siding - it's all pre-painted. We've used local contractors when we can: excavator, rockery, electrician and water well hook up. When all is said and done, I'll have to add up how much we contributed to the local economy here in our little town/county for this build.
I had thought DH or the builder had said he had to wait on our back ordered windows to do the siding, but that's not the case. The installation guys are supposed to be out soon (maybe tomorrow). Then the sheetrocking can start. I think the siding is getting delivered soon, too. Also, next week, the builder's son that does the concrete work is coming back to do our back patio on the house. I cannot wait to see that! It will be concrete stamped to make it look like wood with a stone look border around it. I was joking with DH that even though we won't have a house yet, we'll have a patio we can sit on this summer and watch the river, LOL.
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
Trying to get over the hump
Not much new going on today. The weather is back to summer temps and sunshine. Now hopefully our mud hole the property turned into, after over 2 inches of rain since Friday night, will get dried out again. The electrician worked all day yesterday putting wire in. Still at it today. DH says the guy is a major talker. DH is getting worn out just listening to him, LOL. Says he has a story for everything. haha.
DH's dad got discharged and able to go home yesterday. DH's sis put a picture of FIL and MIL on facebook with a smile on their faces getting discharged. DH's older brother's wife comments stating why don't they know about this and what's this news he has cancer? SIL texts DH that older bro's wife must be drunk because SIL has been texting older brother the updates, just as she has been texting DH. She even got a text reply back from older bro "ok thanks". Then older bro's wife tells SIL that older bro's phone isn't sending texts, so send them to her phone. Good grief. Like SIL doesn't have enough on her plate dealing without having to deal with these two dumb^$##'s. They are 60 years old and have pickled their brains for the past 40+ years with alcohol and pot. (this isn't the brother than called DH recently, though he seems to be heading that direction)
DH called his dad last night and he seemed pretty good. Was glad to be home again. Hopefully once he gets to see his cardiologist again, they can figure out something to help his heart. SIL also said MIL is getting worse with her dementia and sometimes doesn't know who SIL is, even though she's almost a daily constant in her life. I'm pretty sure when one of them dies the other won't be far behind.
The stupid part with these two brother's of DH is they are acting suddenly all concerned, but neither of them call or see the parents for years now. Once in a blue moon and then it's by the parents trying to make contact. I find it annoying when people don't bother with someone until they are on their deathbed. Ok, so you got to ease you own conscious and now you feel so much better. What a crock. How about all these years you just flat out ignored them and couldn't be bothered? It's not that hard to pick up the phone once a week, or even once a month, and call.
I looked at my Amazon store card this morning -watching for the credit on the bad electrical part. It's showing what looks like to be another charge pending, not a credit! WTheck?! I guess I'll have to see if it turns into a credit when it posts. I'm going to be a bit miffed if it's another charge, to say the least.
DH had a visit at the property yesterday from an old acquaintance. We knew him, though another friend, years ago, but then he moved to this state. I think he lives about an hour and a half from us. They are facebook friends, so he knows where we live now and had asked DH where we are building. He was on the road - passing by, so stopped to say hi to DH. That was nice of him.
DH's dad got discharged and able to go home yesterday. DH's sis put a picture of FIL and MIL on facebook with a smile on their faces getting discharged. DH's older brother's wife comments stating why don't they know about this and what's this news he has cancer? SIL texts DH that older bro's wife must be drunk because SIL has been texting older brother the updates, just as she has been texting DH. She even got a text reply back from older bro "ok thanks". Then older bro's wife tells SIL that older bro's phone isn't sending texts, so send them to her phone. Good grief. Like SIL doesn't have enough on her plate dealing without having to deal with these two dumb^$##'s. They are 60 years old and have pickled their brains for the past 40+ years with alcohol and pot. (this isn't the brother than called DH recently, though he seems to be heading that direction)
DH called his dad last night and he seemed pretty good. Was glad to be home again. Hopefully once he gets to see his cardiologist again, they can figure out something to help his heart. SIL also said MIL is getting worse with her dementia and sometimes doesn't know who SIL is, even though she's almost a daily constant in her life. I'm pretty sure when one of them dies the other won't be far behind.
The stupid part with these two brother's of DH is they are acting suddenly all concerned, but neither of them call or see the parents for years now. Once in a blue moon and then it's by the parents trying to make contact. I find it annoying when people don't bother with someone until they are on their deathbed. Ok, so you got to ease you own conscious and now you feel so much better. What a crock. How about all these years you just flat out ignored them and couldn't be bothered? It's not that hard to pick up the phone once a week, or even once a month, and call.
I looked at my Amazon store card this morning -watching for the credit on the bad electrical part. It's showing what looks like to be another charge pending, not a credit! WTheck?! I guess I'll have to see if it turns into a credit when it posts. I'm going to be a bit miffed if it's another charge, to say the least.
DH had a visit at the property yesterday from an old acquaintance. We knew him, though another friend, years ago, but then he moved to this state. I think he lives about an hour and a half from us. They are facebook friends, so he knows where we live now and had asked DH where we are building. He was on the road - passing by, so stopped to say hi to DH. That was nice of him.
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
The old heart and other broken parts
DH's dad finally had his doctor appointment last week with the cardiologist. Then had to wait until yesterday for results. Dr. immediately sent him to the ER. The plan was to do an angiogram to find the blockage and then put in a stent, or possibly do open heart surgery, if there was more than one blockage. I guess they found so many blockages they opted to do nothing until his cardiologist can assess risk, etc. So, he spent the night at the hospital and is supposed to be discharged today. Not sure when he will see his cardiologist, but it all doesn't sound very good. Hopefully they can do something to help him. Throw in that he also recently found out he has slow growing lung cancer in one lung.......He'll be 80 next month.
Our roofing on the shop got completed yesterday (again in the rain). I think it looks good and am happy with the color I picked out.....now hoping it will look good with the siding! LOL. The excavator guy is pushing us off again, so he can do other jobs he's taken on after agreeing to our job. Nice. He needs to come back and do the water lines now and finish backfilling around our gate piers, as well as he could do some driveway prep.
Today the electrician is coming back to start the wiring, now that the roof is on and it's dry inside. We ordered this breaker part he said we needed. I bought it off an Amazon seller for $60. It was supposed to be new. Opened the box and it was definitely not new. I sent the seller a message asking about it and he said it's a new part. I said, no, it is definitely not new and sent him 3 pictures. The mounting had signs it had already been mounted. The lugs had obviously had a wrench put on them, as well as there was a chip in the casing! He replied back that he was so sorry. It got listed wrong. He said I could send it back and he'd credit me for it, plus return shipping, but he doesn't have a new one (though he still has a new one listed on Amazon). DH took it with him this morning to show it to the electrician. He tested it and it's no good. So now I gotta send it back and get credit and order another one from someplace else. GRRR! Well, he just emailed back that he has issued credit and just throw it away, don't worry about sending it back. Well, at least that is good I don't have to make a trip to the post office.
Our roofing on the shop got completed yesterday (again in the rain). I think it looks good and am happy with the color I picked out.....now hoping it will look good with the siding! LOL. The excavator guy is pushing us off again, so he can do other jobs he's taken on after agreeing to our job. Nice. He needs to come back and do the water lines now and finish backfilling around our gate piers, as well as he could do some driveway prep.
Today the electrician is coming back to start the wiring, now that the roof is on and it's dry inside. We ordered this breaker part he said we needed. I bought it off an Amazon seller for $60. It was supposed to be new. Opened the box and it was definitely not new. I sent the seller a message asking about it and he said it's a new part. I said, no, it is definitely not new and sent him 3 pictures. The mounting had signs it had already been mounted. The lugs had obviously had a wrench put on them, as well as there was a chip in the casing! He replied back that he was so sorry. It got listed wrong. He said I could send it back and he'd credit me for it, plus return shipping, but he doesn't have a new one (though he still has a new one listed on Amazon). DH took it with him this morning to show it to the electrician. He tested it and it's no good. So now I gotta send it back and get credit and order another one from someplace else. GRRR! Well, he just emailed back that he has issued credit and just throw it away, don't worry about sending it back. Well, at least that is good I don't have to make a trip to the post office.
Monday, June 18, 2018
Where'd our summer weather go?
Weekend before last we had to have the rockery guy back to add a bit more to the back rockery, to add some to be level with where our back patio is ending up. It was a days machine rental and labor. The guy emailed the bill and I noticed he's set up that I can pay it online with debit, credit or ACH. The past bill I mailed him a check. Since it's an $800 bill, I've decided I might as well use his online payment option and use my 2% cash back credit card and get $16 in cash back. Then I'll just pay the credit card, rather than sending him a check. $16 is a nice reward, to me. I'm also going to wait 2 more days to pay him. Why? because that's when my credit card starts a new billing cycle and that way that $800 can be paid back on the 29th, on my next payday, without incurring any interest and without making me stretched too thin this pay period.
