A quiet Sunday morning

While yesterday morning was busy and productive, the afternoon was relaxing on the patio. Birds, hummingbirds at the feeder, and watching a deer on the other side of the river, taking a drink, before she disappeared back into the trees. A few fishing boats going by. I remembered DD had given us this birdbath as a gift some time ago, which we just saved in the box until we got the house done, so we set that up on the back patio. The dogs thought it was a good place to drink out of, LOL.

Supposedly these birds that are trying to nest up in our beams and annoying the heck out of DH are mosquito eaters, so they are good to have around. (and explains why we live next to water and have no mosquitoes!). Our mason guy stopped by the other day and told DH about them. If you build them a birdhouse way up high on a pole they will be happy. But, apparently you are supposed to put it away from trees and we are surrounded by trees. Mason guy lives in a prairie area, so he was able to put his birdhouse where there aren't trees around.

Dinner was a light dinner of club sandwiches, which we ate out on the front (or is it the back? haha) patio. DH went out into the shop for a few minutes, came back with one can of root beer left he found in the shop refrigerator. So, we had root beer floats for dessert. Haven't had one of those in probably a year.

I don't know what we are going to do today. DH is sleeping in again. I'm going to make blueberry muffins for breakfast, but waiting for him to get up before I make them. I need to figure out what I'm going to make for dinner, since I'll probably need to get something thawed out, whether it be hamburger or chicken.

Getting Saturday done

The dogs let me sleep in until 7:45 (insert eye roll) so I got busy with my morning. I made my cup of coffee and DH's egg sandwich. Finished getting the dishwasher loaded and turned on. Cleaned the countertops and the cooktop. Then I changed to some jeans and a sweatshirt and took some outgoing mail out to the mailbox (down at the end of our street), so it would for sure get out today. DH just kept sleeping (which is a good thing for him). I went upstairs and looked at emails and Facebook. Added a few things to my online Walmart grocery shopping cart and found one small M-Turk hit to do. If I can make my $5/day goal Mon-Fri, (which I barely did), then anything I can get on a weekend is a bonus, but I don't try too hard.

I went back downstairs and started dusting and DH finally got up. He went out to the shop for a little bit. The wi-fi extender is just not working well. It shows we are connected to wi-fi with it, but when you try to get anything on the phone w/internet it says "network not connected", but the phones won't switch over to LTE. Finally, I unplugged the device. The wi-fi from the house router still sends a weak signal, which our phones try to use, but usually won't load anything on our phones. I just told DH to turn off wi-fi on his phone when he's out there and just use data. Hopefully, when the electricians come week after next, it will get working like we wanted it to, in the first place.

Then DH went outside to do some work and I made the dogs go out with him, so I could mop the floor and let it dry before they got their paw prints all over. 

The excavator guy did show up yesterday afternoon and brought loads of gravel. It was only about a 10 mile RT from where he loaded the gravel, so quick haul for 4 or 5 loads. It looks much better out there. All even with the concrete slabs and much nicer, finished looking. He will come back on Monday to use the roller to bind it all better. It's hard to get good gravel (and topsoil) around here. Even the excavator guy said this isn't very good stuff, but we really don't have much choices around here for that kind of material. The excavator guy sure likes out house design and keep telling DH that. Says it makes him want to build a new house.

Well, I guess now it's time for lunch. I think I'll go out and eat on the back patio. There were some fishermen in a boat out there earlier. It's a nice day out. Finally feels like a summer day.

Finally Friday

DH's fishing friend cancelled out again last night (though the weather was fine). The buns I bought for the burgers he was going to bring/make are going to get stale, LOL. This time I anticipated him canceling again and had a back up dinner plan (steaks). I also started eating the apple pie I had bought for dessert.

DH kept busy, though. He started building himself a big work bench to put in the shop. He's using up leftover lumber and beams, though he will need to purchase some plywood for the top. The problem is he can't get his pickup out of the shop to go get the lumber. We have been asking and waiting for the excavating guy to come and bring us gravel to raise up our driveway to meet the edge of the concrete parking slabs in front of the shop and garage. If DH tries to drive off or onto them, before there is some level ground next to the slabs they are most likely just going to break if he tries to drive off/on them. Finally, excavator guy called this morning and is going to deliver some gravel this afternoon. But, I'm just as sure he get busy today and run out of time and put us off again.

The neighbors were just supposed to have their son's two dogs (one huge, one little) until July. Well, now it's changed until this Fall. Who does that to their family pets? The first reason was they were putting a lawn in and didn't want the dogs tearing it up, so needed a couple of months for it to get in. Now, they are renting out their house and moved to another house they bought, but it doesn't have a fenced yard yet, so the dogs need to stay until like September. I'm sure that was the whole plan/reason to begin with - they were putting in a lawn so they could rent out their house, LOL. Neighbor guy works from home part of the time, but when he leaves, then of course they bark, because they aren't happy. I'm not sure what happened to keeping the bark collars on them, but DH did kind of mention to neighbor yesterday that they start barking as soon as he leaves.

I just received our next electric bill. $118. Not bad, considering we get full house a/c, too. I think the heat pump was a smart choice. We'll see for sure, when winter comes. But, my cheapest electric bill on our little house it town (different power company) was $160/mo in the summer months....and that was with a window a/c unit that barely kept the house cool.

I'm looking forward to only having to work 3 days next weekend. Of course, as always, the company holidays on Fridays always fall on the day I would have only had to work a half day anyway, LOL. The full day off (holiday) never seems to fall on the week that I have to work a full Friday.

No big weekend plans. Just cleaning house and washing bedding.

Crazy weather and a product review offer

DH and his friend didn't get to fish last evening. The weather got too bad with thunder, lightening and rain. They will try again today, but it sounds like the weather is supposed to be the same again starting later this afternoon. And since he didn't come over with his dinner food last night, LOL, I had to come up with something else for dinner. We ended up having french toast and bacon, which tasted pretty good.

Awhile back I bought a product (it was to remove dents in car panel or other metal) through Amazon. I received an email from the seller company saying I could get a $10 Amazon gift card if I left a review, which I did. I had to do a couple of emails to get the money, which ended up being a $10 Paypal credit, but that was fine too. I think the company is in China or something, but they were quick to reply and get the money to me for leaving the review.  I just received an email from this company asking if I'd like to receive/test and review another product. An organizer that hangs over the back of a car seat. From what I read, they will charge my Paypal $21, but after they ship it, it says they will credit me back for it. After I leave a review they will send me another $5. and I get to keep the product. I'm not sure why they have to charge me for it first. Has anyone else done these type of product reviews - is that how it usually works? I'm feeling pretty trusting of them, based on the first purchase and correspondence I had with them and I guess if I am out $21, I have a two seat organizer (it has 2 in it) for a car.

Electrician/internet update

After I emailed the electrician back with pictures and what the telephone company tech guy had said, I was walking down the stairs and hear DH's cell phone ringing on his desk (he was out mowing the front "field" that's kinda grassy). It was the electrician calling, so I answered it. He said he didn't want us to feel like he wasn't fulfilling what we thought he was going to do, so he wanted to come out and do the internet wiring hook up right, at no charge...but he did explain how they did install the wiring, but it was supposed to be the telephone company, after that, who did the rest of the work. I told him that DH and I had just been saying that a few minutes before he went out to mow....that most likely the telephone company is the one who is supposed to do the rest of the job and for whatever reason they couldn't/wouldn't.  I told him that we explained twice (actually 3 times, if you count when I first called) to the phone company how the electricians set us up. First to a guy that came out to just "look" at what needed to be done. Then explained again to the actual tech that came out. The tech told me that there was no wiring done by the electricians to do it how I was saying it was supposed to be done. It will be interesting to see what the electricians actually end up doing. DH has a hunch they maybe did forget part of the wiring inside the house. We'll see.

So, I accepted the electrician's offer to come out and do this at no charge. Like he said - he/his guys should have explained it to us better what part they did and then what would be needed to be done by the telephone company to get what we wanted. Electrician also said it most definitely can be done, as well as internet out in the shop (without using the "iffy" wi-fi extender) - it just needs to also be done/added to at the "media box" out in the garage, next to the electrical panel. I also told him that to make the telephone work, I had to plug the telephone wiring into the Cat5 plug in, not the telephone plug in. He said something's not right, but made it sound like phone co's fault. But, they are the one's that put in those outlets to plug into, so who knows. He's really busy the rest of this week and next (holiday week) but said they can come out the following week and get us set up right.  I really don't feel bad about him coming out at no charge. He made almost $25,000 off our job, not to mention he had asked DH if he could come back at some point and take pictures of our house/lighting to use in his advertising....so  ya,...he can come fix this issue at no charge.

