Quick bits

Got a little good news. DD got released from jury duty yesterday morning, so at least we don't have to worry about that tomorrow when she's trying to pick me up at the airport and Friday, when she was taking me to my mom's.

Mom's BF has an appointment with his doctor, both his kids, and my mom (if she decides to go) tomorrow to discuss his end of life wishes. From what my mom said it kind of sounds like his daughter is trying to talk him out of it.

Not being physically at the office, I'm sometimes out of the loop as to what is going on. There was an email about a coworker's last day at the office tomorrow. Turns out she is moving clear across the country with her DH, so they can help out his parents. She has been with the company for quite awhile (about 10 years) and is a valuable employee. They are going to let her try to work remotely, too, though just aren't sure how well it will work with the 3 hour time difference. I hope it works out for her and the company.

I just checked in for my flight and got the boarding pass on my phone. I got the TSA precheck pass again :) Not a huge deal at this tiny airport, but at least I don't have to take my shoes or coat off, haha. I hope I get it coming back, like I did last time. That is the airport where it is nice to have.

Well, gotta do a load of laundry so I have some clean clothes to wear and take! We don't have to leave for the airport until about 2:15 but I'm taking the full day off work. Lord knows I have enough days to use up. And I'll be home later Sunday evening, but I'm also taking Monday off.

Some very sad news

Sad news. My mom's BF has cancer. She mentioned the last couple of times I talked to her he hadn't been doing too well. I guess yesterday he told his son he wants to use the Death with Dignity to end his life, so I guess his son was with him all day yesterday and they had a call into his doctor about it. He's 85. My mom seemed to think it could happen any day, but she didn't know. I don't really know much about how the process works so I looked it up and it sounds like it would take at least 15 days before it could be approved, by 2 doctors and that 2 requests had to be put in, 15 days apart. She said she understood and respected his wishes, but still very very hard, of course. DD and I are very glad we'll be there with her for a few days this weekend.

Then she made a comment about "well, I probably won't stay here then". I'm not sure what she wants to do now. We will talk with her about it in person. I'm not sure why/where she thinks she should move to. Another independent living/retirement place will basically be the same as she just moved to. Plus, she at least already knows some of the people there. I feel so bad for him and her. I had hoped she'd have some time to settle in and adjust to her new home/surroundings before having to deal with something like this.

She has posted something (which she rarely ever does) on Facebook to one of her old neighbors replied to. She said that no one has even moved into her old house yet. She's seen them there a few times, but they haven't moved in yet. Then why in the hell did they want to close so fast and only give my mom 10 days to get out of there? Kind of annoyed me, but who knows what the whole story is.

And of course we are not getting our grass sod today. Still snow on the ground from yesterday and it's 4 degrees right now. Another thing for DH to grumble about.

Our neighbor and his son did have a pretty successful hunting over the weekend. They got 2 antelope, 2 turkeys, and a deer. The family went home yesterday....at least they didn't leave their dogs this time, LOL. But, they used neighbor guys car (an older small suv type) to do the hunting with. He texted DH is was a mess of blood and guts. EWWW!! I don't know why they wouldn't have used his little pickup truck he has.

Along with the unexpected $100 gift card I received yesterday I also got another refund check in the mail from our insurance company on our construction insurance. $62. And an email this morning that one of the MTurk hits I did paid a $6 bonus. Those are always nice emails to get. Helps this week, since I won't be able to put in a full week towards it.

It's definitely a Monday

Yesterday was sunny but chilly. We decided to take a drive. Went to the next town over and drove around some of their back roads. There is this house we can see from the freeway, passing the town, on the other side of the river. Newer house, a neat design but it never looks like anyone lives there. It's all windows on the river side and anytime we've driven past during day it looks empty and anytime we've driven by at night there are never any lights on in the house. This has been like that a year or more. We drove into the neighborhood, that is pretty new, with new homes being built on 1-3 acres or so. It doesn't appear anyone lives at the house I was wondering about. Looks very empty. It's not for sale either. Weird.

Then we stopped at woodworker guys place on the way home for a visit. I don't know which of them brought it up first, but DH started complaining about the cell tower again. Friend didn't really want to hear about it (again), so then of course that made DH mad, so then I had to listen to DH complain the rest of the day about it and about friends response to not wanting to hear about it. It's never ending, LOL. To DH's defense, he has listened to this guy complain over and over about his ex-wife (who lives next door to him) and DH doesn't say to him "stop complaining about it". He just listens and acts supportive. I keep trying to tell him just because you are "friends" doesn't mean the "friend" is going to act the same way you do or treat a situation the same way.

