Staying grounded

Yesterday I mentioned the acquaintance/friend who has the small airplane. I'm taking back what I said about wanting to fly with him. He crashed yesterday!! He's ok, thank God. He had flown to another small rural runway and was trying to take off and it was too windy and his wing hit something. Yikes.

We went to the city yesterday afternoon. DH needed a physical done and then we were stopping for some groceries. It was past lunch time and we were both really hungry. I tried to get him to drive across the street from the dr. office to get Subway (and we have gift card to use) but he didn't. Then I suggested lets try the Mexican place next to the grocery store. I thought it was more like a small fast food type of place, but it's kind of in between a big restaurant and fast food place setting. I thought it tasted ok, DH didn't like it. But, if I would have known it was going to be $25 for lunch, I wouldn't have gone there. Oh well, live and learn.

I was able to trade my grocery rewards points in for $11 off my total, so that helped. Plus it's still double points month or something and now I have another 4 points to use, which I can redeem for $5 off next purchase or $7 off a meat purchase.

Weekends are a lot more relaxing now that we are living here at the property and not having to drive over here/pack a lunch/etc to come and get stuff done here. Much easier and we aren't spending near the money on filling up our car with gas. Now we average about 1 trip (10 miles each way) into town a week and one trip (45 miles each way) about every 2 weeks to the city. Sometimes once a week, but then we don't need to do the town trip for food.

Our first full month of using electricity here in the shop bill came. $70. I would say a lot of that is probably for the construction, too. They are plugged in with their air compressor and tools. My summer monthly bill at our house in town was $160/mo, so it appears to be some savings for now (until the house is added to electricity). This co-op is cheaper and we aren't heating hot water with electricity, either. Overall, for the time being I'm saving about $280 a month in water/sewer, electricity, and satellite, and car gas. Starting November, when I drop DH's overpriced health insurance for a cheaper plan, I will also be saving another $380 per month.

Well, I think I might be headed for an afternoon nap. Or watch a show on my ipad mini...which will make me sleepy and then the nap.

I'm home

Even living in a shop, which isn't ideal by any means, I feel much more "at home" here than I did at our house in town, which we lived in for almost 2 years. I feel it when I walk to our mailbox, of all things. I feel like this is my "place".  Living in town was too close for comfort with other people for me. I didn't like having neighbors on all sides of me, literally just feet away. Anytime I went outside I felt like I was being watched.

We do have neighbors here. One directly on one side of us, but I don't feel like that at all with them. I enjoy seeing them outside. We have neighbors down at the end of the street (though we can't see their place from our place), too, that we occasionally cross paths with. But that is it. The other nearest neighbors are like a mile away. I guess I am just more of a hermit type, LOL. I like my solitude. I like being able to go outside on our back patio and no one can see us and we can't see anyone. Though, someday that may change, if someone ever builds on the lot on the other side of us, for now it's perfect. Our house sits more forward towards the river than our neighbor, so when we are on our back patio we can't see their back patio.

We've been spending most dinners and early evenings sitting on our back patio. It's so relaxing. It will be nicer when we can get some decent patio furniture LOL. I'm not buying any this year, since we don't have anywhere to store it in the winter. Plus, whenever I look at stuff, just to get an idea, it's all so expensive, even on sale.

We have an acquaintance who has an airplane he stores at the little airport near us. The other evening a small plane flew over pretty low twice. We thought it might have been him, but it wasn't. He said he needs to do an early morning flight soon. This morning at 7:30 I heard a small plane fly right over. DH texted him and it was him, LOL.  He still owes me a sight seeing flight, haha. He asked me a long time ago, but he probably forgot. He had a lot of personal stuff to deal with last year, so I don't think he flew much if any at all.  But, glad to see his life his getting back to normal, now.

It's my half day Friday. And it's pay day. Double good day :)

Mom to the rescue

My first of the morning text from DD was asking me how she gets a copy of her W-2 from when she worked at the restaurant during high school. The company she is going to go work for is performing her background check (fairly extensive, since they do a lot of gov't contracts) and of course none of the managers working at the restaurant (it's a small chain) now were there 4 years ago. I told her to call their corporate office, they would have records there, get the name and ph# to give to her new company. Then she said she also can just scan them copies of her W-2's as proof she worked there.

Well, since I did her tax returns, I most likely also still have her w-2s......ya, ok....probably in a box somewhere..but I knew I had some tax return folders in one of my desk drawers, so I dug through and found both years. Yay! I scanned them to her and now she should be good to go on that part. Mom saves the day :)  Well, I at least saved her some time and headache.

We gave the fence guy a deposit last week on doing the fence. He was supposed to show up yesterday and drop off fencing. Of course a no show. Just shaking my head. At least a phone call or email would have been nice. So tired of giving people money and then once they have it, the timeline to get things done changes. I think at this point we are going to start telling contractors who want a deposit they can have it on the first day they show up. We had used this guy to fence our house in town, so figured he was good for his word to show up when he said he would.

I guess the two other framing guys will be doing some work next week, while their boss is off, so that is good news.

Our friend who lived across the street from us in town stopped by yesterday, so that was nice to see and chat with him.  He said he's talked to the guy who bought our house a few times. Apparently, the renter neighbor and his kids are already intruding on him. The new owner told our friend that he found two of their kids in the shop by themselves the other day. None of these kids is very old. The oldest is like 6, maybe 7 now. Friend said he told the guy to nip it in the bud with that renter guy really quick, or they will be there all the time.  I do not miss that neighbor one bit. Now we just get our neighbor's dogs visiting, LOL.  Much better, haha. And speaking of their dogs, they don't bark early in the morning anymore. Love neighbors that are considerate!

Extra money here and there, the brother, the framing

Don't you just love unexpected money? For whatever reason, it seems to be flowing my way, recently, and it sure is nice. It started a few weeks ago with the $200 gift from my side job. A $50 refund from homeowner's insurance. $21 credit from satellite.  Extra grocery store rewards for $11 off my purchase. $130 credit on our propane account.


I don't grocery shop at Walmart much anymore, but I did on Saturday. I had totally forgotten about submitting my receipt to Savings Catcher, but an email about some changes they are making to the program reminded me about my receipt. I submitted and got $5.71 back yesterday.

Then last night the propane company guy texted DH that he was stopping by this morning to drop off some paperwork to get rebates on the 2 propane heaters we installed. Said it was a couple hundred dollars. He just dropped it off and it's $250 per heater. Sweet! They had the form all filled out with the safety inspection form attached. I just had to sign (make a copy) and mail it in. It's in my mailbox to go out, already this morning. If I got it out there before the mailman came. He comes pretty early, so I might have missed getting it out there in time.