With the emails and phone call, and trying to get payroll done, I didn't get time to put a cake in the oven, so when I ran into town to get buns for burgers and a few other things, I picked up an apple pie from the bakery section. It sounded good - and I have some vanilla ice cream in the freezer to go with it.

It's been a nice sunny, with some clouds day, but all of a sudden the thunder has started. Hopefully, it's all passed by the time DH's friend comes over to fish at 6pm.

Hanging wall art and internet is confusing

We hung several more pictures last night. I just wish DH wouldn't get the itch to do this at 8pm, haha. By then I'm beat and just ready to veg out. Not make decorating decisions! One of the "pictures" we have is a rustic sign in the shape of the state, carved out of barn wood. It has the date we moved here, the longitude/latitude and a shell casing marking the town. (from Etsy). I gave it to DH our first Christmas here. I thought it should go either on the wall in his den, or on the wall above his den french doors. He wasn't liking the idea. He felt like the date was the date we moved into the first house. That "someone" (who cares?! LOL) would look at it and say "you haven't lived here (in this new house) that long". I just said ok, you don't have to use it anywhere. After we finished hanging up the others he said ok, I get it - the date represents when we started our new life here. Yep, that was the intent. So, he hung it where I wanted it, haha. Above his den doors.

I have this sort of big farmhouse clock, that I thought would look good above the tv, over the fireplace, but when DH held it up there, I realized it's too small. Looks out of proportion, so that's not going up there. Found a different place for it, though not easy, because we actually don't have a lot of wall space, with this open concept and so many windows. I also have several pictures, I've had/used for many years, that I just don't think go with this house and don't plan to use anymore.

I should get a break from hanging more pictures this evening. His new friend, that showed him how to fly fish a few weeks ago, is coming over again. The river is down and flowing much cleaner now. We are starting to see the fishermen out in boats along the river. His friend offered to come over for some more fishing lessons and he will bring his Traeger grill and some elk burgers. I'm going to supply buns, condiments and side dish (or two). I haven't made the cake yet, so I think I'll take a little break later this morning and get that in the oven, for dessert. I'll have to run into town during my lunch break and get buns and a few things.

We made it through our month on the cell phone bill without going over data. It was close. We only had .17GB left. We used it up the first week we were in the house and the internet from the shop wouldn't reach. Then once we had it in the house, it wouldn't reach back to the shop all the way, so DH was using it up while he was out in the shop. I even used my Verizon rewards to get 1GB of extra data to try to get us through. The wi-fi extender put out in the shop has fixed the issue, but it was close on going over our data limit and getting charged extra. Well, I thought the wi-fi extender fixed it. It's worked fine the 10 days we've had it, until yesterday, after our power went out for a few seconds. DH went out into the shop and realized he wasn't getting internet to his phone again. The extender device had all the right lights on that is looked like it was working and had connection. I ended up just unplugging it and resetting it, which worked. I figured it must have just needed a reset after the power outage. Then DH went out there this morning and had the same problem again. I unplugged it again and it started working. Frustrating. I don't know why it would work fine for 10 days and now is being temperamental.

I also emailed our electrician this morning. Maybe we misunderstood, but I don't think so. When they were here doing all the wiring they said they were doing it so that our den and office rooms could be hardwired to our router, rather than using wi-fi. That is my understanding as to why there is a Cat5e plug-in, above the telephone line plug-in, in both of those rooms. But, when the telephone guy came out to move our modem from the shop to the closet where the modem was supposed to go, he said there was no way to hard wire to those rooms, because there weren't any wires coming out of the wall to plug into the modem. The only wire was the main one, for the phone/internet service itself. So, I'm not sure what the point of the electricians putting in the Cat5e plug ins's in those rooms was? More than likely, it's just DH and I misunderstanding, but I specifically recall when they were explaining to me how it was going to work, that we'd be hardwired internet to our computers, because one of the electricians had come in the shop and we looked at the back of the modem, to make sure there were at least 2 places to plug in to hardwire (there are 4). Maybe it's wiring the phone company was supposed to end up installing when they came out, but they didn't act like it. They acted like it would have had to have been done by the electricians.

So, the electrician just emailed back. He said all the wiring was there, maybe the telephone company guy didn't see the wiring in the closet or know what to do with it? BUT, if we want them to come out out and get us set up that way, they can, for $300! I emailed back two pictures. One of the wiring they had left available for the phone company guy (just one wire, the main feed of telephone/internet that plugs into back of modem) and a picture where DH just removed the plate cover to see if there were maybe some additional wiring that that didn't get pulled through. There was not. I told him this is what we have as far as wiring. We were under the impression that we already paid to have this set up to be hardwired....so if it's going to be an additional $300, never mind! GEEZ!!!!!

The other part of our set up that doesn't make sense, is the phone had to be plugged into the outlet named "Cat5e", rather than the one with the phone symbol. The Cat5e plug-in is a bit bigger, but the phone cable will plug into either, (though Cat5e wire will only plug into the bigger one) but only works on the Cat5 one. If I was hard wired into my computer to the modem, I would think one wire (from computer) would have to plug into the larger Cat5e plug in and the telephone would have to plug into the other one, with the phone symbol. But, the phone won't work if it's plugged into the one with the phone symbol. Gosh, I hate not understanding all this.  And hey for $300 more bucks out of ya, we'll figure it out.

Then the electrician brought up an issue they are getting billed for by the fireplace company. I reminded him the fireplace stopped working. Then the electrician said they would come out and needed them to come out too, and if it turns out it was an electrical problem, that the fireplace company could bill them. The fireplace guys came out and took their stuff apart and couldn't find anything that would cause it. Then the electrician got here. Looked around, found a loose wire, farther downstream, fixed it, and we haven't had any fireplace problems since. Whether that wire is what caused the fireplace problem, no one seemed to know for sure.

A little of this - a little of that

DH got two more things checked off his list of things to do. He finished the electrical wiring/conduit set up out on the gate pier (because eventually there will be an electric gate and lights on the piers). He also moved a gutter downspout that was in front of the house, coming down in a weird spot, in the middle of the siding. He moved it over a couple of feet, so it is coming down in the corner, along a piece of trim, where the laundry room angles from the rest of the house. He also worked a bit on organizing some tools in his shop with some hooks and pegboard. We also hung a few pictures in the laundry room.

I've watched a few movies on Amazon. A new one with Jennifer Anniston and Adam Sandler called "Murder Mystery". It was ok, not as good as I expected it to be. The other one was a couple of years old - "Home Again" with Reece Witherspoon. That was a cute movie. I also watched "Book Club", which was pretty good, too. I'm trying to get back into watching Blacklist, but not getting too far.  I'm back to having nothing to read. All the books are on wait list for me. I'm trying to read some science fiction novel, but having a hard time getting into it.

DH is having a bad day. He didn't sleep well. Then dealing with the birds trying to build nests. They seem to be trying harder, not giving up. Then our power went out for like 5 seconds. His computer always has issues coming back on, so that was a half hour ordeal getting it back (mostly because he's too impatient). He's in one of his "nothing is going right in his life" moods.  All's I hear (and have heard for a year and a half is "there's no way I can do this/get this done, etc.". And it all has gotten done.

I made homemade pizza for dinner last night. Yum. And have enough leftover for 2 lunches for me. I've always bought fresh mushrooms to put on top, which hasn't always been convenient. The one's at the grocery store in town literally last like 1 day before they turn all black, so if something comes up that I can't make the pizza that day, forget about having mushrooms on it. I can't remember if I've tried the canned mushrooms or not. But, when I was doing my online shopping for my Walmart pick up order I came across frozen mushrooms. They aren't too bad. Plus, nothing goes to waste and I can just use what I need and keep the rest frozen until the next time.

My next thing to bake is going to be a cake :) I might do that later this afternoon.  It's my lunch break time, but right now I feel like I could just fall asleep. Ugh.

