Wednesday (at least I think it's Wednesday)

For those of you in the Polar Vortex, I hope you are staying warm and safe! Lucy - I hope your furnace is still working or you got your new one installed.  It's 13 degrees this morning where I am, but will warm up to 40 today.

My company is a rep for quite a few manufacturer's in the cold region. We are getting quite a few emails that the company's are closing their office for today and tomorrow. But, the great thing is so many are able to work remotely from their homes and some business carries on. They just can't ship orders.

I'm tweaking my budget a bit. I split my bills up for half a month, since I get paid on 15th and last day of each month. I have been budgeting $40 per pay period for gas. But, we are only spending about $40 a month total. I'm going to start putting $25 per pay period.

Work is sloooowly progressing on the house. The tape and texture guy is doing this all by himself (after he told us he would bring help). He finally showed up last Tuesday afternoon (caused us a 10 day delay - sorry if I've already told this) and worked a few hours. Then worked good long days on Wednesday and Thursday. Then worked a half day last Friday. Then didn't show up Monday of this week until 1pm. At this rate, it's going to take him weeks to get this done. He is driving DH insane. DH was ready to fire him on Monday when he wasn't showing up.

Last Friday morning, right as he showed up, the big snow plow that plows the road in front of our house flipped over in the ditch! DH had been outside and heard it and went running out there to make sure the guy was ok. (he was) In doing so, he twisted his back, which of course has been causing him pain, since then. Add that to the normal daily pain he deals with and he has not been fun to be around at all. He's just getting himself totally worked out about every little thing. Then he sits there and goes on and on and on about it (so like his mom!) that of course he's just turned himself into a ball of stress and nerves. I finally got snippy with him on Monday and told him he's not firing the tape/texture guy....because 1) he already gave him $1500 last Thursday because the guy is broke and needed money to buy supplies (good grief! and DH of course has to be Mr nice guy and try to make everyone like him)  2) even if we do find someone new to finish the job it could/would take weeks before they would be able to start and this guy would be done by then and we could be on to the painting phase. and 3) who's to say the next sub wouldn't be just as bad to deal with?

DH's buddy - the one who we haven't heard from in months and months, finally stopped by last Sunday. He hasn't been here since before we started any of the building. He's seen pics, of course, because still friends on Facebook. While we showed him the house, he spent most of the time complaining how now his house wasn't good enough. His house and property is beautiful. He has a 2400 sqft house and a shop same size as ours. Plus he has 14 acres, with about 3 of it all lawn and a long nice paved driveway. His comments really did lead us to believe that his distance the past 8 months has all been related to jealousy.  After we showed him the house he and DH went to sit on the fireplace hearth to keep visiting. I just went back inside the shop and let them visit. I realized I hadn't really missed him one bit! haha.