It sounds like there will be no work done on our house framing next week. The head framer is getting married the following Saturday and wasn't going to take any time off. We asked where they were going on a honeymoon and he said no honeymoon - he's been building them a house and that's where their money is going towards. But, I guess his fiance and the mom's are stressing out that there is still so much to do (they are having the wedding at their property) and have convinced him he needs to take next week off. So, our house will have a week delay/on hold. Bummer.

DH talked with his sister last night and told her about their brother accusing DH of raping a girl almost 40 years ago (by asking her for a kiss). She was as shocked as we were. She can't figure out some of his childhood memories either. DH told her that while he would have loved to have a relationship with his brother and also help in anyway he can with his loss of his son, he's not doing it at the expense of his own peace of mind. It's becoming quite apparent younger brother has a ton of resentment towards DH and their parents for his childhood. It's increasingly feeling to DH like younger brother is using the relationship they are starting to re-form as a means to "get back" at DH by blaming him for things 40 years or more ago and trying to inflict emotional pain and guilt (for things DH didn't even do). It's too bad, really. They are both adults now, in their 50's. Certainly not living the same lives they did as kids. I didn't have brothers and sisters growing up, but most of my friends did. None of them got a long, LOL. Now, I see as adults, most of them are now very close with their siblings. People grow up and mature, but BIL doesn't seem to want to see it that way. His loss, I guess.

So, apparently the framer goofed up. They put up that front wall above front door and the height of it isn't matching with the wall across from it, looking out the great room! That wall is higher. That would make the roof that connects them look kind of funny! They spent the last couple work hours yesterday trying to figure out what the heck was done wrong. Framer is pretty upset with himself. They are spending today trying to fix the issue. I still don't think he's figured out what went wrong. When he does the math and measuring it's supposed to work.

Blue skies, chilly air

Today's construction is much quieter. They got all the trusses up yesterday (using 4 guys) and today it's just two of them and this morning they worked on building the front entrance wall and put it up over the door. The two triangles will be windows. The tree branch.....it's an offering to the trees that got cut down to build the house.

Blue skies, still, but it's getting chillier and chillier out. I heard our heater kick on for a bit during the night. We just need to keep the snow away until they get the roof on.

I received the check for the refund of my escrow account on my sold home mortgage.  As far as I know that and the $50 check from home owner's insurance is all I'm getting back. I did get a $21 credit balance from putting Dish on hold. That will cover 4 months of the $5 a month fee for having it on hold.

That's about all I know today. Just plugging along with it all.

Monday's miscellaneous

It was a pretty uneventful and quiet weekend. Friday I called the local office of the forest service to see about burning, as we have quite a bunch of scrap wood that will need getting rid of (as well as a big brush pile that still needs to be burned). At this time we can do a small recreational campfire, so each evening DH has been burning a little bit of the scrap wood pile down and we sit on our patio, near it. I'm not a huge fan of smoke blowing in my face and smelling like smoke, but oh well, haha. It's relaxing to look down below and watch the river go by, before it gets dark.  We can burn a brush pile after October 1st, so pretty soon we'll be able to get rid of that.

Roof trusses are being put up today. There are actually 4 guys (plus a guy that runs the machine to lift them up) here today working on it.  It's noisy out there.

I wasn't able to find any MTurk hits to do over the weekend. I didn't do much computer time, as DH was sitting on his screen, at my desk, most of the time we were inside. So far today, I have made $5.90.

DD hasn't been able to give her notice at her job yet. She has to go in for a drug screen test at lunch today. Then she has to wait 2-3 weeks for the background check to get done.

Did I mention she and her fiance bought a camper trailer week before last? It's a nice one. Used, but only like a year and a half old. They bought it from DF's boss, who bought it new, but then ended up buying a bigger 5th wheel trailer and has been trying to sell this one. DF and his dad went camping this weekend for the first time with it. I'm sure they will use it quite a bit, as they both enjoy nature and the outdoors. They bought it just before she found out she was getting this new job, so now I'm sure the monthly payment for it won't really even be noticed much in their budget, since she'll be getting a $1000 a month more from this new job.

DH says he doesn't really miss having tv at all and doesn't care if we get it again. He does watch a show or two every week on his computer, which now that he's getting used to watching some like that, he doesn't mind it. I still think I want to have tv service, but then I think of what else the $85 a month could be spent on. Like I could sign up for the Ancestry.com subscription again and do that again, instead of watching tv. I can't quite remember what it costs per month/year, but seems like I remember if you wanted access to Europe it was like $35-40 a month.  Or I could put the $85 a month towards home decorating. Lord knows I'm going to need a lot of stuff for this big house. Or we could put the $85 a month toward DH doing some woodworking, which he'd like to start doing/learning more once he has the whole shop to utilize. That's about all the ideas I can come up with, so far, rather than watching tv.

The future generation

Friday the guys framing got done at same time I was done working for the day. The head framing guy is the son of our contractor. He's only 26, but sure seems to know his stuff. I love his attention to details. After the other two guys (one is his younger brother and the other is a guy in his 40's) left for the day, our framer hung around and was talking with DH. Since I had been sitting at my desk most of the day and was done and needed a break, I went outside to get some fresh air and sat in on their chat. The 3 of us ended up sitting there talking for 2 hours!

This young man has to be the most self aware person, of any age, I have ever met. I am just astounded by the insight he has into himself, good and bad traits. And interspersed often into the conversation was him saying how blessed his life is. You just don't hear that kind of talk by many young people his age. I know at his age we were never that appreciative of what we had in our lives. Most his age (and we were the same way) were very self absorbed into our lives. Heck, not even many people my age are that self aware or thoughtful about their lives. He is very aware of interactions with and understanding of those around him, whether it be family (he has 5 brothers and sisters), friends, those that work with and for him, or those (like us) that he works for in his business.

It was quite refreshing and sure gave me hope that there are young folk with those kinds of qualities as part of our future generation. I felt very blessed to have that conversation we had with him and to get to know him better.

Maybe this one

I went to Walmart this morning. Happened to be walking past the bedding sets aisle, so wandered in. Came across this cute 8 piece bedding set. Kind of caught my eye for our log bed with the bears carved into it. And the whole set is only $50!! You may recall I had found one I fell in love with on Pinterest..........that cost like $400 for the comforter plus throw pillows. Ya, so not in my budget. And I have been searching for a year and a half (since we got the bed, saved for our new house) for a comforter set I love just as much as that one....ok, so I'm going to have to settle for one I really like

I should probably buy it now, rather than waiting until our house is done (probably not until spring. ha!) or it might not be something they carry in another 6 months. But, I literally don't even have any where to store it right now. I think maybe I will tell DD this is what I want for Christmas :) 

Finance Friday

I received a call from our propane company that the mfg of the water heater we had so many problems with sent a refund to them for $130. Not sure what it's for, exactly. But, she said she'll just put it as a credit to our propane account. Works for me.