We've had to purchase a dehumidifier. I'm guessing it's mostly to keep DH sane, but oh well. After the mold issue we had in our crawlspace, he's nervous. No, make that paranoid. After it was cleaned, our insulation company then sealed the crawlspace, so it's considered a sealed "conditioned" space. But, DH keeps track of the humidity level (he has a weather station thingy) down there and it's usually in the mid to high 60%. which he thinks is too high. According to what research he could find, it's recommended to be at no higher than like 55%. Up until a couple weeks ago, we had a borrowed dehumidifier down there, but we gave it back to our contractor the last time he was here. And the humidity has gone up, compared to using it. So, I ordered the same one from Home Depot. There goes another $300. Ugh.

Muscle strain and annoying friends

Awhile back I apparently pulled something in the back of my right leg, up above the back of my knee. It will not heal. I think I know when I might have done it, but dang, it's been like 2 months. It bother's me the most sitting in my desk chair. I even switched to a different chair, that has helped some. I used to do stretching exercises every day, but haven't because it hurts the back of my leg. I'm getting really tired of it. I read that pulling (hamstring? I don't know what it is for sure I pulled) can take a very long time to heal. It's also bothering me some, while sleeping. Over the weekends, it feels a lot better, because I'm not at my desk all day, but all week, it's worse. I don't know what to do. I guess go have it checked out by the doctor, but what are they going to do for it? Probably tell me to start stretching it again, LOL.

DH is still dealing with the darn birds trying to nest up in our beams. He'll probably give them this week to see if they give up (he keeps blowing the nesting material down with the leaf blower) and then put up the netting he bought. He just didn't want to go to the hassle of getting up on a ladder 22ft up and installing it, if the birds are going to be done in a week or so anyway (as we were told).

We have a friend (a single guy) from where we used to live who has been saying for 3 years he's going to move over here. He wants to buy some property (like lots of acreage, off the grid type deal) and looks online some. He wants like 100 acres, but cheap. Something with a creek through it so he can make his own power from that, etc. He called DH a couple of weeks ago that he was going to come over and look at some property, but in an area 2 1/2 hours from us, so not close at all. DH told him that area/town is pretty pricey (it's full of vacation type homes) and guy says "well, I'm just going to lowball the offer". Ok, LOL. Then he texted DH Saturday morning that he was in our area, then he called. He wants to get a PO Box here (I guess so he can license his truck cheaper than his state?) and would we get his mail every so often? (then what are we supposed to do with it?) Oh geez. First off, he wasn't going to get a PO Box on a Saturday, no post office is open around here on weekends.  And it's not like we live right in town anymore. We're 10 miles out.  Second off, I don't think you can get a PO Box at USPS without proving to them you have a physical address. When we opened our PO Box there (we don't have a PO box any longer, as we get mail delivery at this house) I had to show them my title company paperwork on the purchase of my house. Then he wanted to stop by (he has someone traveling with him) and then he wanted DH to look up on his computer several properties he's interested in looking at while over here. DH finally told him, he's sorry, but he's completely worn out and not feeling very well and doesn't even have enough energy right now to get done the things we need to do for ourselves. The guy kept texting DH all day. Finally, Saturday evening he just shut his phone off. DH had spent all day working around here. He was tired and it was getting close to 9pm and we were ready for bed, not wanting to entertain (and most likely put up for the night) people. Either look the property info up yourself....or get a realtor! That's what we did when we were looking. We're just not ready to have guests yet. Not to mention, like DH (who is Mr. Neat Freak) said - guy and his friend have been traveling all day on their motorcycles....most likely dusty and dirty and then are going to come and sit on our nice new furniture we've literally had for a few hours? No thanks. DH hated being rude, but we've barely just moved in and still trying to get unpacked, settled, and lots of projects still on the board to get done.

DH always jokes he needs to find better friends, LOL. Most of the one's he has are so judgemental. What are you doing that for? Why do you need that? type of thing. There is this one Facebook "friend" I do not even know why we are friends with him! DH met him via online, when we were racing with our son. We've actually never even met the guy in person (I think our DD did once). He lives half the year out of state and half in (where we used to live, but he was 2 hours from us) . Supposedly a very rich guy, about our age. He liked DH's writing he did on some various racing message boards, years ago, and got to know him through emails and then Facebook. He's also friends with several other common friends.But, boy, he sure has gotten judgey the past couple years. DH has liked to make frequent posts and photos about our house build. Seems like lately, if he's got a comment on it, it's sort of a backhanded compliment. DH and I have gotten so we don't even respond to his comments much anymore. Like a totally innocent screenshot of a funny text conversation between DH and I the other day. He had to comment "you need to teach him how to edit a screenshot". Huh? Neither of us knew what he was talking about, other than the screenshot included the keyboard in it....who cares?!!  And it's like he's always snidely commenting that DH needs a job....this guy is like our age (maybe a few years older) and hasn't worked the whole time we've known him (like 10 years)! What's the difference? He's perfectly healthy and capable of working, if he wanted to, he just doesn't need to/want to because he sold his company and I guess retired off of that.

Or the friends that constantly tell him he should sell his pickup, since he doesn't drive it much. Why? Why should we sell a fully paid for, 20 year old, in almost brand new condition (it only has like 54,000 miles on it) truck? We obviously (like most people) need a truck for some things from time to time. Why wouldn't we keep this nice one? Are we supposed to then go out and pay $80k for a new one? or are we just not supposed to have one, since DH doesn't use it much? Next time one of them says something like that I'm going to ask them, haha!

His buddy that lives near us...the one who basically went MIA as soon as our build started last year. He's being the same way. He's about 7 years younger than us. Apparently it bothers him that DH doesn't work. He's always trying to find DH a job or saying "you need a job". Tells DH last week (he had come for the local car show in town) that he knows of a job opening with some construction company. DH was like "why don't you take it, if it's so good?" Oh, no, it only pays like $12/hr. DH just laughed and said "why in the world would I take a job that you yourself wouldn't take? (he makes like $22/hr) Let alone, how am I supposed to work 40 hours (or more) a week, when I have days I can barely move?"  Yes, let's have DH get a $12/hr job so then he can pay someone $20/hr to do all the work he does around here, that we'd have to hire out if DH wasn't around to do it.

Who needs friends like these guys, eh?

Furniture and bar countertop

The living room furniture got delivered yesterday morning. I like it and certainly fills up the room now and doesn't make the house seem to huge (and empty). I will need to get some throw pillows and an area rug, at some point. I'm trying to figure out what size area rug to use, as well as finding a design and colors I like. I want something with a little bit of color in it, but mostly beige/neutral.

The woodworker guy finished our bar countertop already and is here now installing it. And he did a wood burning design in it, that DH picked out. I love it. It's definitely a highlight feature of the home now, I think. Very beautiful and personalized. Wood from our trees cut down and the design wood burned into the center piece.

Here it is, not all installed yet, though. I love it.

It's so nice to have somewhere comfortable to sit and it's also so nice not going to have to look at that unfinished part underneath the countertop any longer. Now.....if DH would just get the pantry shelves put in....

More spam and furniture

I've been trying to log into my mom's AOL email a couple times a day. Again, not much spam, that I see going directly to her inbox. A few I put to spam folder. Then I log in this morning, again, nothing, but I still check her sent emails to see if she's replying to any of this spam. There she goes again.....several times trying to reply to another "we are going to deactivate your AOL account".  These emails don't come from the same email most of the time (though they all say AOL Service or something like that) and most of the time when she does reply she gets a "mailer-daemon - failure notice" - which of course she doesn't understand at all what that means, so she replies again.

I'm not even sure how she got this email yesterday. I don't see it in her inbox, her spam or her trash. But it looks like it came about 9am yesterday morning, after I had looked. I know she usually gets up and sits down at her computer around 9am or a little later. I'll have to try to check just before then to clear out anything spam. She and I just emailed about this a week ago! She assured me she was not replying to them. Does she not remember at all talking about this numerous times? or does she just not believe me, so thinks she knows better and needs to reply? Her memory isn't that bad, especially when something comes up to actually remind her, so seeing an email about deactivating would/should remind her of our discussions about it. At least that's how our conversations have gone about other subjects.

It also looks like she changed her online banking password (from emails from her bank). Somehow I'll have to bring that up with her. When I last visited her and I wrote down all her info in a notebook, so I would have it in case of an emergency. But, I'll need to update that in my notebook (I'm also on her bank accounts, too) so it's up to date. Watch....I'll tell her I want to update my notebook in case she changed anything and either she'll tell me no she hasn't, or if she has, she won't be able to find where she wrote it down, LOL.