Last night I made meatloaf for dinner. I froze half of it and half is just the perfect size for us two. I'm glad I started doing this. Even hamburger is getting so expensive. I'm also being more mindful when I make a chicken recipe we have quite often. It's a chicken with rice and veggies dish. I use chicken tenderloins instead of chicken breasts. Instead of using the whole pack, I use just what we will eat and freeze the rest. Now I'm getting almost 2 meals out of the pack, rather than cooking it in the dish and then throwing out a few pieces (since DH won't eat leftovers and this is one dish I really don't care for as leftover).
The server went down at work a few minutes ago, so I'll just type up this post while I wait for them to get back up and running. Usually doesn't take them too long, when it happens. It's nice though that we have this message app called Slack that I just looked on with my phone and saw other's commenting that they lost remote connection (half our office gets to work from home on Mondays). I guess Comcast went down in the area.
The roofer didn't get finished yesterday, so had to come back today. He had told DH he needs to be finished and gone by 1pm. Well, he didn't show up until like 10:30 this morning (so much for I'll be there first thing, haha), so he'll probably be there all day again now. The weather is rainy again today. You'd think with all the rain we've had since Friday night, our lawn here at the house would be emerald green again.
My realtor just texted that the reason the showing got cancelled yesterday was that the lookers were first time buyers and they decided it was too far a drive to the city. For 100k less for same kind of house, I'd make the 45 minute drive LOL.
My neighbor at the property brought over another vase of flowers from her yard when we were working in the shop on Saturday. So pretty! I'm definitely going to plant some peonies! Just so big and pretty, and they smell "delicious" according to DH, LOL.
They are such nice people. I guess one of their dogs might have cancer. He's 11 (and the loudest barker!). Poor thing. We didn't see him outside on Saturday with the other dogs. Their dogs seem to have gotten used to us being there now and hardly bark much like they used to (non-stop!) so that is really nice and makes us relieved. Our oldest dog is almost 10 now. Makes me sad to know he probably doesn't have very many more years left. But so far he's doing well. Still can run and play. I think the cosequin I give him for his joints helps too. The vet recommended it a few years ago, so I give him one every day.
Well, still can't get logged back into work. Guess I'll go unload the dishwasher........
Last night I made meatloaf for dinner. I froze half of it and half is just the perfect size for us two. I'm glad I started doing this. Even hamburger is getting so expensive. I'm also being more mindful when I make a chicken recipe we have quite often. It's a chicken with rice and veggies dish. I use chicken tenderloins instead of chicken breasts. Instead of using the whole pack, I use just what we will eat and freeze the rest. Now I'm getting almost 2 meals out of the pack, rather than cooking it in the dish and then throwing out a few pieces (since DH won't eat leftovers and this is one dish I really don't care for as leftover).
The server went down at work a few minutes ago, so I'll just type up this post while I wait for them to get back up and running. Usually doesn't take them too long, when it happens. It's nice though that we have this message app called Slack that I just looked on with my phone and saw other's commenting that they lost remote connection (half our office gets to work from home on Mondays). I guess Comcast went down in the area.
The roofer didn't get finished yesterday, so had to come back today. He had told DH he needs to be finished and gone by 1pm. Well, he didn't show up until like 10:30 this morning (so much for I'll be there first thing, haha), so he'll probably be there all day again now. The weather is rainy again today. You'd think with all the rain we've had since Friday night, our lawn here at the house would be emerald green again.
My realtor just texted that the reason the showing got cancelled yesterday was that the lookers were first time buyers and they decided it was too far a drive to the city. For 100k less for same kind of house, I'd make the 45 minute drive LOL.
My neighbor at the property brought over another vase of flowers from her yard when we were working in the shop on Saturday. So pretty! I'm definitely going to plant some peonies! Just so big and pretty, and they smell "delicious" according to DH, LOL.
Well, still can't get logged back into work. Guess I'll go unload the dishwasher........
Sunday, June 17, 2018
House work
It turned into a 12 hour day at the property yesterday. DH was going to install "blocking" up in the trusses, so that the electrician can install recessed lighting. That big shop needs A LOT of lights! 31 four foot LED fixtures. 31 blocking spots to put up. Up on a scaffolding. DH was up there, I just moved it around when he was ready to move to the next spot. Plus it was pouring down rain so hard the first couple of hours we were there. The roof leaks! Ok, not really, but it did. It dripped pretty much everywhere inside, since the roofing material wasn't on yet. It was not pleasant outside, for sure. There was only sheeting on the trusses. The roofer crew had just shown up when we got there. They were supposed to come Friday, but said they would get it done Saturday and Sunday. Ok. Then the guy realized he forgot a couple things so his daughter had to drive to the city to get them (like a 1 1/2 - 2 hour round trip). He and the other guy got started. After she got back they said they were going back to the hotel in town (they got a room for Sat night) so they could change to dry clothes and would be right back. After they left the rain stopped. 3 hours later they get back at 3pm. 2 minutes before they pulled in it started pouring again. They worked until about 7:30pm and only got about half of one side done. I was just out there again this morning at 11am, dropping off something to DH and they were still working on the same side, so I really don't think it's all getting done by the end of today!
It was a super long day. We didn't leave until like 9:40pm. My back hurt, my feet hurt, my hips hurt. Standing on concrete for 12 hours is not fun.
Our shower for the shop bathroom got delivered and installed Friday.
Our realtor texted yesterday that someone wanted to show the house on Sunday afternoon at 2pm. Yay. So this morning we get up and get everything spiffed up. DH mowed the lawn. I vacuumed, etc. General tidying. At 10:30 my agent texts me that they cancelled. Boo!
Here is the roof with what they've gotten done so far. It's so hard to pick out colors! (at least for me it is). When the roofer guy opened the first bag the roofing comes in he said he really liked it, pretty color. I said I hope it will look good. He then asked what color the siding will be and I said a two tone brown (siding is pre-painted) and he said "oh, brown house - you should have done a green roof". No, I do not like green roofs. He also said right now it's a little darker looking than normal, because of all the rain on it.
I have no idea if it's all going to look ok. It's so hard to look at the stuff on such a small scale and know it will look good. I tried to look at pictures of houses and roof colors but there is really everything. Dark house with light roof, light house with dark roof. Light house with light roof. It as giving me a headache, so I just decided to go with what I picked out.
this is the siding (at the building supply place). Again, it's just a small sample to look at.
The bottom 3 1/2 feet of the shop will have stonework around it. I think I might do a lighter color trim, like what is on the bottom of this siding sample. I hope it will all look ok. It's scary to make such a basically permanent decision. I certainly can't afford to re-do it!
Our shower for the shop bathroom got delivered and installed Friday.
Our realtor texted yesterday that someone wanted to show the house on Sunday afternoon at 2pm. Yay. So this morning we get up and get everything spiffed up. DH mowed the lawn. I vacuumed, etc. General tidying. At 10:30 my agent texts me that they cancelled. Boo!
Here is the roof with what they've gotten done so far. It's so hard to pick out colors! (at least for me it is). When the roofer guy opened the first bag the roofing comes in he said he really liked it, pretty color. I said I hope it will look good. He then asked what color the siding will be and I said a two tone brown (siding is pre-painted) and he said "oh, brown house - you should have done a green roof". No, I do not like green roofs. He also said right now it's a little darker looking than normal, because of all the rain on it.
this is the siding (at the building supply place). Again, it's just a small sample to look at.
Friday, June 15, 2018
Friday ramblings
When DH meets certain people he has a way of making an instant connection. Not everyone he meets, of course, but it happens quite often. Me, never happens to, LOL. I think he's just more friendly than me. I always feel like I'd be coming on too strong - or maybe it's a difference between guys and gals? do guys bond easier?
When he met our neighbor across the street they had an instant connection. He's had to meet up with the electric co-op guy several times and email. He lives in the area (commutes to city) and they seem to have connected well. DH sent him an email that his crew guys came out and hooked up the power Wednesday (he just does the initial staking out) and to thank him for all his help and feel free to stop by there anytime and they can share a laugh over DH's building adventures. He replied back "thanks for being a friend, I drive by there every day and see it's making progress". He also connected really well with the guy that did our rockery wall. They still talk on the phone off and on.
So, the electrical meter panel we bought? Apparently missing parts! The electrician said it should have come with the $100 in parts I had to buy Wednesday. He actually called the manufacturer, spent like an hour on the phone with them and they agreed. Not sure what/why the one we got didn't. It kind of sounds like he and mfg. is making the electrical supply place deliver us a new one, that has all the parts it's supposed to and I should be getting a refund back on what I spent Wednesday.
Observation: living here compared to ultra metro area. The people you talk to on phone (or sometimes in person) with various service companies are so much nicer and friendlier. I don't know how to describe it. It's like they are more relaxed and actually listen. Whether it's someone from garbage, electric, telephone, etc, they all seem that way. It's like they actually enjoy their jobs. It's kind of refreshing. They always tell you to have a nice day, but it genuinely sounds like they mean it, LOL.