I'm trying to get back into doing some M-Turk work. There just isn't a lot that comes up when I search under "hits I am qualified for". I guess I'll need to do some more research on how to better figure it all out. Apparently, once you get past 1000 hits done, you qualify for more. I'm just a bit over halfway (and been doing it off and on for a year) so it takes awhile to get to 1000. I need to find out if there are some quick ones (even if they pay next to nothing) so I can get my count up. I also read something about "batch" hits and I don't even know what those are. If anyone reading has experience getting over the 1000 hit's done mark, I'd love to hear your tips.  I'm just now realizing if I check back every couple of hours there is often a new hit that wasn't there before and they aren't there long. And just as I typed this I checked and there was a $6 hit that took me 30 minutes to complete. That is the most I have earned in one hit! In the year I have been doing these, off and on, I have earned a total of just a little over $400. Not bad, considering I don't do it a lot of the time. I earned half of that, though, in the first 3 months I did it. The last nine months have been the other $200. Obviously there is some to be made, with steady work at it. A couple hours later I then came across one for $4 that probably took me 20 minutes to complete. I guess I just need to keep plugging away at it, and checking back more often for hits. I think I was checking, finding not much, getting discouraged and then not checking back anymore for a day or more.

I'm dumping DH's Obamacare insurance starting November. I thought I was going to be able to to it October, but for 2018, while the tax penalty is still in effect you can only go two months out of the year with out compliant insurance. I worked the math with paying the penalty for 3 months, but it came out same compared to reduced premiums, so I'll just wait until Nov 1.  Plus, I keep reading that more insurance (non-obamacare type) options are supposed to be coming out after October 1st, with an increase in what is considered "short term". It will be interesting to see how much his current insurance will go up for 2019. I'm sure I'll be paying close to $600 for it. I'm paying $560 a month now.  From the plans I've looked at I'll be paying about $200 a month instead. Yep, I know it's not the same insurance. I've thought about this long and hard. But he doesn't go to the doctor, and if he does once in awhile, we can afford the office visit out of pocket. We just need something that will cover an emergency or hospital stay. I am SICK and TIRED of paying $600 a month for what is basically a major medical type plan anyway.

I ordered DH a big jug of "Dri-Z-Air" refill from Amazon. It was supposed to be here Tuesday and didn't show up. Apparently it was damaged and UPS returned to Amazon, where they just refunded me, so now I just had to re-order it. Hopefully, this one makes it here this time.

ok....time to get started with my real job, with some M-Turking during a break and lunch break.

Good news!!

DD just called - she just got offered the job she interviewed for awhile back!! Woohoo! I am so happy and excited for her.  She was going to go nowhere with the company she's been at for 2 years, or if she was, it was going to be a very slow process.  AND she's starting out at $62,000 a year (she had just got bumped up to $50k at her current job). Plus, the company she has been with has so many weird policies and constantly changing them and not consistent, either.

This company will be an unlimited opportunity for her to grow in her career, if she wants to. She will be a "supply chain management analyst". Fancy title, sounds smart! She will have better benefits, too.

Plus, her fiance just interviewed for a promotion (same company), which he will probably get, so more money for them there too.

Ch-ch-changes

We've been making lots of changes as the framing goes along. Some are things the framer (the contractor's son) has brought up. He's a young guy and has quite the eye for detail, especially for what things will look like finished. Things he pointed out might look weird, mostly upstairs - due to the roof line and dormers. Most of the changes we've end up making *should (I say this with a laugh) saving us money.

Our front of the house basically had two timber frame style covered porches. We took out the really big one up at the roof line and just went with the one smaller one (though are making it a couple feet  bigger). This eliminates that whole cost of the big covered part, plus the bigger one had a curved engineered beam, which had been costly. The back covered patio will also now have a straight beam across, much, much cheaper than a curved beam. Without the whole front of the house covered, we've decided we don't need the concrete walkway area we were going to have going from the front walkway over to the mudroom side door. So, less concrete costs now. We'll just make that area between landscaped.

We took out the two little dormers, with windows, that were in the angled part of the house between the main part of house and garage. This was going to be my office room, but after framer explained how small it really will end up (and the dormer windows would have had to be up way high, so I wouldn't have had a view from my desk anyway) because of the ceiling slope and knee walls, just kind of a pass through area from upstairs rooms to the bonus room above garage.

We took out a window at the end of the bonus room, because that's most likely where we'd put a tv, so don't need a window. We made the dining room window smaller.

We took out two half baths. I didn't really want all these bathrooms anyway! They were DH's idea. But we took out the one off the mud room and increased the size of his den. We also took out a half bath upstairs that was off what was supposed to be my office and it will become a closet for one of the guest bedrooms, rather than the closet next to the dormer space.  We will still have a full bathroom in master, a half bath near foyer and a full bathroom upstairs. Plenty.

Awhile back we took out one of the islands in the kitchen and will just have one island. Much better flow to the kitchen (though that savings was already figured in).

Where we've added. The upstairs had like two small sitting rooms with in between them was open and looked down into the foyer. We are making that opening all floor upstairs, so it's one bigger sitting room. So, when you walk in our front door and look up, you will see ceiling, rather than open all they way up. I think it 's going to look better, but will need a bit more flooring costs upstairs now. I am considering making this sitting area my office - it overlooks down into the great room and out across to the huge great room windows, plus out the windows in front of house.  Our other idea is to put  my office in the bonus room over the garage. There will be a big dormer on each side and each dormer is quite a big space that a desk would fit back into and then I would still have the view I wanted from my desk of the river. We'll see, once I can go up there and get a better idea. We also won't need a hanging chandelier type light now for that entry way. Just something smaller, probably semi flush mount type light.

We added a narrow horizontal window up high in the master shower and in the master bedroom, above our bed.  We added a "dog wash shower" in the mud room. So, it will basically be like half a shower. We are adding a barn style door between our master bedroom and walk in closets/bathroom. The framer is going to be building it. The plan had no door between bedroom and master bath, but after he brought it up, yes, a door would be nice to block it off.

I'm hoping the deductions are far outweighing the additions!I would think twp less 1/2 baths, one less huge covered part w/beams and two less dormers w/windows is a good chunk of change. Taking out those two dormers simplified the roofing, some too.

My ear hurts

Holy Moly - I got right through to the IRS (about a 2 minute wait on hold) but was on the phone for an hour and 15 minutes! All's he did was look up my account, figure out that somehow two of my payments got put under my soc sec# and the rest under my DH's. Took him forever to put me on  hold and fix that and then says I still owe $240. I'm like how? Is this penalties and interest? plus I already sent a payment of $64 for penalties and interest, so that makes a total of over $300?. He put me on hold yet again (like the 4th time) to use another "tool" to calculate and said it's now $214. I'm like, wow - that still seems like a lot of penalty and interest for what I owed, and since I paid it off in 3 months. $300 in penalties and interest seems like a lot for owing $2450 and paying it off it 3 months.