In other news, the furniture store called yesterday afternoon and will be delivering the sofa, loveseat and recliner tomorrow morning.  Yay! We'll finally be able to use our living/great room, rather than just walking thru the space the furniture is supposed to be in, LOL. Now.....to keep the dogs off of it....

I'm working a half day today, so we are going to pick up our groceries at Walmart and run a couple other errands. This will be DH's first time not having to grocery shop. I'm sure he will like that, too. DD just did the Walmart grocery pick up at her store, last night. (She was with me when I did it 2 weeks ago). She said she had forgotten how much better Walmart's prices were (she just doesn't like shopping in Walmart). I had referred her, so she got $10 off and once her order went through I received a $10 off code to use on my next order.

The good and the getting used to

I'm still waiting on living room furniture. The salesman had told me approx 2 weeks (which was this past Monday). I looked up my receipt to find his name and the ph# and notice the receipt says estimated delivery isn't until next Wednesday, the 26th. Why couldn't he have just said that. I will say I am very much looking forward to finally having somewhere to sit, besides the dining table or on my bed!

I'm starting to get used to things here in the house. Getting used to the "flow" of living in a new place. For the most part it's wonderful. A few things are still a bit new and different.

The good:
Space, lots of space. Enough said.

The shower: OMG, it's heaven, LOL. For almost 28 years we lived in our one house. While it was a nice sized master bathroom (for a mfg home) the shower was a tiny square box, approx 29" wide. You could barely lift your elbows up to shampoo without hitting the walls or the shower door. We could fit 4 of those showers inside this one.

The copper farmhouse sink. LOVE it. It's so pretty, it makes me keep the kitchen clean and the dishes put right away into the dishwasher. And the granite is nice, too.

The dog wash. I've only used it once, but it was nice and handy. But, we need to add a shower rod across the back, so I can hang the wet towels on to dry. It also needs a different sprayer head, something that has an off switch or button, rather than having to turn the whole faucet off and off during washing.

The a/c. It's the best. It's so nice to not have to cook dinner in an 80 degree house. It's also very nice to sleep in comfortable temps, that's for sure. Have I mentioned how nice it is not having to listen to DH constantly complain about the heat during summers?

The getting used to:
More cleaning. It's not too bad, though. With just the 2 of us, we manage to keep it all tidy and clean as we go. I'd say keeping all the windows clean is the hardest. The dogs drool spots on the wood laminate is annoying. It very visible on a sunny afternoon, when the sun comes pouring through all the windows. It's too much to totally mop every day, so I've been trying spot cleaning, when I notice a bad drool area (like if one of them lays in a spot for awhile).

where I put stuff in the kitchen and getting used to a new flow of working in the kitchen layout. It's not really a huge kitchen and not tons of counter space. But, it's better than I thought. There is a little space on each side of the cooktop. Plus a nice space above the dishwasher and drawer for garbage, as well as the whole countertop along back wall. Sometimes I still have to hesitate to remember what drawer or cupboard something is in. I still haven't figured out/tried the convection aspect of my oven, yet.

Lighting - some of it's not as bright as I'd like. Need different bulbs, I think. There are 2 ceiling light fixtures in the laundry room, with 3 lights each. With 6 light bulbs, you'd think it would be bright enough, but it's not. The bulbs are the Edison vintage style LED. They don't put off much light. Same thing for the bathroom vanity lights. I'm just not sure what light bulbs to get (eventually) to replace, since they are so visible in the fixtures.

No blinds on any windows facing "back" of house/river view. Kinda weird feeling in the bedroom, haha. But, who's gonna see me? LOL.

Speaking of back of the house vs. front of the house. DH and I have always called the driveway, where you pull in ....where the front door faces....the FRONT of a house. Everyone here calls it the back of our house and the side of our house on the river, they call the front. Weird. Or maybe we are just weird.

Wednesday...Thursday. it's one of these days of the week

I woke up this morning and at first thought it was Thursday. 

The swallows are driving DH nuts, haha. (picture Bill Murray in Caddyshack, but with birds instead of a gopher, LOL). I had emailed this bird repellent company with a question about their repellent spray and they emailed back that it doesn't work too well on these types of birds and she asked for some pictures of the area we want to get them away from. She recommended netting, which is funny because DH was just in town at the lumber store and I think he bought some. But, the good news, he learned from the lumber store guy, is that these birds only do this for like 2 weeks at the beginning of summer. He said if you can just keep taking out their nesting material they are trying to leave, they will be done with this annoyance in a couple of weeks. Keeping fingers crossed! I also just read that removing their nesting material every couple of days, for a about a week, and they will get tired of trying to build there and move on. The beams are like 22 feet up! DH finally resorted to getting out his big gas powered leaf blower and blowing their stuff down and blowing at them when they tried to come back.  Even today, they seem to have lessened their pursuit.

The propane company came to fill up our neighbors, so they filled up ours too. I was really hoping it would be another month before I'd have that big bill. Our tank was still almost 40% full, but oh well. We got it filled up with 400 gallons. The price was $1.15/gallon, which I didn't think was too bad.  Seems like it was higher last fill up. This fill up should last us a good long time now, I'd think. We won't be heating the shop next winter, to the extent we did this winter, living in it. We're still using propane for showers. The kitchen and laundry room hot water (and guest baths) run off of an electric water heater, as well as our furnace is electric/heat pump. I would think this should last us now until next summer.

Every single time I complain about M-Turks being a slow day or week, boom, I suddenly have a great day with it, so here I am complaining.....this week I'm struggling to even get a few dollars per day, making it hard to reach my $5/day goal.

It doesn't sound like we will be getting our mid year bonus. I'm a bit surprised, really. They made the sales goal for this year at the end of last year, but then management changed the "game", so to speak. They terminated the contract with our biggest manufacturer and went with a smaller mfg. Sales were then expected to be less (quite a bit) but at higher profit margins. Even so, there would still be no way to meet that original sales goal now. BUT, this mfg is giving us a guaranteed monthly payment, for this first year, which is almost what we were making a month from the original company. So, while we are not recording the higher sales we used to get, we are getting the income......but our bonus is based on sales, not income. and another but...of course the management still gets their bonus's (ahhh...the double edged sword of being in payroll and accounting and knowing stuff....). Big bummer.

an all over the place post

I think I've mentioned before that Go Fund me accounts people ask/expect you to donate to, often annoy the heck out of me.  Like the one where the relative wanted to go study abroad for a semester, so rather than work to save up the money to do it, she asked for donations. She didn't get much, so, of course didn't go. Or the relative, who a year and a half ago was asking for money so she could go to another state and live and do her masters degree...who a year and a half later can afford to go to Hawaii on vacation.......(not to mention several trips home and a trip to Vegas, the past year and a half). I couldn't even bring myself to ask for something like that for like a medical expense/emergency, let alone for something that is a "want".

Ok, that was my little rant.

DH is wearing himself out. He won't take a break to rest and recover. Over the years he's realized that after he's over done it, he needs a couple of days of rest and just taking it easy. Then he can start up again. Rinse. Repeat. He's just going all the time and won't stop to rest. He's now in so much pain, says it's the worst he's had. I reminded him he used to take a couple of days and rest and that is what he needs to start doing again. Of course he won't listen to me. Says there's too much to get done and it won't get done if he rests. It will get done, just will take a bit longer. He has no problem telling people about his muscles problem......yet then he will not show them that he needs any relief. So, then he's mad when "no one thinks anything is wrong with me". Well, geez - you'll be on your legs for 6 straight hours with the wood worker guy and not take a break, or grab a stool. Someone will stop by to visit (and people like to do that around here) and he'll have to stand there (cuz usually they just stand outside and talk) and he'll stand for like an hour or two visiting. Instead of saying something like "hey, I'm sorry, my legs can't stand any more right now, how about we go sit?". Makes me so mad. Then, I have to listen to him complain on and on how bad he feels. No kidding. 

We have a guy we know (and friends on Facebook) from DH's previous working days. About our age. He has a relative he is close with who is super wealthy and regularly flies him (in a private jet!) to visit them and attend their parties. OMG! He will post pics. They have 2 little children, You should see the extravagant (and that's putting it mildly) birthday parties these little one's get! Every birthday. Full blown extravaganza's. They must cost at least $50,000 each (and that's probably a low guess). I cannot even imagine having one of these parties thrown for me in my lifetime. Can you imagine having a party thrown for you every year like that? It's a bit hard to imagine a lifestyle like that. He's just a regular working joe, like most of us, so I'm sure he's still not used to it, haha.