We went from almost 70 degrees on Friday to snowing today. The big question is if we will get sod tomorrow? DH hasn't heard from the guy that we are not, but of course he's convinced he's going to call tomorrow morning or tonight and say sorry, no can do. I would think the guy would pay attention to weather forecasts/temps (which are fairly accurate around here) and would have told DH a few days ago, if he wasn't going to be able to do it in this weather.

My DD has jury duty this week, so we have no idea how that's going to affect her being able to pick me up at the airport at 4:45pm Thursday or if she's going to be able to take me down to my mom's Friday morning. May have to end up renting a car. Bugger.

I'm trying to get payroll done today. I was thinking I finally have the new process down and was going to get it done without any help, but a curve ball got thrown in. We terminated an employee and I have to add a severance check, LOL. And I had no idea a severance check is taxed as supplemental pay, not regular pay tax. So many things with the new payroll company that we have to know and do ourselves. With our old company we just emailed them: terminated and 2 weeks severance and they took care of it, LOL. Plus the person assigned to assist with our payroll questions is really slow to reply back.


So that package from work that took the scenic route? It was a Halloween bag of candies from my boss...and then when I started digging around in it to look at the candies I found a $100 Visa gift card :) So sweet.

And speaking of work, my pet peeve is this new "messenger" type program we have to use now. First we used Slack. Now they changed to Microsoft Teams. Both similar, but why can't we just email? LOL. I have my email always open on one screen. I answer my emails right away. With the messege app I don't always see the notification down in my screen corner right away. And most of them are just "group" messages that aren't important. But we also have where you can send individual "private" messages. Just freaking email me, what's the difference? I hate have to look for messages from people now in 2 places.

Just weekend stuff

It's been a very relaxing weekend, so far. I can't say the same for my neighbors.Their son, DIL, 4 kids and 2 dogs are visiting. As I predicted, dog fights ensued. Their new problem dog and son's big dog ganged up on neighbors other male dog and they had to take him to the vet Friday. I cannot imagine how much they have spent in vet bills this month! Their son's dogs were the ones they took care of for 5 or 6 months and they got along fine with all the dogs (theirs and ours). It's this new dog they have causing all the fighting. We are getting really nervous that once our grass is in and their dogs can run over here that new dog will end up fighting with our dogs. Our dogs have gotten along fine with their dogs, but our dogs have not met this new dog yet, because they got him right as we asked them to stay off until the yard was done. I'm guessing this new dog is going to be a big problem and if it comes over here and fights with one of our dogs and injures them we are going to come unglued.

I worked half day on Friday and then went into the city to do some banking and since I was there I picked up a $65 grocery order at Walmart, then I headed back home. The weather was so nice. 65 degrees, sunny, and all the fall colors. I love love the larch trees in the fall.

DH texted me when I was almost home that our friend, who bought a place over here, was stopping by on his way to his place. Oh boy, LOL. I got home and he was already here, along with a friend with him. They didn't really stay too long. DH was giving the house tour when I got home and then they stayed maybe 30 more minutes. He had an appointment to visit a cabinet sales place. He a great guy, just one of those very loud people who has an opinion about everything, so I'm good with him small doses, LOL.

Yesterday we just totally relaxed and didn't do much at all. Watched it snow for a couple hours, but by later afternoon it had all melted. DH had done a bunch more landscaping work outside on Friday, so he needed to just rest his muscles yesterday (and probably today, too).

After I'm done with this blog post I'm going to figure out how to do an update on DH's drone. Ugh. It's so hard to figure out, even though every time I try to make notes on how I did it, it never seems to work the next time and I sit here for an hour or two trying to figure it all out. Wish me luck :/

Rug update and other Friday happenings

I emailed esalerugs, who I had bought the rug from. They gave me a list of suggestions, that I had already most of them, but there are 2 I can try. One is to put it outside in 80 degree heat. LOL. Sure.....haha!  Or use a hair dryer (carefully not to melt the fibers) and that should take out the crease. Or use carpet tape to tape it down. I think I'll try the hairdryer method. If that doesn't work, I'll search for my Bissell carpet cleaner thing and steam it. Last resort carpet tape......but only if it for sure would not damage my flooring. They also offered me a $15 refund. Which for all my time and effort trying to get this to look nice, I may take.