Other than the payment mailed in with the tax return, all the other payments were done online, under my log in/soc sec#. So, how some of the payments got put under DH's "account" and some under mine is a mystery.

I found this website online that calculates the failure to pay penalty (I filed on time, just didn't pay the balance in full on time) and calculates the interest. According to this -where I enter my amount due, all the payments and dates - it shows my total penalties and interest to be at around $55. What the heck. I asked the guy to clarify what is penalties and interest broken down, as the only thing I received showed $64 in penalties and interest (probably because when that was calculated they were missing two payments). According to IRS website late payment penalties are 1/2 of 1 percent, per month, of the outstanding balance. Interest is 5%. Supposedly he generated a letter to send to me showing the penalties and interest.  He was a very nice guy and I was super nice on the phone. Even though inside I was like "what the heck?!" I was nice as can be. I figure most people that call the IRS probably don't want to have to talk to them, let alone, feel like they are in a nice mood. I know I owed the money (and I paid it) - I'm just trying to figure out how they just sent me a notice that $831 is owed. I think I get that part now. They were missing 2 $400 payments, so $800 plus additional penalties and interest = $831, I guess. But then when I logged into my online payment account, it shows every payment I made as under MY name/account, but then showed a balance of $1041 on that. How can all the payments be listed at what I can view, but when the guy looks at his end, two of the payments are missing. It's not making any sense at all. I'll probably just pay this $214.  See how it all comes out in the wash after they get the two $400 payments posted correctly and backdated.  Hopefully they will either explain it to me or I'll end up with an over payment I can apply to this years taxes.

We got some fairly good news about FIL. He had a recheck on his lung and the cancer growth has stayed the same. They are going to continue to monitor it another 3 months, while they deal with his heart issues. His cardiologist also referred him to another doctor, who is more specialized with doing the stent placement with his issues, so after they have that evaluation appointment, maybe will be able to have the stent put in, after all. Hoping for the best.

My mom continues to show signs of forgetfulness. I might also be noticing it more because I'm trying to call her more often, more like twice a week, instead of once a week. I told her last week that I was coming over for a visit in October. Gave her the date. Told her DD's and my plans. My boss will pick me up at the airport, take me back to the office for the afternoon and then DD will pick me up there after she gets off work and we'll come down to my mom's house and spend the night and then Friday we'll go wedding dress shopping. DD told me last night that she called her to say hi. Asked her if I told her about me coming to visit. She said at first she didn't remember then said "oh yes, the 4th or 5th?" and DD said no, not until the 25th. Then DD mentioned about going dress shopping and she didn't remember that, then said she did, but didn't realize she was going too. Ok, I can see how she might not have understood that we wanted her to go dress shopping, too.  But, I'm pretty sure she said she was putting on her calendar when I was coming. She's probably getting so she doesn't remember to look on her calendar! There's also been something else we've been discussing with her finances that she is having a hard time remembering. I even sent her the info in an email, so she'd have it, but she seems to be confused/forgetful about it. It kind of seems like she does remember things, but if you "put her on the spot" so to speak, and say "did you know.....", she can't recall it right away.

Weekend update

It kind of felt like a nice long weekend, since I only had to work a half day on Friday.  There was no construction going on, other than the next load of lumber (upper floor trusses) got delivered and DH chatted with that delivery driver (he's been here manly times by now haha) for a while.

DH spent most of the weekend organizing his pictures and videos of the build. He got behind the month or so before we moved. For the most part, it's a good, relaxing way for him to spend time and gives his body some rest it needs. He can keep his mind busy with it, but not have to exert his muscles.

Saturday morning I reached my arms up, towel drying my hair, and my back went wacked. It hasn't done that for years. It used to happen often the first few years after my car accident. I ended up spending the next couple of hours laying on a heating pad, which at least got me to the point I could move around, even though it was still a bit of a pinched nerve, mid back, left side. It's still not 100%. Weird that I haven't lifted anything heavy or done anything strenuous that I can think of.

So, the neighbors bark collar has been working great........until Saturday morning when he chewed it up!!! ROFLOL.  That dog is the funniest goofiest thing. How he managed that none of us have any idea. Looks like they either bought another one or used one of the lesser barking dog's collar, but he had one back on yesterday.

Speaking of dogs, we ended up giving our long coated black dog a much needed hair cut yesterday. He's got really long fur all in his butt area, and it has gotten totally matted underneath. We ended up just having to cut it all out. Took a while, but he's all cleaned up now and with his big bushy tail, you can't really see it all trimmed down much. He's black, but those furs are kind of white/gray and a bit wirey. DD has always called them his "old man butt furs" haha. After we were done we told him he was pretty and he ran around all happy.

We pretty much just took it easy on Saturday, especially since my back hurt so bad.  Yesterday we got outside for awhile and I helped DH do some measuring on our shed/chicken coop he's going to build. Then he sifted around through all the scrap lumber to see what he could re-use. This was lumber from when he did all the forms for the gate piers. He found like 7 2x6's he could use and a couple other leftover boards from the house framing. At least we won't have to buy some of it. If he can get the shed part done, then he'll have another little storage area to put some things inside.

I got a small check in the mail from our homeowners insurance on our sold home. $50. The annual cost was just about to be renewed in a month, so there was only a month left on this policy. I almost forgot to cancel it. I'm still waiting on a check from the mortgage company for what was left in my escrow account, which is supposed to be about $1200.

I spent a good part of the weekend reading. Read a Longmire book and then just started another one last night. I miss the Netflix series. It was one of my favorites to watch. Now, whenever I am reading Henry Standing Bear talking I totally hear it in Lou Diamond Phillips voice. I also watched a couple more episodes of Heartland. I'm so glad I realized I can watch it on Amazon Prime, since that is already paid for with our Prime membership I share with DD.

Up this week - 2nd story (well, 1/2 story?) building.  It's not a full 2 story house, so the upstairs is considered the 1/2 story, I guess.      

Quiet Friday

Well, I finally started getting my forwarded mail....and now I'm so confused by the IRS and my 2017 tax return. I owed a balance, that at the time I could not pay in full. I sent a payment for part of the balance with the return in April and requested an installment payment plan. By the time I received the approved installment agreement back from the IRS (in mid July!) I had already paid it all off. Then a few days later I received what I thought was the final amount due of $64 for penalties and interest, which I sent right in. Assumed it was all paid in full now, 2 months ago.

Now, I just got in the mail a notice that I owe $813 and my $400 payment is due. WTH? I logged in my online account with IRS and see all my payments (I was making a payment like twice a month, so I paid it off quicker than I had thought I would), but it says my balance is $1029.  I have no idea where this additional owed is coming from. All my payments add up to what I owed on my tax return, plus the extra $64 owed per the last notice. I guess I'm going to have to end up spending half my day on Monday trying to get through to them and figure this out. Ugh!