I told my DD it's a good thing she's engaged and all spoken for or else I'd be making her move here and setting her up with any of these nice young men we keep meeting. They are all so dang polite (and nice looking too!). Builder has 4 sons - all so nice and polite and every one of them nice looking and hard working. Finally got to meet our neighbor across the streets youngest son. He's 23, wild fire fighter. So handsome. They must grow 'em right around here LOL. Plus they all seem so grounded. Don't even get me started on if I see a young (or old, haha!) cowboy! There's just something about a guy in a cowboy hat, I'm telling ya and it's certainly common to see around here, that's for sure.
And another thing - if a company doesn't have a "quick ship/same day ship" item in stock why list it as a "quick ship" item??!! Why show the ship date as the date ordered, and not change it to a future date, if you don't have the damn stuff in stock. Oh I know, how about you order more for production BEFORE you start getting really low and run out?! This is what is going on with what I ordered for our shop and garage from where I work. (We rep the mfg'r). I ordered it a week ago, still hasn't shipped and now they are saying estimated 6/21. I don't know how our customer service and sales people deal with this kind of stuff every day.
Speaking of work.....big boss (one of the owners) sent out an email to everyone today that we need to make this bonus payout happen one way or the other. We need to be closer to our goal. It's kind of sounding like if we are pretty close, they'll pay it out. They should. The last 2 months payments from one our of mfg's have been almost double what we expected, just that in itself is enough to cover the mid year bonus's. I think we'll get there.
Being so busy the past couple of weeks, and adding in off and on rain we've been getting, we hadn't started watering our lawn yet. Well, all of a sudden this week it's looking dry and starting to turn brown. DH got the sprinkler out yesterday and we watered morning and evening. Watered really good again this morning. Gotta keep it looking nice since it's for sale, that's for sure.
It's payday. Time to pay some bills.
When he met our neighbor across the street they had an instant connection. He's had to meet up with the electric co-op guy several times and email. He lives in the area (commutes to city) and they seem to have connected well. DH sent him an email that his crew guys came out and hooked up the power Wednesday (he just does the initial staking out) and to thank him for all his help and feel free to stop by there anytime and they can share a laugh over DH's building adventures. He replied back "thanks for being a friend, I drive by there every day and see it's making progress". He also connected really well with the guy that did our rockery wall. They still talk on the phone off and on.
So, the electrical meter panel we bought? Apparently missing parts! The electrician said it should have come with the $100 in parts I had to buy Wednesday. He actually called the manufacturer, spent like an hour on the phone with them and they agreed. Not sure what/why the one we got didn't. It kind of sounds like he and mfg. is making the electrical supply place deliver us a new one, that has all the parts it's supposed to and I should be getting a refund back on what I spent Wednesday.
Observation: living here compared to ultra metro area. The people you talk to on phone (or sometimes in person) with various service companies are so much nicer and friendlier. I don't know how to describe it. It's like they are more relaxed and actually listen. Whether it's someone from garbage, electric, telephone, etc, they all seem that way. It's like they actually enjoy their jobs. It's kind of refreshing. They always tell you to have a nice day, but it genuinely sounds like they mean it, LOL.
I told my DD it's a good thing she's engaged and all spoken for or else I'd be making her move here and setting her up with any of these nice young men we keep meeting. They are all so dang polite (and nice looking too!). Builder has 4 sons - all so nice and polite and every one of them nice looking and hard working. Finally got to meet our neighbor across the streets youngest son. He's 23, wild fire fighter. So handsome. They must grow 'em right around here LOL. Plus they all seem so grounded. Don't even get me started on if I see a young (or old, haha!) cowboy! There's just something about a guy in a cowboy hat, I'm telling ya and it's certainly common to see around here, that's for sure.
And another thing - if a company doesn't have a "quick ship/same day ship" item in stock why list it as a "quick ship" item??!! Why show the ship date as the date ordered, and not change it to a future date, if you don't have the damn stuff in stock. Oh I know, how about you order more for production BEFORE you start getting really low and run out?! This is what is going on with what I ordered for our shop and garage from where I work. (We rep the mfg'r). I ordered it a week ago, still hasn't shipped and now they are saying estimated 6/21. I don't know how our customer service and sales people deal with this kind of stuff every day.
Speaking of work.....big boss (one of the owners) sent out an email to everyone today that we need to make this bonus payout happen one way or the other. We need to be closer to our goal. It's kind of sounding like if we are pretty close, they'll pay it out. They should. The last 2 months payments from one our of mfg's have been almost double what we expected, just that in itself is enough to cover the mid year bonus's. I think we'll get there.
Being so busy the past couple of weeks, and adding in off and on rain we've been getting, we hadn't started watering our lawn yet. Well, all of a sudden this week it's looking dry and starting to turn brown. DH got the sprinkler out yesterday and we watered morning and evening. Watered really good again this morning. Gotta keep it looking nice since it's for sale, that's for sure.
It's payday. Time to pay some bills.
Thursday, June 14, 2018
Back to normal-ness
It's early. I'm up (though I did get to sleep in a whole extra 15 minutes - wooo!). I've already logged into work. So far so good. Keeping my fingers crossed it will be a productive day. oh ya, and add in to all the computer crap yesterday and I also had to get payroll done! Thankfully I had all but one employee entered yesterday morning before it all happened. Then I was able to log into the payroll company via anywhere (so I used DH's computer) and finished it up and submitted it.
I was going to order DD's fiance's birthday present Tuesday to make sure it was there in time. Ended up completely forgetting about it until last night. Thank goodness for Amazon Prime - it will still be there in time.
Here's a recent drone picture (for Jennifer!) with the power line dug
The shop is huge, especially because it has such a steep roof pitch. Maybe it's just the angle of the photo, but it makes it look like it's going to be bigger than the house and garage LOL. It's actually smaller than the house part.
Nothing is going on down at the house being built on the last lot. It's been like 6 weeks or more since their foundation was poured. Someone told DH it was that they had to wait 30 days for their concrete slab to cure, because they are having concrete floors (heated) in their house and it has to set 30 days before they can put the coating/epoxy/whatever down on it. But now it's been like at least 45 days, probably closer to 60.
Not much else is new. The weather is sunny, but cool and 66 today. I like that, for sure.
I was going to order DD's fiance's birthday present Tuesday to make sure it was there in time. Ended up completely forgetting about it until last night. Thank goodness for Amazon Prime - it will still be there in time.
Here's a recent drone picture (for Jennifer!) with the power line dug
Nothing is going on down at the house being built on the last lot. It's been like 6 weeks or more since their foundation was poured. Someone told DH it was that they had to wait 30 days for their concrete slab to cure, because they are having concrete floors (heated) in their house and it has to set 30 days before they can put the coating/epoxy/whatever down on it. But now it's been like at least 45 days, probably closer to 60.
Not much else is new. The weather is sunny, but cool and 66 today. I like that, for sure.
Wednesday, June 13, 2018
Another weird day
The rest of yesterday afternoon got even weirder and more hectic. After I was able to start using my work computer again, whatever they did created other issues. A couple have been resolved, another is still not working.
Just as I was getting back to getting some work done, DH starts bombarding me with texts and calls. Apparently we still needed more electrical parts for our meter panel. Geez. That's the whole reason we went to an actual electrical supplier to get what would be needed, rather than big box store, where it would have been cheaper, but no one would have been able to answer questions and make sure we had what we needed. DH had even asked when we bought the meter panel if there was anything else he'd need to go with the install. Well, the electrician said we needed some lug kit and a ground bar kit, too. I called the electrical place, only to find out that what the electrician was calling the parts was not the terminology they use. OMG. As I'm on the phone with them, trying to figure out, trying to text DH back their questions (they should have called the electrical supplier themselves!) and knowing my realtor is going to arrive any minute = stress. Of course the realtor arrived as I was still on the phone. The guy was able to order what we needed and get it in first thing next morning. Well, that's good because the power company is coming to hook up and those parts need to be in! He got them ordered with 15 minutes to spare.
Got off phone and was able to deal with my realtor, who took all the pics for the listing. That didn't really take too long. The photos aren't near as professional as the realtor we used on our previous house (she had a professional come and take pics) but they are way better than the stuff I've seen from this local realtor in town. Realtor wanted to go see our property and the progress. So, since DH had my car, I rode out there with the realtor. We showed him around. Decided he'd just email us the docs to sign for listing rather than standing there trying to sign on the hood of a car, LOL. By then it was about 4:20 so I just hung out and waited for DH to get done, for about an hour, which turned into another half hour as we stood and talked to one of the builder's sons.
Yesterday the excavating got done for the power and telephone line from road to shop and conduit laid. The meter panel was installed on the side of the shop. The framers got more of the roof trusses framed, but they were short a guy again, too.