Apparently, I just got the one day, last Saturday, for feeling relaxed and rested, LOL. I'll take it, though. Hopefully,  there are more to come. It has just been months since I felt like that, I forgot what it feels like. The weekend of 4th of July, I get 4th and 5th off work, and I'm looking forward to that. I keep hoping DH will make a friend he can go do stuff with every so often, LOL. He makes friends super easy, but most people work, or have spouses, etc, so are too busy to do much (not to mention he is busy himself). It's just that if he goes off for a few hours, it's so peaceful, LOL.

Last night (at 8pm, no less) DH says "let's put up these blinds in the bedroom". I think it took about an hour to get all 3 up. I'm quite happy with them (blinds.com).

Kind of hard to tell in the picture. The side windows are fabric roman shades. It's a nice heavy, lined fabric. the horizontal window is a cellular shade. It's just about the same color as the window, so when it's up you barely notice there's a blind up there. I put them down when we went to bed. It did help some, with the morning light. I still haven't decided what to put in my office or the guest bedrooms. I'm thinking the cellular shade in my office. The sun doesn't hit my desk/computer screen until around 5pm, so at this point having no blinds/curtains isn't affecting my working.

Starting to get relaxed

Saturday was one of the most relaxing days I have had in a very long time. Spent the morning puttering around, cleaning. DH was outside puttering around and cleaning. Around noon, the guy who built our dining table showed up (unexpectedly) to get started on the bar countertop. He and DH spent the rest of the afternoon working on that. I worked on getting that wi-fi extender to work. Of and on I'd see how they were coming along.

About mid afternoon woodworker guy got a call from another guy about a bar he is going to make for him. We recently met this other guy about a month ago. He was working for the guy doing the last bit of our rockery. He lives up on the mountain straight across from us. Seemed like a super nice guy. He had invited us up to his house that next day, but we couldn't go, as one of the subs had showed up to work, so we had to stay. Haven't talked to him since, I don't think. He pulled in with his truck and some wood slabs he picked up, so woodworker could look at it. His wife (who we hadn't met yet) was in the truck. The guys were standing at the end of the pickup looking at the wood as I walked out there. She had her head turned (though window was rolled down) so she wasn't looking my way as I was walking towards the guys. She never did get out of the truck. Then woodworker wanted to show him the table he built us, so we started to go inside. He hollered over to his wife "do you want to come inside and see the table?". She kind of rolled her eyes at him, like she was annoyed and then got out. Her DH and woodguy were already on their way towards the house, but DH and I stopped and introduced ourselves to her. How weird. To go to someone's house, who you haven't met before, and not at least get out and introduce yourself, or at least say hello from the window of the truck. Once she got inside, she seemed pretty nice, but still was odd to me.

Awhile later that afternoon DH and woodworker ran over to his house to do some planing on the pieces or something or other. I figured they'd probably be gone close to an hour. I was going to take a nap, but I was cold! (still adjusting to the a/c in house). So, I took a bath instead, LOL.  They came back and worked until about 6;30, so we didn't get dinner until around 7, but I just did some steaks so that was quick.

Yesterday, I didn't feel as rested, for some reason. Woodguy came back around 10am and they worked a few hours. I fiddled some on my Dyson, to see if I could figure out why it was sooo hard to push over the carpet and got it to work better. Still not the easiest to push, but much better. I can handle it now. Since I have to vacuum upstairs and down, I've decided to leave it on the floor I finished and start on that floor next time, saving a trip up or down each time.

I also made a turkey dinner with the trimmings yesterday. We never got a Thanksgiving or Christmas turkey dinner living in the shop. The biggest turkey I could find was only 9.5 pounds, so not too many leftovers from it. But, we'll get leftovers for dinner tonight and a few days of turkey sandwiches.  DH appreciated it. Kind of a bittersweet Father's Day. He's missing his dad, of course, and missing our son, as always. He did get a very sweet text from a thoughtful young man. We have known him since he was a kid (same age as our son). His father died from cancer last year. He's missing his dad and he knows DH is missing our son, so he sent DH a happy father's day message.

We have sparrows trying to bring straw and stuff up in our back patio rafters. Guess we'll have to figure out how to stop that, now.

So, I am a little bit "geek"

Well, I'm just (barely) smart enough to figure out this wi-fi extender. I figured out how to access it "manually" via the internet and put in my network wi-fi password and it synced the device with my router. Before I went any farther, I went back downstairs to the extender and now the 2.4G light was lit up solid. Yay. Then I moved it to the outlet in the laundry room and went back out to the shop with our devices.

Same issue - my phone, ipad, and DH's ipad worked ok. DH's iphone would switch to LTE again as soon as you tried to access something on the internet. ARRGHH!. I tried some various "solutions" found on the internet. Turned the airplane mode on, then off. Turned the phone off and back on. Did a system update (that he'd been ignoring). Then I decided to move the extender device and plug it into the shop, right inside the door (where the regular wi-fi signal was reaching anyway) and bam! got full bar signal from DH's phone all over the shop (well, where I could physically get to, without standing on bins). I sat out there awhile, using his phone and it stayed on wi-fi.  I'm keeping fingers crossed I have fixed the problem!

Our woodworker guy is here now. Measuring and figuring out our kitchen bar countertop. When we were living in the shop we could hear someone pull in the driveway. In the house, we cannot. Even the dogs don't hear it. Until someone rings the doorbell........and then they go bat$h%t crazy. They are pretty well behaved dogs, but that is one thing I have never been able to train them. Usually, we'll hear someone pull in and so will they, so they start barking and I'll just put them in a room with the door shut, so I can answer the door, by the the time the person is getting to the front door.

Tech frustrations

I'm now in the process of getting my end loan mortgage. Thankfully, while we were delayed getting this construction done, the mortgage rates have continued to decline.  But, I really hate trying to decide, do I lock in now or just wait and see? The banker asked me if I wanted to lock in.  I needed a bit more info first: is there a fee to lock in? and how long does he think it will take to close the loan? So far, this year, the rates have been on a slow downward trend. From what I am reading, this is expected to continue, at least in the short term. I'm thinking of just holding out and hoping the rates go down a bit more by the time I get closed.  Opinions?

I bought a "wi-fi extender" to try to get more/better wi-fi out to the shop. This is what I had read I would need, as well as the phone guy told me the same thing. I bought one that is the same brand as our router (Comtrend) that we have through the phone company. Figured that might make set up as easy as possible. It's supposed to be just a plug in thing and easy to set up. But, I'm not sure if it's working correctly or not. We get some wi-fi just inside the shop, but the farther in you go it weakens and then is spotty/off and on.  It still seems to be doing the same, even with the extender.

Per instructions I plug it in a wall socket near the router/modem. Push the WPS button for 2 seconds. Then push the WPS button on the router for 2 seconds. The two are supposed to connect in about 2 minutes, which it seems to do. There are 2 "signals" it uses: 2.4 and 5G. Once they connected my phone (and other devices) now showed two new networks available: Extender 5011 and Extender 5012. Then you are supposed to be able to unplug it and try some different plug in locations between your router and the weak area.

But, according to the instructions the top 2 lights of the extender (one is marked 2.4G and one 5G" are supposed to be lit up, telling you the signal strength. Neither light up. They don't light up when it's plugged right near the router, either. So, I'm not sure what to do.

I first went out in the shop with my phone and ipad and they worked in the shop bathroom and farther away. I then went and got DH's phone and it seemed to be working. Later he went and sat out there. He'd be connected to wi-fi, but as soon as he tried to look at anything with his phone, it would switch back to LTE/data use. I took my phone (iphone 6) and his phone (iphone 7) out and sat is same spot. Mine would work, his would switch back to LTE.

I REALLY hate trying to figure out technology!!

Dining table love

Our mason guy is done. Yay! Boy, all these self employed subcontractors sure make a lot of money, LOL. Who needs a college degree? Just learn a trade and go into business for yourself. They all have more work than they can handle (because there's not enough of them to do all the work). I'll bet if they'd work a 40 hour week (this guy sure seems to, though one of the few) they make six figures a year, easy. He sure was a nice guy though. Supposedly, we are invited to a BBQ he has next month. I think he lives up north about an hours drive.