All quiet on the Western Front today. No work going on. Sometime today the next batch of lumber is supposed to be delivered, so next week they can get started on the upstairs framing. It's cold out! Got into the 30's last night. The cabinet lady might be coming out this afternoon to do some measurements, now that the walls are framed for kitchen, masterbath and laundry, but I'm not holding my breath. She's been such a flake so far. She said it takes 5 weeks to get them from time of ordering, so we are trying to stay on top of this.

Other than that I'm still fighting being so tired, especially by late afternoon. After dinner last night DH laid back in his recliner and fell asleep. I went and fell asleep on the bed. it was 5:30pm and I woke up at 7:30pm. He's got an excuse why he's tired. I really don't. I feel like I'm getting good sleep, especially since we changed to our king sized mattress. I'm plenty warm enough, so far, while sleeping. Not getting woke up an hour early by barking dogs anymore either. Still taking my vitamins I started taking last month.  It's a half work day for me today, so a nap this afternoon might be in order.

No plans this weekend. I will need to run into town and get some milk and a few things. Figure out dinners for the next week. It's sunny and supposed to get up to 70 today and no rain so I think I'll bbq the burgers I was going to do last night. Last night I ended up doing bacon and eggs on my electric griddle. I like doing eggs on that, after the bacon. They come out pefect, over easy.

The chilly weather is here

I'm still waiting for all my mail to get forwarded. I guess it takes a week to 10 days to start seeing your mail. I have the email notifications from USPS where it shows you pictures of the mail on it's way. It's adding up. Plus one of the pieces appears to be a check from escrow - should be at least one check due to our house sale.

The weather is definitely getting colder now. A few days ago it was still short sleeves and even shorts. Now it's sweatshirts and long pants.  We still haven't needed to turn on the heat though in the mornings yet, though I can't seem to get warm today. My fingers are freezing.

No neighbor dogs barked this morning. Success.

Our bbq grill cover basically disintegrated. I guess it lasted a good 5 years or so. And we need it covered, as rainy/snowy weather will start up soon. But, I've got so much money going out for this or that, I hated to have to spend much on one. I did a search on Walmart.com and found one for like $12 or so, but in looking at it closer/details I see it was just made of like tyvek type  material. Looked like the tarp material of the tarps we've bought. Not too classy.  Then I searched on Amazon and found one that looked pretty good, for $12. Plus I had a $3 gift card code (the last of my Swagbucks), so it only cost $9 and free 2 day shipping. It just arrived. It's super heavy duty and nice. I'm very impressed, especially for the price.

It's really nice not to be spending so much on gas now. Now we make like one trip a week into town (20 mile RT) and maybe one trip into the city (90 mile RT). I pretty much have to make one trip into town for some groceries each week, as our little refrigerator will only hold so much, but not really enough for more than a weeks worth of food. Either that or I drive all the way into the city to shop.

Not much else going on today. I was going to bbq hamburgers for dinner tonight, but looks like it's going to be raining, so better come up with plan B

Coupons and rewards and other whatnot

It's already Wednesday and I haven't even gotten this post done, from our weekend, haha.

Saturday morning we went to the city to do a bit of shopping. DH wanted a few things from Harbor Freight. I had the coupon book LOL. There was a coupon for the tool bag he wanted, a 20% off coupon for any non-sale item, so I used that on the little moving dolly he wanted. There was also a free coupon for a 5x7 tarp so we grabbed that. I'm sure it will get used for something and it was free. He also grabbed a little bigger tool bag. As we were standing there waiting for them to go in the back and get the dolly, I was flipping through the coupon book and see on a different page a coupon for the other tool bag. So, I got coupons to use on everything he bought :)

On the drive in, I got on my grocery store app and saw I had 3 "rewards" to use. I chose a free case of water and $1 off my order.  Saved $3 total there.  Plus there was a coupon to click on where if I made a purchase over a certain amount I'd earn 5 rewards towards next visit. I just logged in and it shows I have 10 rewards! That's quite a bit of free stuff. By using 7 of the rewards points I can get $10 off my next purchase, plus still have 3 more points to use. I see 3 rewards can get me another $4 off next purchase. Nice. I think I will have until end of October to use them, but I will have to watch for sure when they expire.

Yesterday I turned in my 2nd PO box key and got that $3 refund. Turned around and bought some ice for the cooler DH has outside for him and guys to get cold waters from. I still haven't gotten my mail forwarded yet. The post office lady said I should start seeing it any day now. I did get a delivery from Target that I ordered to this new address and the mail carrier actually delivered to our door, since it was a bigger box. This is the part I do not get. The people down on lot 7 tried to see if we could get our mailboxes in front of our driveways, but they said no, they will only come to entrance of our street...yet if there is a box to deliver, they will drive down.

This morning's barking was very minimum again. I'm so glad the neighbors were willing to take care of the problem. Plus, she keeps bringing me cut flowers from her yard :)  I did get a bit more of a chat with the new lady down on Lot 7 that are also building. DH kind of didn't really like her, remember? Thought she seemed kind of nosy/opinionated, but, I thought she was fine. Easy to talk to. Much younger than us and our other neighbors, but she's friendly and nice. She works from home, too, doing software work. I still haven't met her husband, yet. Their place is coming along, too, though it sounds like they will be doing the interior work themselves so, it will take awhile. They did just get the roof on, but still haven't sided it yet. It's a two story place. When it was just their concrete foundation (they are having concrete floors in their house) it looked like it was going to be a really small place, but now that it's framed and two stories it looks huge.

A new drone picture!

Pictures make the river look closer in elevation than it is. It's way down there. Even the area below the back of the house is down on a lower level than the house. This weeks seems to be a little more progress each day, since there are 3 guys here, instead of 2. Their getting lots of interior walls up now. On paper the plan and rooms looked so huge to me. In reality, they aren't that big. Some are even smaller than I imagined. (like the pantry) Plus, I'm terrible about envisioning how something will look, when I'm only seeing a 2 dimensional drawing.

No more barking?

So, we've been living in the shop a few weeks now. I've mentioned the neighbors 3 (used to be 4) big dogs........and the barking. During the construction of the shop these pasts months, for the most part they have gotten very used to having neighbors now and don't bark excessively anymore.....except early on weekday mornings. The couple both leave before 6am and shortly after they leave the barking starts in, by mostly one dog, for about an hour, then he will finally stop. Honestly, I think he stops because we get up, let our dogs out and activity starts up. We don't usually get up until 7, so being woken up at 6am and listening to a dog bark pretty much non-stop while you are still trying to sleep is not a great way to wake up.  The only good part is guy only works 4 days a week and has Fridays off, plus last Monday was a holiday, so we only had to listen to it 3 mornings last week.