This morning we were back up at 5:30 (with a crappy nights sleep as DH was snoring so bad, I had to go sleep in the spare room). Get ready quick and dropped DH off at the property, while I drove into the city to pick up the electrical parts. As we pulled up to the property we got to see two deer on our property.
Got back home at 8:45 to get started with work and needed help from our IT because one of my functions wasn't working anymore after they did whatever they did yesterday. It's an app that attaches to our accounting software to send data over from our salespeoples expense reports. It had disappeared from the program after they reinstalled the accounting program yesterday. As soon as the guy logged into my computer to see, the program froze again and it was yesterday all over again - for yet another 5 hours on the phone with a different IT guy. It was a very long day. I'm beat
Just as I was getting back to getting some work done, DH starts bombarding me with texts and calls. Apparently we still needed more electrical parts for our meter panel. Geez. That's the whole reason we went to an actual electrical supplier to get what would be needed, rather than big box store, where it would have been cheaper, but no one would have been able to answer questions and make sure we had what we needed. DH had even asked when we bought the meter panel if there was anything else he'd need to go with the install. Well, the electrician said we needed some lug kit and a ground bar kit, too. I called the electrical place, only to find out that what the electrician was calling the parts was not the terminology they use. OMG. As I'm on the phone with them, trying to figure out, trying to text DH back their questions (they should have called the electrical supplier themselves!) and knowing my realtor is going to arrive any minute = stress. Of course the realtor arrived as I was still on the phone. The guy was able to order what we needed and get it in first thing next morning. Well, that's good because the power company is coming to hook up and those parts need to be in! He got them ordered with 15 minutes to spare.
Got off phone and was able to deal with my realtor, who took all the pics for the listing. That didn't really take too long. The photos aren't near as professional as the realtor we used on our previous house (she had a professional come and take pics) but they are way better than the stuff I've seen from this local realtor in town. Realtor wanted to go see our property and the progress. So, since DH had my car, I rode out there with the realtor. We showed him around. Decided he'd just email us the docs to sign for listing rather than standing there trying to sign on the hood of a car, LOL. By then it was about 4:20 so I just hung out and waited for DH to get done, for about an hour, which turned into another half hour as we stood and talked to one of the builder's sons.
Yesterday the excavating got done for the power and telephone line from road to shop and conduit laid. The meter panel was installed on the side of the shop. The framers got more of the roof trusses framed, but they were short a guy again, too.
This morning we were back up at 5:30 (with a crappy nights sleep as DH was snoring so bad, I had to go sleep in the spare room). Get ready quick and dropped DH off at the property, while I drove into the city to pick up the electrical parts. As we pulled up to the property we got to see two deer on our property.
Got back home at 8:45 to get started with work and needed help from our IT because one of my functions wasn't working anymore after they did whatever they did yesterday. It's an app that attaches to our accounting software to send data over from our salespeoples expense reports. It had disappeared from the program after they reinstalled the accounting program yesterday. As soon as the guy logged into my computer to see, the program froze again and it was yesterday all over again - for yet another 5 hours on the phone with a different IT guy. It was a very long day. I'm beat
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Weird day so far
It's been a frustrating morning. I have basically been offline with work for over the past 3 hours. No fault on my end. Our accounting software crashed again and our IT guy can't get it to work again. He works on it a bit, calls me up, we try to open it again, no luck. This is something that has been happening for months now, off and on with usually a month or two in between. I did not need this this morning. I had stuff to get done, before I need to be off work at 3pm, when my realtor is coming. Well, at least while I'm waiting for the IT guy to call me back, I'm getting the cleaning/pick up stuff I was going to do during a lunch break.
Yesterday's work at the property was by the excavator, getting our back patio slab prepped. Today the builder showed back up. From a picture DH sent it looks like they are getting the "Tyvek" on the sides of the shop and the excavator is digging the power line. I guess yesterday the excavator owner's worker guy said "just so you know, this patio slab work isn't in his bid". DH said oh yes it is - it's included in the 11,000 sq feet of prep work DH detailed out on his list to the excavator guy and while the excavator didn't specifically put "patio prep" in his bid description, it's part of that 11,000 feet that was measured out before hand and is listed on the bid. That 11,000 sq ft of prep work included driveway, garage and shop pads in front of doors and patio.
Creative baby gender reveals seem to be the rage now. A relative is pregnant with first child - she found out the sex, but hubby didn't know. He was playing in a baseball game and when he hit the ball pitched to him the ball exploded into pink chalk. Cute.
DD is still trying to plan their wedding, though it's pretty much been on hold the past few weeks, dealing with the death of her future SIL. She did say she's looking for a creative way to not register for all the traditional gifts and if someone wants to give a gift they'd enjoy some cash for their honeymoon trip (they are planning a cruise in Europe). Like she said, they have a house and all the "stuff" - dishes, towels, pots and pans. They really don't need anything.
GRRR. hour 4 now and still can't get back to work. It wouldn't be so bad if I could still get logged into my desktop and do my other stuff/programs, but I can't even do that while he's working on my computer.
Well, I just keep working on stuff. I had washed my duvet cover, so I just got that put back on and made my bed all perfect. Went outside (with my phone on me) and watered my flowers. Put away some papers on my desk into a drawer. It's just like when the realtor was coming to take pics of our house before....I couldn't stop walking around getting everything "just so". I still want to run the vacuum over the carpet again (I did it yesterday) but am waiting for IT guy to call back and don't want to not hear my phone ringing. I still have almost 3 hours before realtor gets here.
I think today is DH's dad's appointment with the heart doctor. Hopefully it's something that can be fixed.
Ahhh, finally back to work.......now with new issues because they had to reset my Windows profile. Now my email signature line is completely gone and I don't know how to add it back (we have to use a specific pre-made one) and I can't access one of our drives with folders I use. My email "view" is all strange and I need to figure out how to move it back to like I had it. I prefer my preview pane on the top of the email to read, rather than on the side.
Yesterday's work at the property was by the excavator, getting our back patio slab prepped. Today the builder showed back up. From a picture DH sent it looks like they are getting the "Tyvek" on the sides of the shop and the excavator is digging the power line. I guess yesterday the excavator owner's worker guy said "just so you know, this patio slab work isn't in his bid". DH said oh yes it is - it's included in the 11,000 sq feet of prep work DH detailed out on his list to the excavator guy and while the excavator didn't specifically put "patio prep" in his bid description, it's part of that 11,000 feet that was measured out before hand and is listed on the bid. That 11,000 sq ft of prep work included driveway, garage and shop pads in front of doors and patio.
Creative baby gender reveals seem to be the rage now. A relative is pregnant with first child - she found out the sex, but hubby didn't know. He was playing in a baseball game and when he hit the ball pitched to him the ball exploded into pink chalk. Cute.
DD is still trying to plan their wedding, though it's pretty much been on hold the past few weeks, dealing with the death of her future SIL. She did say she's looking for a creative way to not register for all the traditional gifts and if someone wants to give a gift they'd enjoy some cash for their honeymoon trip (they are planning a cruise in Europe). Like she said, they have a house and all the "stuff" - dishes, towels, pots and pans. They really don't need anything.
GRRR. hour 4 now and still can't get back to work. It wouldn't be so bad if I could still get logged into my desktop and do my other stuff/programs, but I can't even do that while he's working on my computer.
Well, I just keep working on stuff. I had washed my duvet cover, so I just got that put back on and made my bed all perfect. Went outside (with my phone on me) and watered my flowers. Put away some papers on my desk into a drawer. It's just like when the realtor was coming to take pics of our house before....I couldn't stop walking around getting everything "just so". I still want to run the vacuum over the carpet again (I did it yesterday) but am waiting for IT guy to call back and don't want to not hear my phone ringing. I still have almost 3 hours before realtor gets here.
I think today is DH's dad's appointment with the heart doctor. Hopefully it's something that can be fixed.
Ahhh, finally back to work.......now with new issues because they had to reset my Windows profile. Now my email signature line is completely gone and I don't know how to add it back (we have to use a specific pre-made one) and I can't access one of our drives with folders I use. My email "view" is all strange and I need to figure out how to move it back to like I had it. I prefer my preview pane on the top of the email to read, rather than on the side.
Monday, June 11, 2018
Plugging along
I swear it seems like Monday's just keep coming faster and faster. Yesterday morning we went out to the property to mark out where we want our front and back patios to be. The weather has really cooled down the past few days, which has been nice, though it was pretty cold out yesterday. It only took us maybe an hour to do this, as we pretty much already had it drawn out how we wanted it. It will make for a nice back patio area looking out over the river. There will be an area outside our dining room french doors for a patio table and chairs. There will be a nice area on the other end, outside our bedroom for a couple of lounge chairs. The middle will be covered and out from our great room. The front will be a walkway from the driveway and then a smaller covered area coming out over the front door.