DH is taking a much needed "sleeping in" morning. Now that we had the final bill from the mason (and no surprises) we do have a little bit of money still in the bank, to put towards our next stuff that needs to be done. We were holding on to it, to make sure we had enough to cover his final bill. We don't have a lot, but will have to figure out the priority to allocate it to what still needs to be done. We need some gravel for our driveway, so we can use our garage and shop parking pads! It needs to be added to fill in, up to the parking pads, so there is a smooth driving transition. We also need the shelving in the closets and pantry. We need to take a trip to the dump to get rid of all the construction debris that is in the little dump trailer. That will be at least $300 to dump it. But, then DH can use the trailer for a couple of projects and then he is supposed to sell it.....I say supposed, because DH can rarely sell anything once he owns it. But, that has always been the plan since he got it 2 years ago. He should be able to get $6000-$6500 for it and we need that to finish up things here. Landscaping, the fencing, a riding lawn mower, etc. You watch...he'll have some excuse why he needs to keep it, rather than selling it. He won't want it parked outside (it's a bit of an eyesore) so he'll cram it in his shop and be back to having a shop that he can't move around in.


The woodworking guy delivered our farmhouse table yesterday! It's gorgeous. He does really nice work and it's nice that it's more personal, since it came from trees on our property. It's nice the trees got used for something purposeful, rather than DH's buddy who was originally offered to come and get the cut trees for his firewood! (he was too lazy to come and saw it up).

And the dress I got at Target for $25 do wear to DD's wedding (T'Pol asked for a photo)

TGIF!

Mom, memory, and emails

Had a bit of a confusing phone call with my mom on Tuesday afternoon. When I answered she said "hi, that is so strange, I tried this number and I got someone else". I'm like what? my number? Then she said her BF tried it and got someone else, too. Plus, he was trying to email me and it wasn't going through.

As far as I know she has my number in her cell phone contacts, she she doesn't specifically have to dial it each time (or heaven knows who'd she be calling). She was trying to give my info to her BF, so he could call or email me. She said he wanted to thank us for a good visit, when they stopped by a few weeks ago (mostly he wanted to let me know about the upcoming dr. visit and his concerns). I don't know what number or email she was giving him or she was dialing. She read me off my ph# that was correct. I gave her my email again, but haven't yet received an email from him. I have his email address, from one of her "funny" emails she will occasionally forward, that includes, his email, so I am just going to email him directly, so then he can just reply to me.

She said she has a doctor appointment on July 1st and her BF is going to go with her, so that is good. She's been having several days off and on where she doesn't feel well, when she gets up, and then it passes. Plus, her memory problems, and her BF thinks she should get checked out again. I'm glad he's going, as he'll be able to tell the doctor more, as well as remember what the doctor tells her. She already had a brain MRI the last time she went (this was last December) and they said it was normal. At that time, she told me the doctor told her he might have her go off of the anxiety medication(s), as that can cause cognitive problems, but he wasn't going to do it until summer. I had asked her why he wanted to wait until summer and she didn't know.  Then a couple months ago, I asked her about that again, (because I figured the doctor wouldn't follow up, she would have to) and she had no recollection of her doctor telling her that at all. In fact, she didn't even know why she was taking the medication or what it was for...she thought it was for her excessive sweating. I said, no, those are for anxiety. You don't take anything for the sweating (she's had that for years), though they think that might also be caused by that medication. Then she said "oh, well I don't even know why I'm still taking that".

I do know that several years (maybe 4-5) ago, she tried to go off one or both (she takes Paxil and Zanax) and it sent her emotions all over the place for a week or two, so she went back on. I just googled:

Using ALPRAZolam together with PARoxetine may increase side effects such as dizziness, drowsiness, confusion, and difficulty concentrating. Some people, especially the elderly, may also experience impairment in thinking, judgment, and motor coordination.taking these meds together

She's probably been on these for at least 15 years, so would have been 63 or so when she started.

She says she's not having any issues driving or getting lost. Or taking her meds, or paying bills. She's just forgetful of words for things and also doesn't remember people telling her stuff, at times. It will be interesting to see what another doctor appointment brings. I know as my grandma got older, she often didn't feel well in the mornings and if she had scheduled an appointment in the morning, my mom often had to reschedule it.

So, I haven't looked at her AOL account in a few weeks, to check her spam. I was checking it almost daily and the majority of it seemed to be now going directly to her spam folder, so I felt the issue wasn't a problem much now and I thought she now understood to ignore those deactivation emails and not reply. WELL, I just went into her account again....tons of spam in her regular inbox. I checked her sent emails.....sure enough, she's been getting some emails from some fake account, saying they were going to deactivate her AOL account.  She keeps replying!! I don't know how many times I have explained to her these are SCAMS, just ignore these emails, do NOT open and do NOT reply. So, I guess it's back to monitoring and getting rid of those emails before she see's them.

Obviously, if she can't remember to just simply ignore these emails, after we've repeatedly discussed them, she is having cognitive problems. I sent her an email asking if she's getting much spam anymore? and to just remember, if she gets any about deactivating to just ignore and do not reply.  She replied back to me last night that she is getting some spam, but she is just ignoring them. No..she is not! LOL. Since June 4th she has replied 11 times "do not deactivate my account".

Easing back into "normal" life

I was talking with my boss on the phone (when I was having trouble getting logged in) and mentioned that while I was waiting for the fix, I just stood up for awhile and looked out the window at the river. I explained that due to the dormer and roof line, the window had to be higher than my desk to see out of sitting. She suggested one of those varidesk set ups and that the company would buy me one, if I'd like to try that. I think I would like that, if I could still sit at it, with it raised, so maybe a stool type office chair would work with it. I'd need a footrest on the stool, though. Years ago, when I first started working from home, the only spot I had to set up my "desk" was on our bar countertop and I sat on one of our barstools that just have a bar across the bottom for a foot rest. Eventually, the bottom of my foot started aching. I'd need something with a flat foot rest.  I'm going to think on that! The varidesk has a model that sits on top of your existing desk and can raise up, when you want it to.

We have some friends moving from our old drug neighborhood area, to another state. They are using PODS to move their stuff. Sounds like it has turned into a huge nightmare for them and a huge rip off. They have a contract, to move the pods from their old house to their new house. First they wouldn't show up and pick them up. Now they picked them up and then are saying they will only move the pods to a place an hour and a half from their new house and they'd have to unload them there. They also had a set price for their 3 pods in the contract. Now they are raising the price by $800 each for the second and third pods! Like friend said - they have his stuff - what's he supposed to do now?! They are literally in the middle of driving across the county to their new home. Incredible. The local offices on both ends have been no help to him. The corporate office just says "ya, we know people complain about us on our Facebook page, but we don't care". So, just a warning, if anyone out there is thinking of using them for a big move. Hopefully friends can get this resolved. It's stressful enough moving across the country without having to deal with that on top of it.

I made some brownies. I do not mind baking. Maybe because it's just one thing to make, compared to a meal. The mason was still here and the woodworking guy, who is making our farmhouse table, stopped by, so I shared some with them. The woodworking guy said he put the last coat of finish on the table and it should be dry/ready in a few days. We saw it over the weekend and I love it.

Our neighbor guy is apparently gone all week. Explains why their dogs are all upset and pretty much barking all day. Ugh! Of course they don't know they are barking....he's gone and she's gone 12 hours a day. I was texting with her yesterday, because she had asked us to accept a delivery for them and she said her hubby is gone all week. I commented "oh that explains why the doggies have seemed out of sorts!"  I was hoping she'd get the hint and put the bark collars on them while she is at work all day.

The roman shades I ordered are supposed to be here tomorrow. That will give DH something else to do, haha. I've never had roman shades before. Just blinds and cellular type shades. Hopefully, they are easy to install.

The mason is expecting to finish up today. Then we will have no more subs here. He's a super nice guy, though. Very reliable. But, it will be nice to finally have the whole place to ourselves.

DD got her ancestry DNA results back. It said she is 55% England/Wales and 45% Ireland/Scotland. But it also said the 55% England/Wales can include Denmark and Northern Germany. I would think so, since my great grandfather on my mom's side emigrated from Denmark. DH's great grandparents, from Germany. My grandpa (dad's father) was born in Scotland. The rest seem to be from England. Interesting, stuff.

This, that, and the other

It's a nice sunny morning. I can't get remotely logged into my desktop at work. It gets part way in and freezes. I'm having my boss try to reboot my computer there. In the meantime I stood up, with my coffee cup in hand, and looked out the window, so I could watch the river. I think that's part of what I like about our view....it's always moving! The river is losing it's spring brown color and starting to turn green now.  Soon, we will start seeing "floaters" (people who float down the river) and fishermen going by.  Sometimes the fishermen stop at a spot across from our neighbors and fish from there awhile (same spot the bald eagles like to fish, haha).