A couple of times they have mentioned to DH they were getting a bark collar (or whatever they are called) to try. Yesterday morning was probably the worst the dog has been, plus he got one of their other dogs to join in. We weren't too happy.  DH says "I thought they said they were getting a bark collar?" When neighbor got home from work yesterday he told DH they put the collar on him, how was he? DH was like "oh you did? well, actually he was probably the worst he's been!.....but now that I think about it - I don't think I even heard him bark at all the rest of the day". so maybe he figured it out after barking awhile.

This morning he barked a few times, stopped.  A little later barked a few more times, stopped and that was it.  Good, sounds like this will work.  These neighbors go to bed super early (like 7pm) and get up at 3:30am (seriously!).  We wouldn't let our dogs bark all evening while they were sleeping, so I guess we expect the same courtesy from them, while we are trying to sleep. Fortunately, they apparently realized that the dogs are barking and we didn't have to complain about it (hate being a complainer!).

I got my first FedEx delivery at the new address. Small town - same guy as at our old house. He was like "oh, you guys made it out here, huh?". LOL. He knew we were moving/building from chatting with him on deliveries at our old house.

Speaking of old house, I texted my old neighbor friend to say hi. She is so funny. She said on the weekend she was out at the back of her house (that faces our old house) trimming bushes and said she felt like she was being watched. No one was around.  Then she looked over at our old house (across a field between us) and said the "old guy was sitting on his scooter thing in his garage WATCHING me! - it was creepy!" LOL. Then she said he went inside, came back out with his lunch and sat there and watched her some more.  She called him "Creepy Clause".  I said ya, he does resemble Santa Clause a little. haha. We had a joke before where she called DH "Gladys" (from Bewitched tv show) because he would keep an eye what was going on outside (but not sit there and stare). I said "betcha miss old Gladys now, huh?!!" LOL

They got the garage attached to the house all put up yesterday. Today they are trying to get the big great room "window wall" raised up and set. Sounds like a job. They are trying to use the forklift to do it. Then they are supposed to start on interior walls. 

Some Monday progress

It was kind of a tiring weekend. Only because DH was so crabby and I couldn't seem to do anything right. I do know that I am done trying to fix/resolve any of his tech problems, whether it's with phone, computer or drone. He wants to use them but does not know anything about them and then blame me if it doesn't work or if I try to fix it. It seems like if you try to fix a problem it just ends up changing another setting. I don't know any more about it then he does, I'm just willing to at least get online, do some research and try to fix it. From here forward my answer will be "sorry, I have no idea how to fix it" and he can figure it out himself.

My DD got her promotion and raise, but she's still really hoping to find a new job. I guess the two jobs (at same company) she interviewed for are still pending, so I there's still hope. Last week she got food poisoning and was very sick for 2 days and had to miss work. This week was supposed to be her 4/10 work week and have Friday off. She has plans for Friday as her DF has a friend from out of the country visiting with them this week. When she got back to work last Thursday, they told her she could not have her 4/10 week next week, since she missed 2 days during the week before. She is like what in the world does being out sick for 2 days one week have to do with the next week? She will still be working 40 hours this week. I could see if she was sick during her 4/10 week and then they said we need you to work Friday.  She's just pretty fed up with the company. They have the strangest policies and then constantly change them. I told her to make them clarify how far in advance using a sick day affects her 4/10 week (they rotate working 4/10's one week a month). LOL

We've got a little bigger framing work crew here today. There's 3 guys instead of 2, haha. They are working on framing the garage attached to house. And I think the main guy is still trying to figure/plan the big window wall in the great room.

Weather has cooled down to low 70's and 60's this week, though it was warm in the 80's over the weekend. So sick of all the bees. We don't remember them this bad last year. DH got stung a couple of times on Friday, they were so bad.

TGIF

TGIF - right?! Other than Monday being the holiday, it looks like the framing guys are pretty much getting in almost full days this week. I say almost, because they usually don't get here until 9:30, take a short lunch and leave by 5:15 or 5:30. They've almost got the house first floor exterior walls up. They are working on the last/hardest part today. The big great room wall that is mostly all windows and tall, up to the ceiling. Now that walls our up, it doesn't make the house seem so big as it looked on paper, which is good. I'm sure once some inside walls are put up, it will not seem so big either.

When I turned in our post office box key, apparently we had been given 2, which I didn't remember. I even got a $3 refund on the key. We did find the other key in DH's truck, so once I turn that one back in I'll get another $3 back.

I had 300 swagbucks points exactly, so I redeemed for a  $3 Amazon gift card and I think I am done with them. I'm just using ebates now and am up to almost $10 and will get a check, but not until like November. That's the bad part, takes a long time to get the rebate check.

My free months (due to giftcard) of Netflix end next week. I'm still watching a show (5 seasons so far watched, out of 10) but trying to decide if I want to spend the $8/mo to keep watching. I still have Amazon Prime and I'm sure I could find something to watch on there to keep me entertained, and pick up on the Netflix show next time I get another giftcard (DD's go to gift for me now that she knows I really like having it).  Then I thought - hey, this is a network show (Heartland) so it also might be available to watch on Amazon. And it is! So, I definitely don't need to pay $8 a month to watch it on Netflix. The only thing I can't watch yet on Amazon Prime Video is season 10.

I have the one manufacturer I deal with at work that for some reason cannot/will not "reply all" to emails. It drives me nuts! Every order I send to them I have someone cc'd (because that is the person who requested/will follow up on it). Any questions they have they only email me, which I then have to forward on to the person I had cc'd in the original email.  I just sent them an order and in the email specifically said if you have any questions or follow up on this please reply back to S and J, cc'd in this email. So, they have a question and only reply back to me. GAH! How hard is it?  It needs to be 4:30 - I am so done with work today, haha.

A headache day

Changing address on everything is time consuming! I made a list of everything I could think of to change. I'm sure I forgot something.  I got over to the post office this morning to turn in my change of address card and also the card to start up new service to our new mailbox. This town is so small...they know everything, LOL.

Then I gave myself a headache during my lunch break trying to figure out why DH has so much trouble transferring his iphone videos to his pc (well, it's actually to his external hard drive, plugged into his pc). Some work fine, others transfer over and are corrupted. It may just be how he's doing it, but why does it work fine and then not? He plugs his phone in via USB, opens the folder of videos and photos in his phone and then likes to do a cut and paste - so they get deleted off his phone (making room for new photos and videos) and saved to pc. Well, if it's corrupted, then he's lost it, because there isn't the original saved on his phone any longer. Plus, it seems more common when he's done a time lapse video.

His iCloud storage gives of 5mb is full, so no backups are being done. But when I log into his iCloud account there is one lone picture. So, what is taking up 5mb?? I never really could figure out what 4.73mb of "backups" is, plus his phone says he has never backed up! (he got this phone about year and a half ago). I turned off backing up everything to iCloud except photos. Then I deleted whatever was supposedly backed up and now supposedly all his photos and videos are now backing up to the cloud (which is less than 5 mb). We'll see.  Supposedly, he can then save his pics and videos to his pc from logging into his iCloud account via his pc.