Friday early afternoon my neighbor friend across from us texted me to ask if I heard any commotion going on at their place earlier. I hadn't, though from inside my house it would be too far away to hear anything as they are on the other side of a field across from us. I asked her if something happened and she texted me back a picture of one of her chickens that had been killed by something that got in her yard. Poor chicken. They don't know what got it, but are guessing a dog. A fox or coyote would have ate it or taken it to eat. We rarely see dogs running around, so not sure. Their yard is fenced with a 4' chain link fence, like ours is.
Friday the roof work only got about half done. They only worked a half day because a couple of the young guys had a baseball game to participate in and and they aren't working today as one of them had some other recreational activity going on. So, don't tell us you and your guys are working 7 days a week! You aren't even working 40 hours Mon-Fri! Today the excavator is supposed to be there getting ready for water and power lines. The power guys want to do it on Wednesday, as they will be out in our area for another job. We'll see, I guess.
People are weird. DH's good friend (who used this same builder to build his beautiful house and shop) has been acting weird. He spent the first year and a half we've lived here telling DH how much he will help him with some of the stuff on building our house/getting site work done. Then when it came time to help he tells DH "I don't know how much I'll be available, we're going to do a lot of camping this summer". Well, no biggie. We had kept telling him we didn't expect him to help on it - he's got his own job and house to take care of. We could also tell that he is drinking more and more often. DH posts just about every day pics and stuff of our progress. Most of the time neither this friend or his wife click like on anything anymore. DH and his wife used to comment a lot on each others posts (joking a lot) all the time. I told DH it's not about him. I'm sure they are having problems (we sure heard enough about them since we moved here) and not to take it personally. DH said a weird thing came up with our builder or one of his sons on Friday made the comment that DH doesn't know if it came from friend or what but something to the effect that DH had to "one up" friend in building his shop by making the roof taller than friends (otherwise it's the same size shop). DH was like 'huh?!....hmmm. well that never crossed my mind. I picked the roof height because it wanted it to be the same pitch as our house and match it!". So, who knows, friends are jealous of a shop?! People are weird.
Our realtor is coming out tomorrow afternoon to do our pics and get our listing going. He said he also would love to go out to our property and see the progress. Sounds like tomorrow will be a busy afternoon.
Hanging on day by day to see if we make our sales goal at work. Last month was good and we were still on target, this month so far isn't. It always seems to be down to the last day of June to see if we make it to get our mid year bonus. I could sure use that $4100 (though it's about $3100 after taxes), ya know?!
Friday early afternoon my neighbor friend across from us texted me to ask if I heard any commotion going on at their place earlier. I hadn't, though from inside my house it would be too far away to hear anything as they are on the other side of a field across from us. I asked her if something happened and she texted me back a picture of one of her chickens that had been killed by something that got in her yard. Poor chicken. They don't know what got it, but are guessing a dog. A fox or coyote would have ate it or taken it to eat. We rarely see dogs running around, so not sure. Their yard is fenced with a 4' chain link fence, like ours is.
Friday the roof work only got about half done. They only worked a half day because a couple of the young guys had a baseball game to participate in and and they aren't working today as one of them had some other recreational activity going on. So, don't tell us you and your guys are working 7 days a week! You aren't even working 40 hours Mon-Fri! Today the excavator is supposed to be there getting ready for water and power lines. The power guys want to do it on Wednesday, as they will be out in our area for another job. We'll see, I guess.
People are weird. DH's good friend (who used this same builder to build his beautiful house and shop) has been acting weird. He spent the first year and a half we've lived here telling DH how much he will help him with some of the stuff on building our house/getting site work done. Then when it came time to help he tells DH "I don't know how much I'll be available, we're going to do a lot of camping this summer". Well, no biggie. We had kept telling him we didn't expect him to help on it - he's got his own job and house to take care of. We could also tell that he is drinking more and more often. DH posts just about every day pics and stuff of our progress. Most of the time neither this friend or his wife click like on anything anymore. DH and his wife used to comment a lot on each others posts (joking a lot) all the time. I told DH it's not about him. I'm sure they are having problems (we sure heard enough about them since we moved here) and not to take it personally. DH said a weird thing came up with our builder or one of his sons on Friday made the comment that DH doesn't know if it came from friend or what but something to the effect that DH had to "one up" friend in building his shop by making the roof taller than friends (otherwise it's the same size shop). DH was like 'huh?!....hmmm. well that never crossed my mind. I picked the roof height because it wanted it to be the same pitch as our house and match it!". So, who knows, friends are jealous of a shop?! People are weird.
Our realtor is coming out tomorrow afternoon to do our pics and get our listing going. He said he also would love to go out to our property and see the progress. Sounds like tomorrow will be a busy afternoon.
Hanging on day by day to see if we make our sales goal at work. Last month was good and we were still on target, this month so far isn't. It always seems to be down to the last day of June to see if we make it to get our mid year bonus. I could sure use that $4100 (though it's about $3100 after taxes), ya know?!
Saturday, June 9, 2018
Early to bed Early to rise
Today was yet another get up at 5:30 am day. Not my strong suit. We left the house at 6:15 and I dropped DH off at the property at 6:30. His rockery guy was coming back to do some more work around where our back patio will be. I headed into the city - wanting a mocha! Got to Target at 7:20 to realize they don't open until 8am. So, I went over to Walmart to do my grocery shopping. I figured that early in the morning it should not be crowded at all, and it wasn't. Then I realized I forgot my list. I grabbed a piece of paper off my desk this morning and stuffed it in my purse, but it wasn't my list. I just went up and down almost every aisle so maybe my memory would jog if I happened to forget something I had written down. I looked at my list when I got home and other than 2 not really needed items, that is all I forgot.
Next stop was another grocery store. I had some rewards to use up and chose free dozen eggs and free case of bottled water. I also picked up some strawberries and shortcake cups, and some cookies from the bakery aisle. They also had a Starbucks in the store so I got my coffee (with some money I still have left on a gift card).
Last stop was Target for laundry, toilet paper, more cookies and some soda. I decided to "splurge" on myself a bit. Bought 3 t-shirts (3 for $20) as I'm in need of some new t-shirts for summer wear. I also bought some new shampoo and conditioner that is a bit more than I usually spend. A couple weeks ago my cousin posted on Facebook a before and after pic of her blondish hair after using some new product. Her hair didn't look as gray. I commented "I need that! LOL". Turns out she is online selling some new hair stuff called Monat and said she's send me some samples of the shampoo and conditioner. It was such a tiny sample that I did manage to get 3 uses out of, but couldn't really tell much difference in my hair. Then I looked at how much this stuff costs. No way I am paying $50 for a bottle of shampoo! While perusing the hair care aisle at Target I decided to give the John Frieda Brilliant Blonde shampoo and conditioner a try and see if that brings out some of my blonde (that is almost all white now).
Took about 50 minutes to get back home. There is still quite a bit of road construction going on and down to one lane freeway and reduced speeds for quite a few miles.
I unloaded all the stuff and got most of it put away and then I printed out some checks I need to mail out for my side job and ran those over to the post office and to pick up our mail. Got home and DD called to chat. She spent the night at grandma's house and will leave her dog with her for the weekend, while she, her fiance and his family have the memorial service for fiance's sister.
It's almost noon and being up at 5:30am I am ready for a nap. So off I go.......
Next stop was another grocery store. I had some rewards to use up and chose free dozen eggs and free case of bottled water. I also picked up some strawberries and shortcake cups, and some cookies from the bakery aisle. They also had a Starbucks in the store so I got my coffee (with some money I still have left on a gift card).
Last stop was Target for laundry, toilet paper, more cookies and some soda. I decided to "splurge" on myself a bit. Bought 3 t-shirts (3 for $20) as I'm in need of some new t-shirts for summer wear. I also bought some new shampoo and conditioner that is a bit more than I usually spend. A couple weeks ago my cousin posted on Facebook a before and after pic of her blondish hair after using some new product. Her hair didn't look as gray. I commented "I need that! LOL". Turns out she is online selling some new hair stuff called Monat and said she's send me some samples of the shampoo and conditioner. It was such a tiny sample that I did manage to get 3 uses out of, but couldn't really tell much difference in my hair. Then I looked at how much this stuff costs. No way I am paying $50 for a bottle of shampoo! While perusing the hair care aisle at Target I decided to give the John Frieda Brilliant Blonde shampoo and conditioner a try and see if that brings out some of my blonde (that is almost all white now).
Took about 50 minutes to get back home. There is still quite a bit of road construction going on and down to one lane freeway and reduced speeds for quite a few miles.
I unloaded all the stuff and got most of it put away and then I printed out some checks I need to mail out for my side job and ran those over to the post office and to pick up our mail. Got home and DD called to chat. She spent the night at grandma's house and will leave her dog with her for the weekend, while she, her fiance and his family have the memorial service for fiance's sister.
It's almost noon and being up at 5:30am I am ready for a nap. So off I go.......