I'm still working on getting my office organized. Things I had just kept in boxes (even at our house in town) I'm now going through and getting put away. I have created one box that is just papers to shred or burn, so that helps. Eventually, I think I need to get one more file cabinet. I just have two 2-drawer ones, plus some storage in my desk.

My neighbor just called. They are trying to have some wine delivered, but her hubby isn't home to sign for it, so she wanted to know if she could see if they could try to re-deliver it to us, to sign for. I told her we don't drink, but we might be starting from all this stress, so we might drink it all! LOL.

I had seen this toilet paper holder (online ad) that was like bear claws. It looked cute. It was on Black Forest Decor, but I found it on ebay for almost half. Well, it arrived and it was cracked and broken. Not to mention, seeing it in person, I didn't really like it much. Kind of plastic and ugly looking. Fortunately, rather than saying they'd send a replacement, the ebay seller just credited me (I sent them pictures).  They really didn't pack it very well, so I'm not surprised it broke.

Ok, so I'm already tired of having to cook dinner meals! LOL. It's just not my thing, I don't know why. I need to find a way to at least enjoy it a little bit. We did do leftovers twice in the past week, so that is helpful. I will say I love looking at my sink, haha. I haven't figured out the convection part of the oven yet, but otherwise it works great and the microwave, too. I craved popcorn all these months (our microwave in the shop was too small for the popcorn bag) and now that I can make it, I haven't because I don't want to stink up the house to smell like popcorn!

I have never understood how our property taxes here work. It's like they are a year behind or something. And it seems they assess every 2 years, but based on a year before's assessment. I just received a notification that 2019 is the first year of the 2019/2020 valuation cycle. But, the notification shows the current assessed value as of 1/1/18 (a few months before we started building), so it's appearing to me like our property taxes for the next two years will be based on that, so still only around $600 for the year. If I'm understanding this, then they will assess again, based on 1/1/20, and then we'll start paying including the house and shop in 2021? Hopefully, they don't go back and add on the prior almost 2 years? I have no idea how this works, but if I only have to pay $600 in taxes each of the next 2 years, that would be great, haha.  I'm not holding my breath, though.

TV and hard drive

We received the tv wall mount that I ordered, on Friday. DH got the tv up above the fireplace. Not the easiest thing to install, but he got it. Ok, then on to me to figure out if there was any possible way to get the live tv he watches (namely FoxNews) streaming, without having to purchase a $40 a month subscription service. I watched a video on how to download Xfinity Stream (using my mom's account log in) and I got it loaded on (back door method) but on that it would not let me watch live tv (like we can on our computers by logging into same thing). Shoot. Then as I was scrolling back I saw there is a standalone app for FoxNews, that you access by entering your subscription log in to Xfinity. That worked! Wooo! We'll give this a try for awhile and see if it's workable with how DH likes to watch tv. About the only other thing he watches is Discovery Channel and it appears there is an app for that, too, so we should be able to watch that the same way.

DH's external hard drive stopped working. Because of his "weirdness" (he always has to do things so backwards) of not wanting to save anything on his actual computer's harddrive,  he puts it all on his external drive....well, then he has no back up! Of course it finally died. I took it into a computer repair place in the city today. He took the hard drive out of the casing and tried to plug in directly but no luck. He recommended a company out of California that specializes in data recovery, but said they are like $700 on up. He also said there is a guy, (about another 45 minutes farther than the city) who does data recovery and would probably be half that cost. He said he didn't know anything about him, other  than he stopped in and left his info for data recovery. It seems there might be a chance a company that specializes in data recovery could get the files off of it. I guess they take it apart and repair and recover. The "local-ish" guy said his pricing starts at $399 - if you don't need an emergency rush job. I said no, no rush. Just hoping to save what we can off of it. Expensive lesson will be learned. Or maybe not, maybe nothing will be recoverable and it won't cost that.

It was a nice visit with DD. I found a summer dress to wear to her wedding. At Target, on sale for $25. A summery, flowery dress. While in the city I picked up my Walmart food order. That was pretty nifty. Check in with an app, they bring out the groceries and load in the car. We even got a free donut, each. I guess they had leftovers from the prior day, National Donut Day. But they tasted fresh, almost like a Krispy Kreme glazed donut. I will be using this service again. What a time saver. I did opt for "substitutions" and one was ok, one not so great. They didn't have the smaller size of OJ, so substituted the big jug at same price. They didn't have the bread, so substituted another brand of "honey wheat" bread, which isn't very similar, but I guess will do.

DH and I aren't getting along very well right now. He's become extremely critical and rude. Hopefully, it passes soon. I'm tired enough as it is, without dealing with that on my plate, too. 

TGIF

I can't remember if I mentioned it already or not, and I'm too tired/lazy to look back through the last few posts. I recently received our electric bill for the past month - $138. The cheapest our summer bills were at our little house in town (different power company) was $160, so this is good! I know we did use some heat the first couple weeks in May. It didn't get warm here until Memorial weekend. And our furnace was running on the electric, because the heat pump hadn't been turned on yet. It sure was nice having a/c in the house this past few days, (though temps just dropped 30 degrees today and it's cold and rainy). DH has it set a little too cold for me, but he'll figure out a more comfortable setting, I'm sure.

The mason hasn't been here all week. He worked last Saturday, because he had another job to go do on Monday, but that turned into Tuesday and Wednesday. Then he was ready to come back yesterday and it was pouring rain all day. Today is better weather, so I see he made it and is back to work. We're not too worried about him. He's a solid guy and will get it done. Him and DH have a "date" on Sept 10th to go listen to elk bugling, LOL. I said why that specific date? I guess that's when they are calling for their ladies, haha.

My little cafe tier curtains I bought from Target arrived. I just used tension rods to install, so no screws. I think they look ok. I just wanted something in a creamy color that kind of blended in with the wall color and to give us a little privacy.

It sounds like my company will be opening a satellite type office about 2 hours from where I live! That's pretty neat. I'm not sure of any details yet, like how many people will work out of there, but if we actually need office space to rent, I imagine it will be at least 2-3 people. We had a salesman in that territory years and years ago, but I think he worked out of his home as the "office". I'd imagine we'll have a salesperson, or two, and one or two office support people. Kind of exciting news. And I'm sure my boss would have to visit the office a few times a year and it would be a 2 hour drive for me to go there and visit with her ;)

My DD worked half a day this morning (5:30-9:30) and is about to leave her work and drive over here.YAY! I cannot wait to see her. It'll take her about 7 hours drive to get here.

Hectic morning

Well, we are done with the contractor. Hallelujah! Of course there were overages, still. More door hardware, over by $759.  We had received a bid on all that from the building supply company, so I'm going to have to dig down more and see what happened there. I'm sure it was some stuff that the contractor put into that "bucket" line item on a previous draw. And the staircase railing - he budgeted $2000 total for materials and labor, but it came to $2965. He's so frustrating to try and figure out with why it was over. Well, I know why - he just threw numbers in the bid, that weren't actually figured out to begin with! He did take off a bunch of all the concrete work just done......because that was all supposed to be done in the shop construction loan money and he used it for all his other overages on the shop. So, we were happy with that and weren't expecting it, so we didn't fuss about the extra hardware and staircase costs. He more than made up for that in the concrete charge adjustment.

It is a HUGE relief to at least be done with dealing with him - not that we hardly ever even saw him or heard from him anyway, but still. It felt like a huge weight lifted off our shoulders when he left. He says he'll be back in winter/spring to fix a couple of things related to the concrete.....but he won't, LOL. DH will end up doing it himself, which is fine. We did the "paperwork" with him in the shop - because my computer and scanner is still there. Then he said he wanted a tour of the house. Ya, you should take a look at what "you" built, LOL. I cannot imagine how any of this would have gotten done right, if we hadn't been here 24/7, here to answer all the zillion sub questions. They certainly didn't have a contractor to ask or have on site.

This morning was hectic. I had to get up a little earlier to make sure I was all ready in case the phone company guy showed up right at 8 (they said between 8 and 9). He got here at 8:45. Took him maybe a half hour or 45 minutes. He hooked up the wiring from the house to their box outside the shop. Then brought the modem into the house and hooked it up. All good now. Then I spent an hour or two getting my computer and peripherals all moved into my office and hooked up.