I've also seen where it's recommend to "import" the photos to pc, which I assume is probably a better way then how he's been cutting and pasting into his pc folder he likes to save them in.

Then yesterday I took a couple of short videos with my older iphone (5s). He wanted to save the videos to his pc. Plug my phone in and there is nothing showing in the photos folder on my phone, though I have lots of them you can see on my phone. I did some research to that and found out they are all saved to my iCloud account, so then a "real" photo file isn't saved to my iphone anymore. So confusing!! So, I guess to save to his hard drive, I will have to log into my iCloud from his pc and donwload the video.  My head is spinning. We just want to take a picture or video and be able to put in on our computer.

I'm caught up with what day it is now.

Tuesday the lumber package for the house walls got delivered and framing started. We sat down awhile with the framer, as he had several questions on our plans regarding various things. Ideas he had that would work better on a few items. Like some window sizes and heights.

Off the mud room is a tiny 1/2 bathroom (not really needed). We decided to change part of it into a dog wash shower area. Then this morning the plans changed again, LOL. We are going to put the little dog wash station in the laundry room corner, and where it was going to be will just be a bit bigger space for DH's gun safe room.

Upstairs, in my office room is a storage room. We were going to make that DH's hidden room for his gun safe, using a bookcase door. But, they got to discussing the weight and framer (this is the builder's son) didn't think this would work too well - anywhere upstairs. But, nowhere we could see it to go downstairs on the main level.  But, once we made  of that little bathroom into a dog shower and then took out a little corner area of the kitchen (I was going to put like a farmhouse hutch in the corner), we were able to add the gun safe room in that area and be accessed from his den/office room.

The side wall of the dining room had this huge 8 foot long window (plus all the front windows and patio doors)looking out onto patio/river view). Framer suggested a much smaller window, which would then give me some actual wall space on either side I could use to set a hutch, that I didn't have with the huge window.

For our master bath he wanted to know exactly what kind of "wall" we wanted between toilet and bathtub, that is in the plans. Short wall? Yes. But he's like "I think it might look kind of plain". Maybe a "fancy" short wall. I'm like what is fancy? LOL. In the end I came up with the short wall and then using a timber post beam coming down from the ceiling. That will help with the rustic look I am going for.

Two walls up!

I also just got a nice little extra $200 from my side job I wasn't expecting. I've been wanting/needing to make a trip back to the office/visit dd/visit mom type of trip. I haven't been back there in a year! When spring came we started the building process and it's been so busy since then. I decided rather than make the 6 1/2 - 7 hour drive, I'll fly and use that $200 I just got.  That's about what it costs for a RT ticket. It costs me like $100 in gas to drive there. But, I also figured, as soon as I told my boss I was going to fly over for a visit, she'd just say "book it and put it on the company AmEx card", which of course she did! Now I'll just save that $200 towards DD's wedding dress :)  I know she will want to go shopping when I visit, so maybe she will find something.  I wanted to plan it around when DD has her next 4/10 work week, because then she'll have Friday off. I'm going to fly over on a Thursday and get in around noon later in October. My boss will come pick me up. The office is only 6 miles from the airport and I will have Thursday afternoon at the office. It's our new office, I have not seen in person yet.  Then when DD gets off work, she will drive down and pick me up and I'll spend the weekend with her until I fly back Sunday at 6pm. I'm excited to see everyone.

After we had dinner last night I was soo tired. Felt like I could barely keep my eyes open. I laid down on the bed to take a nap at 6pm, while DH worked on his photos/videos/drone pics and videos. I totally zonked out for 2 hours.  Then of course I was not tired for my usual 9-ish bedtime. I read until 9:45, but still had a bit of trouble falling asleep. Hopefully, I won't need a nap tonight.

Sunday/Monday and other Weird stuff

The rest of the long weekend we just tried to relax as much as possible. We did continue to do some re-arranging of stuff. Just trying to make it easier to move around and access stuff for daily living.  While we were in the city Friday we picked up a few things for the bathroom. A small medicine cabinet with a mirror, a towel rack, a hand towel ring holder, a hook to put next to shower for a towel, and a coat rack with hooks. At least we'll have somewhere to hang some jackets now. We were also going to get some cabinets for above and beside the washer and dryer, but we wanted the brown ones and those have to be ordered. Lowe's only stocked the white ones. Dang, the medicine cabinets with mirrors are expensive! Most were like $100-$130. We opted for a small one (we wanted brown cabinet) for $44.

of course, now that all our accessories are brown, I'm not digging the chrome vanity light I bought. Oh well, it will work.

I've been reading a lot. Thank goodness for e-books. We've been trying to sit out and enjoy our patio area, but the bees are terrible right now. Saturday and Monday evenings DH listened to some racing online. Then he got to watch the highlights the next morning, online.

I don't think DH is going to be able to keep much of a relationship going with his brother that lives nearby. He called him last night (after getting a text from him). He apparently drinks quite often (which we kind of already suspected over the years) and then wants to talk on the phone about their "awful" childhood. He blames their parents, he blames DH. Which DH doesn't remember (nor does his younger sister) that way. And he seems to have a lot of blame/resentment towards DH about it. They are only 15 months apart in age (DH the older). There is another brother 7 years older than DH and then two sisters younger than all of them. He seems to think their parents played favorites and also that they were beaten as kids. DH is like I'm pretty sure I would remember getting spanked/beaten...and then he's on and on about how DH was better looking, taller, etc (DH is just a very average looking kid/adult). Brother is short and yes, he was born the youngest of the 3 boys. Good grief - the stuff he is complaining about is 40 to 50 years ago! Not to mention DH doesn't remember most of it in the same way as apparently brother does. Dh says, well, I wasn't the best big brother growing up, neither was their other brother, but we turned out pretty decent adults, I think. I can't change how mom and dad were or what order we were born or our physical traits. Brother says "ya, don't feel guilty about it". DH said, well, I don't feel guilty. It's nothing I had any control over. LOL. They've been talking off and on since Memorial Day weekend. DH has been nothing but complimentary of his brother, especially how he's turned out as an adult. Of course, a lot of kids growing up in a big family, probably don't get a long too well with their siblings as children. I remember my best friend in jr. high and high school had a younger brother and sister and none of them seemed to get a long at all. Now they are all 3 very close.