Friday, June 8, 2018
Cash back rewards
The first month we charged some building stuff (and got reimbursed for most of it from our construction loan) I earned $78 in cash back rewards. Last month I earned $45, by charging some of my regular monthly stuff (and some building stuff we are paying for) and then paid it off. Of course I'm trying to keep it available for needed construction costs, but once that is done I will be using it for my regular monthly bills and expenses as much as possible to earn that reward each month. I have a PayPal debit card I've had for several years that earns 1%, but this earns 2% and I can use it the same way - I just have to pay it off, with an online payment, rather than it automatically coming right out of my checking, as the debit card does.
My biggest monthly bill that I charge on my debit card is DH's health insurance of $560 a month. Well, I'd rather charge it on the credit card and earn 2% (rather than 1% on debit). $11.20 a month is a nice cash back on it. I can charge it and turn around and pay it off. At the beginning of the year the health insurance company sent out something that they were changing their website and log in. I was busy and set the letter about it aside. I didn't do anything with it for a couple of months because my payment is set up to charge my debit card automatically, so there's no reason for me to log in on a regular basis. When I got this new cc and wanted to use that for the payment, I couldn't log into the health insurance. I got the letter to look at it and realized you had to log in with the new temporary password in the letter within like 60 days and I had just passed it. I tried to call, but they wouldn't let me do it, they had to talk to DH, and he wasn't home. For the next week he was gone all day (out at property working) and was always gone too early to call and home too late. I just decided to forget about it for now.
Yesterday I got an email from the health insurance that my debit card is due to expire soon. (August). Well, shoot, now I will have to get DH to call (he hates doing that kind of stuff) so I can access the account online and update payment method. In the back of my mind I was like how is that debit card I have set up as payment method expiring? it's good until 2020.The email had a link to the payment account. I clicked on it just for kicks and tried to sign in with his member #, last name and date of birth. I got a message he already had an account set up. Then I clicked on forgot user ID and got emailed the ID. Then I tried my old password I had set up before and it worked! I was able to set up the 2% cash back credit card as the payment method. Yay! The account had my current debit card I'm using and still had my old debit card (that got hacked/closed) as secondary payment method, so that's the card they had emailed about expiring.
Just trying to get/save/earn every extra dollar I can ;)
My biggest monthly bill that I charge on my debit card is DH's health insurance of $560 a month. Well, I'd rather charge it on the credit card and earn 2% (rather than 1% on debit). $11.20 a month is a nice cash back on it. I can charge it and turn around and pay it off. At the beginning of the year the health insurance company sent out something that they were changing their website and log in. I was busy and set the letter about it aside. I didn't do anything with it for a couple of months because my payment is set up to charge my debit card automatically, so there's no reason for me to log in on a regular basis. When I got this new cc and wanted to use that for the payment, I couldn't log into the health insurance. I got the letter to look at it and realized you had to log in with the new temporary password in the letter within like 60 days and I had just passed it. I tried to call, but they wouldn't let me do it, they had to talk to DH, and he wasn't home. For the next week he was gone all day (out at property working) and was always gone too early to call and home too late. I just decided to forget about it for now.
Yesterday I got an email from the health insurance that my debit card is due to expire soon. (August). Well, shoot, now I will have to get DH to call (he hates doing that kind of stuff) so I can access the account online and update payment method. In the back of my mind I was like how is that debit card I have set up as payment method expiring? it's good until 2020.The email had a link to the payment account. I clicked on it just for kicks and tried to sign in with his member #, last name and date of birth. I got a message he already had an account set up. Then I clicked on forgot user ID and got emailed the ID. Then I tried my old password I had set up before and it worked! I was able to set up the 2% cash back credit card as the payment method. Yay! The account had my current debit card I'm using and still had my old debit card (that got hacked/closed) as secondary payment method, so that's the card they had emailed about expiring.
Just trying to get/save/earn every extra dollar I can ;)
Thursday, June 7, 2018
Out damned spot!
Good grief and a half! Our bathtub floor was giving me a serious headache. It's got a very textured base where dirty, soapy water just builds up and sticks down in all those crevices. It was pretty clean when we moved in, but over past 20 months just gradually keeps getting worse. NOTHING gets it clean. I have tried:
Brillo pad (which is usually what I use to clean sinks and tubs/showers)
Magic Eraser (you'd think this one would work)
Various chemical cleaners: Kaboom, Clorox w/bleach, etc (ewwww...harsh smells)
Toilet bowl cleaner
Ammonia (I had used straight ammonia on my textured old vinyl kitchen floor several years ago and it worked wonders, thought maybe it would get into this texture and bring up the dirt too)
Comet
Dishwasher detergent
Baking soda
When I googled cleaning a textured tub floor various comments on various pages swore by the above. None helped me a bit.
Scrub scrub scrub and it just won't clean. You'd think something would lift up that dirt! Finally, I found a you tube video I watched of a really grungy shower floor (but it wasn't really textured the same as mine) and I tried that method.
Sprinkle down baking soda, cover with an old towel and pour boiling water over it. Let set until cool. Use old towel to scrub up dirt stains. In her video that took most of it up. In my case, it really did nothing. Her second step was to heat up 2 cups white vinegar and 2 T. Dawn dish soap in microwave for 2 minutes. Spray floor and let set for 30 minutes and scrub up with a brush. Ok, now we are finally getting somewhere. Not all the way there, but a huge improvement. The half of the floor farthest away from drain/spout got completely clean now. The other half was about 50% better. I did a second spray of the hot vinegar and dawn and let it set a half hour. It's finally clean now! I didn't want to leave a dirty tub/shower for whoever buys this house.
Things I've learned I don't want in my new house, from this house:
white kitchen sink. It stains too easily (though Cascade dishwasher detergent sprinkled on and then scrubbed with a sponge works pretty darn well)
textured shower/tub floor - UGH!
an oven with no venting for broiling. I can't broil steak or hamburgers without setting off the fire alarm
Brillo pad (which is usually what I use to clean sinks and tubs/showers)
Magic Eraser (you'd think this one would work)
Various chemical cleaners: Kaboom, Clorox w/bleach, etc (ewwww...harsh smells)
Toilet bowl cleaner
Ammonia (I had used straight ammonia on my textured old vinyl kitchen floor several years ago and it worked wonders, thought maybe it would get into this texture and bring up the dirt too)
Comet
Dishwasher detergent
Baking soda
When I googled cleaning a textured tub floor various comments on various pages swore by the above. None helped me a bit.
Scrub scrub scrub and it just won't clean. You'd think something would lift up that dirt! Finally, I found a you tube video I watched of a really grungy shower floor (but it wasn't really textured the same as mine) and I tried that method.
Sprinkle down baking soda, cover with an old towel and pour boiling water over it. Let set until cool. Use old towel to scrub up dirt stains. In her video that took most of it up. In my case, it really did nothing. Her second step was to heat up 2 cups white vinegar and 2 T. Dawn dish soap in microwave for 2 minutes. Spray floor and let set for 30 minutes and scrub up with a brush. Ok, now we are finally getting somewhere. Not all the way there, but a huge improvement. The half of the floor farthest away from drain/spout got completely clean now. The other half was about 50% better. I did a second spray of the hot vinegar and dawn and let it set a half hour. It's finally clean now! I didn't want to leave a dirty tub/shower for whoever buys this house.
Things I've learned I don't want in my new house, from this house:
white kitchen sink. It stains too easily (though Cascade dishwasher detergent sprinkled on and then scrubbed with a sponge works pretty darn well)
textured shower/tub floor - UGH!
an oven with no venting for broiling. I can't broil steak or hamburgers without setting off the fire alarm
Wednesday, June 6, 2018
We have walls
After such a slow process these past 2 months, yesterday was a whirlwind of building. Finally! The concrete slab for our garage got poured, as well as there was enough concrete left over to finish pouring our shed/chicken coop and the gate piers. Now DH can finally get those backfilled in.
Most impressive was we suddenly have 4 shop framed walls up. Woohoo!
I'm not sure why the two tall posts, but they got cut down some, obviously something to do with the roof. That end of the shop will have a big tall roll up door. There was a full crew working all day. One of the inside components we need is something we sell at my company. I'm getting ready to place my order (at our lower than distributor cost) and yesterday my boss told me my company is paying for half of it for me. Very nice! I was hoping for that. That will save me about $1200.
Here's a drone shot from the end of yesterday, of the whole site
We are going to do some concrete stamping (down the road - when they pour patios and driveway pads) and have decided to put this stamp in our front entry way. One of the builder's son's does this work and sent DH a text with a picture of a stamp they had recently purchased. He's only got to use it once so far and when DH told him we'd like to have that one used, he said he was really excited. It is this same stamp, though this isn't the one he did. His was kind of neat, because he used the stain to do more shading. I think it will add a neat touch to our place.
Most impressive was we suddenly have 4 shop framed walls up. Woohoo!