When I went to turn my computer on I got an error message that Windows could not start and it was running a "fix". I have no idea what could have caused that, but it finally fixed and came on........except Firefox was missing. I re-installed Firefox, but all my saved websites, passwords, etc. were gone. I thought I had signed up for Firefox sync years ago, but every email address I tried didn't work. UGH!!! I wanted to cry. Then I googled to see if the old profile was saved anywhere on my computer and it was. There was a new profile folder and the old one. But the Firefox instructions were crappy on how to restore it. I basically figured it out on my own. I wrote down the name of the new profile folder. Then deleted it. Then renamed my old profile with the new profile name. Opened Firefox back up and it all came back up. THANK GOD! Now I'm going to sign up again for sync and write the info down this time.

I ordered a wall mount for our tv, that should be here tomorrow and we can hang it above our fireplace. I think DH will put our smaller 32" tv in his den, but I will need to get another streaming device for it.  And right now he doesn't have anything to set the tv on anyway. Basically, I just need to figure out the best/cheapest way to stream FoxNews to it and he'll be good to go, LOL. He'd just have that running all day, haha. If I can get xfinity (my mom's account) on the Firestick somehow, then I don't need to subscribe to any service

DH is happy to be getting shop space now. If we didn't have all the extra wood (from our trees cut down and extra beams from construction) stored in our garage, DH could move his pick up and the older car into the garage and really give himself shop space. But, we have the wood inside, because it needed to dry out more and acclimate, so that we can use some of it for our bar countertop.

It's so nice to have internet back for my ipad and phone. The data was really getting sucked up the past week.

Ahhhh.....it's so nice and quiet and private up here in my office. And it's so big!

Wednesday update

I'm not in my office yet. Apparently it takes 5 weeks for the phone company to get out here, LOL. I called weeks ago. They are coming tomorrow morning and then we should have internet in the house. Computers, tablets and tv streaming will work again. I'm looking forward to watching something on a tv! Our phones have been sucking up the data. One of my Verizon Up rewards offered was 1GB of extra data, so I took that option last night. That should get us through to Thursday. Then we hardly ever use data on our phones, unless we go somewhere.

I've got my "grocery cart" loaded at Walmart online and on Friday will submit the order for pick up on Saturday. So far it's at $260, but that's a bit high because I have to stock up on so much again. Foods we can eat again! I like shopping this way, you can see the total in your cart as you are adding items. Helps keep a person on budget. Plus, when I'm physically shopping I always forget something on my list, or get 6 aisles away and realized I passed it and don't want to lug the cart heavy with everything halfway across the store again. This way, it's easy to add something forgotten. I also have a $10 off online order code that DD sent me.

I ordered some cafe tier type curtains from Target for the two master bathroom windows. Sure taking a long time to get here, but they are finally supposed to be here today. Even though no one can really see in them, the front one still faces the road and when it's night and lights are on inside then you can see inside. Plus we still have the mason working around. I'll feel better when they are up, LOL. One of the blinds for the bedroom arrived yesterday, but we haven't attempted to put it up yet.

I worked all day yesterday and by afternoon I was literally so tired and about to fall asleep at the desk. But, even after work was done I still had work to do. I cleaned the bathroom in the shop, cleaned out the small refrigerator and vacuumed up all the black dog hair from the couch, still in the shop. It does look much better now, but still not nice enough for the new house. It is now getting a little worn in spots, too.

Even though we already put up toilet paper holders, (came with set) a cute bear claw tp holder on Black Forest Decor came across my Facebook feed. I showed it to DH, who wanted it, LOL. Black Forest Decor wants $35 plus shipping for it. I googled it. Found the exact same thing on Ebay for $20, including shipping.  We're going to put it upstairs bathroom, where the towels have a bear/moose theme and the bathroom is next to the bedroom with the bear log bed.

We still need mirrors for all the bathrooms. DH is going to make them with scrap lumber trim and just buy mirror sheets. But, I saw a nice wood mirror at Ross when I was in the city on Monday. $16!! I should have bought it! I  took a pic of it and measured it (it would go perfect is 1/2 bath, over sink). I'm hoping it's still there on Saturday, but probably won't be.

Our contractor is coming out today to do final bills. oh joy. Should be the last time we have to see him, I hope. We're both making ourselves sick wondering what overages he's going to hit us with now/again. He has not even been to our site since before last Christmas! Can you believe that?! Or maybe that's how all contractors who are building a house, work. I don't know. I can't imagine all these subs here these past months, if we hadn't been living here and were working at jobs M-F and weren't able to be here dealing with it all.

Unpacking

I'm making my way through bins and digging out of mounds of packing paper and bubble wrap! Gosh we have a lot of stuff, haha. Well, not really any more than the average person, it just seems like it after living in such a tiny space with very little stuff the past 9 months. Why in the world do I have a dozen or more coffee cups? LOL. We have started a couple of bins to either take to Goodwill/Salvation Army or have a garage sale.

I'm officially exhausted. I was just going to take Friday off work, but ended up taking off yesterday, too. My phone app showed that on Friday I walked 3 miles and 13 flights. We hired that same moving company, who moved all our stuff over here, to help with the heavy furniture stuff. Not as impressed with the 2 guys that came this time, compared to last time. If they had been the ones who moved us here, I wouldn't have used them again. First off they were 2 hours late. There was a 2 hour minimum charge. We didn't think it would take the whole 2 hours and if it didn't DH was just going to have them move some bins in, but since they were kind of annoying, after they got done in 90 minutes, we just let them go. Plus, he charged me 2 hours travel time - at the same $90/hr moving rate! I get that everyone around here charges travel time to come "way out here" but most do it at like $100 or $120 total, they don't charge their working rate for travel. Plus it's not 2 hours round trip from the city. It's an hour and 20 minutes RT, at the most. But, they got all the heavy stuff in AND up stairs, so it was worth hiring out.

It is so nice to finally have some space and room to move around and get to our things. There are quite a few bins I haven't been able to unpack yet, because we don't have closet shelves yet. DH will be making those, so for now the stuff is still in bins. Mostly just clothing and stuff we haven't gotten into in 9 months anyway. I do have lots of linen storage (2 linen closets in master bathroom and one in upstairs guest bath) so I was able to get all my linens stuff unpacked. Most all the kitchen stuff is unpacked, except for food.....again, no pantry shelves yet, which is where all the dry food is going. We just took the little bookcase we had put our food in in the shop and set it in the pantry for now and I moved the food stuffs to there. Having a full sized refrigerator is heaven. Having a sink in the cooking area (compared to having to go in to the bathroom in the shop) is even better. Last night I made our first real dinner meal in a kitchen, in 9 months. Just tuna casserole, but sure beat pot pies. I don't care if I ever see another pot pie again.

I also can't unpack 2-3 bins that have china hutch stuff. In our original house we had a huge built in china hutch, as well as a free standing one. I only have the smaller freestanding one and all the dishes and such that were in the built in (2 1/2 years ago) are still in bins. I have room to put another hutch or credenza in my dining room, so that will have to be a future purchase. I'd either like a farmhouse hutch for the other corner of dining room, or a credenza type cabinet for under the window. If I can come across something for a farmhouse hutch on craigslist, I'll probably get one of those.

I went into the city yesterday and ordered our living room sofa, loveseat and recliner. It's supposed to take 2 weeks to get here. Hopefully it's not much longer than that. I got it at Ashley Home Store. It really isn't very expensive, but we aren't hard on furniture now, with just the two of us, so I think it will last us at least several years. Total for all 3 pieces, including delivery charge was $1200. It was on sale online, but quite a bit more in the store. The guy matched the online pricing. We didn't bring in our old couch and recliner from the shop. Everything got so dusty in there over the months (construction dust, mostly).It was already an old couch to begin with, added dust and the dog slept on it all this time. We didn't even want to bring it into the clean new house since we aren't keeping it. The recliner has been busted seat springs since before we moved a couple of years ago. We shouldn't even have brought it with us then.  I still need more furniture, but that will have to wait until we have the money. I need a queen mattress set for one of the guest beds (the bear log bed) and a loveseat, chair and coffee table for the upstairs sitting loft.

The guy building our farmhouse style dining table has gotten quite far on it. He had us come over to answer a few questions. I didn't know he had even started it, but it's all ready to screw together and stain.

Well, that's all I got for an update, for now. There is still a bunch to do, but we'll get to it.