Then the kicker during their phone call last night. For whatever reason, brother was remembering a time when the two of them and a visiting cousin went out cruising one night in DH's car. DH said he was only like 15 at the time (you could get your license at 15 in this state), so brother was 14. They ran into 2 or 3 girls in a car. One of the girls and DH were in same class and kind of liked each other and had been doing some talking on the phone. They all got in DH's car and went and hung out awhile at a park or somewhere. When they were leaving, DH said he joked and pretended the car wouldn't start and said to the girl (sitting next to him) "I think I need a kiss for the car to start". She kissed him and he started up the car and they went back to the girls car and dropped them off. He didn't even really remember this memory until his brother brought it up last night. DH said he and the girl did end up going out on a couple of dates after that, with also, just a goodnight kiss. Just innocent 1979, 15 year old stuff. He was just trying to be cute and flirt with her.

Get this: Brother says to him on the phone last night: "that's the definition of rape. She probably could have gone her whole life without being raped". Are you kidding me? He was a kid, 40 years ago, in fun and innocence, asked a girl for a kiss, and his brother says he raped her?" From the sounds of it, DH thinks brother was being totally serious. What the hell?! Are we missing something here? Pretty much just blew both our minds. DH was really bothered by it, after getting off the phone. Like DH said this morning. "I don't need this kind of crap in my life, nor do I need to be made to feel like crap by a drunk".

Droning on about the drone

Saturday morning I spent a good two hours trying to figure out DH's drone.  He got it returned, all fixed up, but could not get it to connect to fly. The drone, to the remote controller, to the app. He was getting frustrated Friday night, as he doesn't have enough tech-y skills to figure it out, at all. Any suggestions I ever make (whether it about the drone or anything tech related, he's always telling me I'm wrong - yet he has no clue) are wrong.

So, I told him to go outside and find something to do for a couple of hours Saturday morning. I was going to do some online research as to the error messages he was getting. Had to read some forums, watch some videos on you tube. Try a couple of things. Search some more. I finally got the firmware to do it's update. And read you have to do it with both batteries. I finally got it down to it's the RC's "network" the drone and app are trying to connect to....but I didn't have the network password. It was like the QR code and password had worn off the back of the controller. Finally, I read on a forum question/answer to reset the rc back to factory default and then it's a password of 12341234. I tried that and it worked!  DH took it out to try and it worked great. He also was not getting the flashing screen on his phone app, like he was before (where then he could not see what the drone was seeing while flying).

Then that afternoon we took the drone town to the edge of the river with us. It was back to flashing screens! Arghh! I wonder if flying low over the moving water affects the signal somehow? When he took it back up to where he usually flies it it worked fine again.  At least I know now how to do the updates. When he was trying to say yes to updates, they were just failing. That's because he needs to plug the usb cord directly into the drone and not the controller.

He agreed that he just needs to let me figure it all out and not try to interfere, since he really knows nothing about how it all works.

He's also having a lot of problems getting videos (especially time lapse ones he takes) to transfer over from his phone or ipad mini to his pc. They keep getting corrupted after he saves to his pc. He wants to do a "cut" and save to his pc, so they aren't taking up room on his phone. So, after he tries to open it on his pc and it's corrupted, it isn't on his phone anymore and it's gone for good, as far as I know.  I haven't figured that out yet, either. Mostly, because when he's trying to view and transfer them, he's getting frustrated and doesn't want to let me sit down and work on it for awhile. Most of the photos he takes transfer over fine, it's just a lot of the videos give him grief. He now has no video of them putting in the floor joists and floor sheeting from last week. He's got his icloud storage full, due to all the pics and video. I'm thinking we really need to (at least while he's doing all this photo and video taking) pay for extra storage. I think it's like $12 a year. I read that then he'd at least have a back up file of the video's that got corrupted on his pc. He thinks I'm wrong about that too, so I haven't pushed it.  I should just take his phone, set up the extra icloud storage and he probably wouldn't even know I did it.

I just wish I was more knowledgeable about all this! I can usually get it figured out.........eventually....it's the eventually that takes up so much time.

While I was doing that, DH was out setting our post for our new mailbox out next to our two other neighbors. We had to order the mailbox (because we wanted same one as the other two) and it's supposed to be delivered UPS tomorrow. I had to help  him a bit with that - keeping post straight and level while he was pouring the concrete, which was right in the middle of me trying to figure out the drone.  Then I walked over to neighbors. She had called and wanted to know if I wanted some extra iris bulbs she had just pulled up. She said they don't need to be planted until next spring, so I'll save them and give it a try.

Friday's post....

Getting caught up on posts!

Yesterday the gutter guy showed up. I forgot he had already given DH a bid, so I thought he was coming out just to look/bid, but he got it all done. He's a local guy from town (because when DH asked our builder about when the gutters were going to get put on, he said his gutter guy is 5 months out!). This gutter guy recently moved to this town and hasn't gotten a very good welcome. Geez. He lives right in town. I guess he was making some noise in his garage and a neighbor came over and told him to stop the noise or he was going to kill him.....then 2 days later the sheriff shows up and tells him he better knock off the noise....interesting how when we had a problem with our neighbor making noise at 1 and 2 am the sheriff didn't want to tell him to knock it off. And gutter guy said he had another neighbor tell him something to the effect of he might as well move back to where he came from. Nice and welcoming town people, eh? I told DH I guess we lucked out with our good and welcoming neighbors we had across the street from us. I'd say a huge percentage of the people that live right in town are all elderly/retired. Not much for change, I assume. This is just a single guy, around 40 years old. Seems like he would pretty much stick to himself. He came back Thursday evening to pick up the check (he works for another guy) and stayed and chatted awhile. Like he said, for the most part he's gone from 6am to 6pm and then spends the evening at home before bedtime.

I only have to work a half day today and of course also have Monday off. I'm hoping I'll finally start to feel caught up on rest. We've been getting good, long sleeps, since not getting up at 5 or 6 am anymore, but I'm still feeling so tired, especially by the end of the day. Evenings have been relaxing, too. I just read or watch Netflix on my ipad mini.

We figured out our bed frame does adjust out to king size, so we swapped the queen set out for our king set. Heaven! 16 more inches. Makes a world of difference sleeping with DH and a big dog. But, I had packed away our king sheets, thinking I wasn't going to be needing/using them. Plus, when I was un-making our king bed before moving, I saw a tear in the sheet, so we'd need a new set anyway.

We went to the city, after I got off work at 12:30 and stopped at Target to get a set of sheets and mattress cover. Luckily there was a 15% off coupon. After I got home and washed the new stuff, I realized I had not packed away our old king size mattress cover. Gah! Oh well, honestly I never really liked that cover at all. It was more of a mattress pad and I always felt it changed the comfort of my mattress. Just wish I had remembered I had not packed it away, I still would have used it. I just bought a basic cover, no padding in it. I saved $11.40 with the coupon, plus $5.50 using my Target red card, the savings which covered our gas and early dinner of McD's (a whole $9, haha), at least. And at least we saved $50 or so by not having to buy a new bed frame. That about paid for the sheets and mattress cover.