Here's a drone shot from the end of yesterday, of the whole site
Tuesday, June 5, 2018
Work in Progress
We had a pretty good weekend, well at least Saturday was. We packed a lunch and went out the the property around 9:30 in the morning so we could cut and lay the vapor barrier down for the shop and garage floor. This wasn't something the builder usually thinks is necessary (so of course not in his cost breakdown). DH wanted it done. Better safe than sorry. So, we spent $500 for the big roll and laid it out ourselves and cut it and taped it together
We sat on our covered front porch and ate dinner. While I was making it, I had texted my neighbor friend across the street asking how her DH was doing (he had surgery earlier in the week). She said good, he was taking a nap and then then were going to take a walk to get him up and moving around. We were still sitting out on the porch when they came walking past, so they came and sat with us and visited. While we were enjoying their company, her parents drove by, saw us all sitting there, so they stopped and visited too. All in all, made for a really nice day.
Sunday DH woke up crabby and stayed crabby all day (probably in pain from all our work Saturday). I just did my best to ignore him. I cleaned house while he was out in his shop, trying to make it not look so "full". LOL.
Monday was finally concrete slab pouring day! DH got up really early to get out there, so he could unfold the vapor sheeting and get it all laid back out, so the worker guys wouldn't have to take time to do it, since concrete trucks were coming first thing. He got out there like 6am and our builder's two sons (his 3 or 4 sons work for him) were already there and laid it out. I guess they actually came the night before to camp out and were just sleeping outside on top of the shop rock packed floor. Then the big thunder and lightening storm started, which they said was really cool to watch while laying there...until the rain started pouring LOL. They had to go sleep in their truck and when DH got there at 6am, they had already laid out the vapor barrier, which was nice and saved his muscles from having to do it.
As the concrete truck parked and was getting ready DH sees a deer standing right behind the truck! As soon as they all looked at it it ran off to the other side of the road, which DH then got this picture. I can't believe the deer got that close to the machinery in the first place
The slab is all poured for the shop, but still lots of work to do with it the rest of the day
They did have a little bit of concrete left over and were able to pour half the shed/chicken coop footings and will get the rest done with the garage pour today. DH had built those footings by himself and the builder told him they were really nicely done.
The builders son and another kid were camping out again at our property last night. DH invited them to come over to our house, take a shower, and we took them out to eat at the town restaurant. It really only cost me one extra meal. I remembered I had my punch card full for one free meal. We hadn't eaten there in quite awhile, so I almost forgot I had it. The builders son reminded me so much of my son. Same build, short hair, same facial expressions and then he'd smile and it was just like my son's amazing smile. They were both very polite boys. Yes sir, thank you ma'am. After dinner we followed them back out to the property where he had to cut seams into the concrete, now that it had hardened enough.
It took us a few hours to do both the shop and garage (and my legs are still feeling it from all the bending over). We took a break and had a nice lunch sitting at our picnic table, up in the shade. We didn't leave it all folded out because it was supposed to rain Sunday night, so we folded it all up as best we could and left in the corner. Our property neighbor lady came out to ask what we were working on and when we told her she said "oh we probably should have done that with our basement floor". The have daylight basement with concrete floors. DH asked if water is seeping up and she said that the concrete has white spots and DH said yep, that's moisture getting in the concrete. So, we are glad we are doing it. Granted, it's only for shop and garage floors, but it will help keep it from getting moisture and eventually cracking.
We got home and dropped the dogs off at the house and then went back to walk through the big car show here in town. We went last year and enjoyed it. We didn't spend too much time, as we were both tired out, but it was fun. They got around 170 cars this year, so it does seem to be growing each year. The hotel parking lot was packed from people coming from out of the area for it.
Got home and relaxed a bit and then I made a quick and easy dinner of this, an easy favorite of ours
Sunday DH woke up crabby and stayed crabby all day (probably in pain from all our work Saturday). I just did my best to ignore him. I cleaned house while he was out in his shop, trying to make it not look so "full". LOL.
Monday was finally concrete slab pouring day! DH got up really early to get out there, so he could unfold the vapor sheeting and get it all laid back out, so the worker guys wouldn't have to take time to do it, since concrete trucks were coming first thing. He got out there like 6am and our builder's two sons (his 3 or 4 sons work for him) were already there and laid it out. I guess they actually came the night before to camp out and were just sleeping outside on top of the shop rock packed floor. Then the big thunder and lightening storm started, which they said was really cool to watch while laying there...until the rain started pouring LOL. They had to go sleep in their truck and when DH got there at 6am, they had already laid out the vapor barrier, which was nice and saved his muscles from having to do it.
As the concrete truck parked and was getting ready DH sees a deer standing right behind the truck! As soon as they all looked at it it ran off to the other side of the road, which DH then got this picture. I can't believe the deer got that close to the machinery in the first place
The builders son and another kid were camping out again at our property last night. DH invited them to come over to our house, take a shower, and we took them out to eat at the town restaurant. It really only cost me one extra meal. I remembered I had my punch card full for one free meal. We hadn't eaten there in quite awhile, so I almost forgot I had it. The builders son reminded me so much of my son. Same build, short hair, same facial expressions and then he'd smile and it was just like my son's amazing smile. They were both very polite boys. Yes sir, thank you ma'am. After dinner we followed them back out to the property where he had to cut seams into the concrete, now that it had hardened enough.
Monday, June 4, 2018
Back on the house for sale merry-go-round
And we're back to Monday again already! Friday afternoon I contacted our real estate agent about getting this place listed and to see if he found out what that recent house sale here in town sold for. They were asking $270k and accepted $250k. It sold in 3 weeks. The couple that owned it are getting a divorce, so who know how much that factored in to them accepting a low offer that quick. DH does a lot of research into what goes for sale here and in neighboring towns. He did the same thing with our old house.
Our old house really had no comps, even though agents tried to say they'd find them. First off, where we were, so close in to everything, there were no 1 1/4 acre lots. Secondly, if there were, it wasn't a manf. home. DH wanted to ask at least $300k. The first agent we talked to said $250k. We told her to take a hike. Even though she had "comps".....comps not even in the city we were in and "out in the boonies" is not even close to what we had. Plus, you could tell she just wanted to price it low, get a quick sale and earn her 3%. The extra $1500 she would earn was less important to her than the extra $50,000 we would get!. Next one said $275k. Nope. Then the third one did say low $300's and we sold it for that, no problem (other than the buyers qualification problems we had trying to sell)....3 times! LOL
So, for this house we are in now, DH is thinking $225k. Our agent wanted to do $200k...or $199,900...you know keep it in the 1's. Nope. Again, most likey he just wants to make a quick easy sale and get his 3% and while getting an extra $750 in commission is no big deal to him, I'm sure, that extra $25k, if we can get it, it is HUGE to us and would sure help with our house building costs. That house that just sold, right near us, is about a little bigger sf, also has a shop, but only a single car garage. And while it's been remodeled and is nice, it's still a 65 year old house. Our house was built 10 years ago. The other house is on the river (sort of, you can't really access the river), we are a block off. So, we think adjusting for those things back and for in our favor and not in our favor, we should be able to get at least $200k, if not more. We are hoping for $215k. We paid $161k for it almost 2 years ago, put about $12k improving it. The market is very hot in the big city nearest us, about a 45 minute drive. People can't find houses to buy in the city. Everything is going fast and for asking price. To buy this same house in the city would be at least $350k. While most people in this area think a 45 minute commute is horrific (but there is ZERO traffic), some people do do it, so they can buy a cheaper house. Our renter neighbor commutes every day because his rent is half what it would be in the city.
The other thing that is supposed to be helping the housing market in this small town/county is one of the main employers in this county got bought out by an out of state company this past year. They are investing a lot of money back into it, increasing wages and transferring in some employees from out of state to work there.......and these people moving in can't find anything to buy. This is what we were told by two local contractors. There is just not a lot to choose from for sale here. Just about anything in town is really old and usually needs work. There are very few new houses (like ours) right in town.
We'll be happy with $200k, if that's what we end up with (we owe $150k) but let's go with the higher end pricing to start out and see if there is any interest. Apparently the people that bought the house down the street are from out of state. People from out of state don't even blink an eye at a price like that. To them (and we were same way, coming from higher priced area) that is a good deal, LOL.
Our old house really had no comps, even though agents tried to say they'd find them. First off, where we were, so close in to everything, there were no 1 1/4 acre lots. Secondly, if there were, it wasn't a manf. home. DH wanted to ask at least $300k. The first agent we talked to said $250k. We told her to take a hike. Even though she had "comps".....comps not even in the city we were in and "out in the boonies" is not even close to what we had. Plus, you could tell she just wanted to price it low, get a quick sale and earn her 3%. The extra $1500 she would earn was less important to her than the extra $50,000 we would get!. Next one said $275k. Nope. Then the third one did say low $300's and we sold it for that, no problem (other than the buyers qualification problems we had trying to sell)....3 times! LOL
So, for this house we are in now, DH is thinking $225k. Our agent wanted to do $200k...or $199,900...you know keep it in the 1's. Nope. Again, most likey he just wants to make a quick easy sale and get his 3% and while getting an extra $750 in commission is no big deal to him, I'm sure, that extra $25k, if we can get it, it is HUGE to us and would sure help with our house building costs. That house that just sold, right near us, is about a little bigger sf, also has a shop, but only a single car garage. And while it's been remodeled and is nice, it's still a 65 year old house. Our house was built 10 years ago. The other house is on the river (sort of, you can't really access the river), we are a block off. So, we think adjusting for those things back and for in our favor and not in our favor, we should be able to get at least $200k, if not more. We are hoping for $215k. We paid $161k for it almost 2 years ago, put about $12k improving it. The market is very hot in the big city nearest us, about a 45 minute drive. People can't find houses to buy in the city. Everything is going fast and for asking price. To buy this same house in the city would be at least $350k. While most people in this area think a 45 minute commute is horrific (but there is ZERO traffic), some people do do it, so they can buy a cheaper house. Our renter neighbor commutes every day because his rent is half what it would be in the city.
The other thing that is supposed to be helping the housing market in this small town/county is one of the main employers in this county got bought out by an out of state company this past year. They are investing a lot of money back into it, increasing wages and transferring in some employees from out of state to work there.......and these people moving in can't find anything to buy. This is what we were told by two local contractors. There is just not a lot to choose from for sale here. Just about anything in town is really old and usually needs work. There are very few new houses (like ours) right in town.
We'll be happy with $200k, if that's what we end up with (we owe $150k) but let's go with the higher end pricing to start out and see if there is any interest. Apparently the people that bought the house down the street are from out of state. People from out of state don't even blink an eye at a price like that. To them (and we were same way, coming from higher priced area) that is a good deal, LOL.
Friday, June 1, 2018
Keep that old heart going and other stuff
DH's dad isn't doing too well and he's being stubborn. DH's sis texted Wednesday night that the lung dr. again said his heart of much more immediate concern right now. That he probably needs a pacemaker and should get himself to ER pronto. Dr. said his heart is beating too slow, low blood pressure, light headedness, etc and his heart could just stop on him. FIL won't go. SIL is beside herself, but mostly because she is going out of town this weekend (as well as her daughter) so there is no one to take care of MIL if something happens to FIL over the weekend. SIL also said she's cancelled enough plans due to them. Then she wanted to know if our DD could go spend the weekend and take care of MIL, if FIL had to go to the hospital. Sorry, her fiance's sister just died a little over a week ago (and she knows this) - she's got more than she can handle on her plate right now. Let alone she wouldn't know how to care for MIL. She can't lift her to go to the bathroom! My DD weighs like 100 pounds.
DH tried to convince his dad to go have it checked out at ER right away, but he says he has an appt with heart doctor on the 12th, so he's just going to wait until then. Okie dokie. Guess that's all anyone can do for him at this point. DH has kind of had enough with family this week anyway, LOL, especially after the surprise call from his younger brother. Who basically wanted to blame DH for all the family issues, yet, like I told DH, this brother had zero interest in having and maintaining a relationship with DH after he moved out of state 20 some years ago, so what difference does it make if DH wasn't talking to him anymore? My conclusion is that BIL wanted the non-relationship to be on HIS terms, rather than DH being the one who made the decision/choice to break it off.
Hopefully nothing goes wrong while SIL is out of town and FIL is good to go until he gets to his dr. appointment in a couple of weeks. I'm sorry, but we live almost 500 miles away and this is about the 4th weekend out of the last 6th that sis has had to go out of town for something. We can't run over there every weekend because she wants to go to someone's birthday party. And like DH says to me, it's all he can to just to take care of his own health issues.
I just did the stupidest M-Turk hit and supposedly earned $1. It was a 10 minute "job" to alternately hit the a and b keys on your keyboard, earn an extra .01 after getting 1000 points (each hit of a and b earned a point). I quickly did about 100 of these keystrokes and realized that I wasn't going to continue to do this for 10 minutes, LOL. So, I just stopped and let the timer run out. Answered the demog. questions at the end and supposedly will get paid $1. I can only imagine how aching my carpal tunnel wrist/hand would be if I had done that for 10 minutes.
I am on a mission to reclaim almost $20k for my company. We had made a rent/security deposit 8 years ago on our old office lease. At the beginning of this year that building got sold to another company. We moved out in March. The new owners are saying they have no record from the old owners of our security deposit. We already shredded those checks since over 7 years old. I save all my emails and am super good at searching and finding old stuff, but can't for the life of me find any emails about it. We have also switched banks since then. I called our old bank and talked to a low on the totem pole person about the possibility of getting a copy of the check or statement from back then. Got a vague "No, I don't think we can go back that far". Rather than pushing it with him, I found out our bank contact from back them (from my old emails) still works there. She is higher up on the food chain, so I emailed her and sounds like she will be able to get us a copy, it will just take about 10 days. If someone wants to understand why they are still a low paid teller and not getting promoted, there's your answer right there. Back during this time we paid this to "the building", I was also doing the books for "the building" (until about 2013), so I still have lots of documents and emails related to this company saved on my computer. The building books also showed a rent/security deposit received on their balance sheet. One of our company owners was half owner of the building we rented from, so he is going to go back through the financial reports he would have been given and find record that our company was listed as a deposit received on their balance sheet, plus hopefully we'll also have a copy of the check soon. I'm not backing down on this one!
I think we are going to get our house listed in the next week or so. By the time we could get an offer we should have a good idea of how much closer to being able to move into the shop and our realtor says we can always negotiate the closing date. We had also hoped the shop would bascially be done by now so we could move a good majority of our shop and garage crap out there and it would look better to people coming to look. Well, we just aren't going to have that luxury. We'll move the old car out of the shop and DH's pick up out of the garage and that will give people room to walk in both and look around.
DH tried to convince his dad to go have it checked out at ER right away, but he says he has an appt with heart doctor on the 12th, so he's just going to wait until then. Okie dokie. Guess that's all anyone can do for him at this point. DH has kind of had enough with family this week anyway, LOL, especially after the surprise call from his younger brother. Who basically wanted to blame DH for all the family issues, yet, like I told DH, this brother had zero interest in having and maintaining a relationship with DH after he moved out of state 20 some years ago, so what difference does it make if DH wasn't talking to him anymore? My conclusion is that BIL wanted the non-relationship to be on HIS terms, rather than DH being the one who made the decision/choice to break it off.
Hopefully nothing goes wrong while SIL is out of town and FIL is good to go until he gets to his dr. appointment in a couple of weeks. I'm sorry, but we live almost 500 miles away and this is about the 4th weekend out of the last 6th that sis has had to go out of town for something. We can't run over there every weekend because she wants to go to someone's birthday party. And like DH says to me, it's all he can to just to take care of his own health issues.
I just did the stupidest M-Turk hit and supposedly earned $1. It was a 10 minute "job" to alternately hit the a and b keys on your keyboard, earn an extra .01 after getting 1000 points (each hit of a and b earned a point). I quickly did about 100 of these keystrokes and realized that I wasn't going to continue to do this for 10 minutes, LOL. So, I just stopped and let the timer run out. Answered the demog. questions at the end and supposedly will get paid $1. I can only imagine how aching my carpal tunnel wrist/hand would be if I had done that for 10 minutes.
I am on a mission to reclaim almost $20k for my company. We had made a rent/security deposit 8 years ago on our old office lease. At the beginning of this year that building got sold to another company. We moved out in March. The new owners are saying they have no record from the old owners of our security deposit. We already shredded those checks since over 7 years old. I save all my emails and am super good at searching and finding old stuff, but can't for the life of me find any emails about it. We have also switched banks since then. I called our old bank and talked to a low on the totem pole person about the possibility of getting a copy of the check or statement from back then. Got a vague "No, I don't think we can go back that far". Rather than pushing it with him, I found out our bank contact from back them (from my old emails) still works there. She is higher up on the food chain, so I emailed her and sounds like she will be able to get us a copy, it will just take about 10 days. If someone wants to understand why they are still a low paid teller and not getting promoted, there's your answer right there. Back during this time we paid this to "the building", I was also doing the books for "the building" (until about 2013), so I still have lots of documents and emails related to this company saved on my computer. The building books also showed a rent/security deposit received on their balance sheet. One of our company owners was half owner of the building we rented from, so he is going to go back through the financial reports he would have been given and find record that our company was listed as a deposit received on their balance sheet, plus hopefully we'll also have a copy of the check soon. I'm not backing down on this one!
I think we are going to get our house listed in the next week or so. By the time we could get an offer we should have a good idea of how much closer to being able to move into the shop and our realtor says we can always negotiate the closing date. We had also hoped the shop would bascially be done by now so we could move a good majority of our shop and garage crap out there and it would look better to people coming to look. Well, we just aren't going to have that luxury. We'll move the old car out of the shop and DH's pick up out of the garage and that will give people room to walk in both and look around.
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