I get email notifications from UPS whenever a package is on its way to my address. I got one yesterday that a package is coming from my employer, today. I have no idea what it is. Says 2 lb. package. I'm guessing some new work "swag" logo stuff. So, I look it up today and it's taking the scenic route....again. I do not know what it is, but almost everything work ever tries to mail me, it gets mis routed. Last night the package was at the nearest UPS distribution place (in the city 35 min away). Now it is in a city 4 hours away. LOL. I do not have this problem with the hundreds of other packages that get delivered here. Just work stuff. Crazy. One time a 2 day package took 7 days to get to me.

The guy is here getting the leftover topsoil. He called last night to let DH know he was coming. DH says "this topsoil isn't going over to that new cell tower is it?" LOL. He said no, it's going to someone in town, putting in a yard. DH said good, because if it was, I'd have to say no, LOL. DH spent the previous 2 days using what he still needed (wheelbarrow loads) out of the pile for some misc areas. He wasn't sure there is 2 truck (dump truck sized) loads left, but it looks like there is. He's filling up his 2nd load now. The $500 will be very nice.

Was wondering what all the neighbor dog barking going on this morning was....ahhh. their son and family and 2 more dogs are visiting this weekend (start of hunting season). Boy, that sure doesn't seem smart to add 2 more dogs to the mix when their new dog, with all his behavior/fighting problems, is so unpredictable. Chaos. Glad it's not me!

Well, off to get my Friday finished up.

Thursday this, that and the other

Mr. Funny Neighbor apparently went over and took a picture of the cell tower from the base of it. Emailed it to us that he was going to have it blown up and framed so we could hang it above our fireplace. I emailed back "Too soon!!"  LOL.

DD had their appraisal done yesterday, to see if they can get their PMI insurance dropped. It was just a quick deal and the guy told her he should have it submitted by today. She is hopeful. Zillow shows their home at $404k and Redfin at $440k. They need it to appraise at $403k. Plus, I'm sure it really helps their value that their home was all updated just before they bought it. New flooring, appliances, counter tops, etc. She put her little aussie mix dog in his crate, so he wouldn't jump on the guy and sent me a picture. The look on that dogs face! You'd think he was being tortured. She left her Corgi out and he just followed the guy around the house, trying to give him toys, LOL.

Tomorrow is my half day work Friday, and I have to run an errand in the city, so I'm going to pick up a small grocery order, mostly milks, water, soda, and salad. Total in my cart so far (unless I think of more) is $60. Which reminds me........I forgot again to take some hamburger out of the freezer this morning. Why can't I remember this? LOL.

DH caught up on the phone last night with one of his buddies he's had for many years. Poor guy, he's having troubles with his son, who is now 19 or so. Typical lazy, doesn't want to work behavior. It sounds like friend is to the point he's telling his son it's time to move out. Friend raised him on his own since he was a baby. Always put his son first. Changed jobs when he was little so that he'd have a set schedule for daycare, etc. Decided not to get into any relationships while he was growing up and put being a dad first and foremost. And ended up with how so many young people seem to want to be today. Spent about a month and a half at college last year and quit and came back home. Friend told his son "you owe me for a semester of college!" Kid got his job back at a restaurant. Then recently got a better job he's had about 6 months, but just quit because he can't get himself up and out of bed to get to work on time. DH asked friend if kid was smoking dope. He said probably. Then friend told DH something about his ex-wife (of like 17 years since divorce) that he never told DH before....she is an escort! Well, doesn't really surprise.  She is a nutcase.  Left her baby and husband to go off with some guy that was running a cult. Totally into some "new age" lifestyle (she thinks rocks have feelings) and somehow has been supporting herself all these years selling new age stuff or training others in it. I can remember thinking to myself how does she support herself on that? Ahhh....yes...now it all makes sense.

Does anyone know how to go about getting a fold/crease out of an area rug? I bought this rug online and really like it. Except it came rolled up, but kinda squashed/folded. A few reviews said similar happened with theirs. Suggestions were that after it laid flat a few weeks, it would come out. Nothing I have tried helps. I have let it lay flat (for weeks  now), I have laid something heavy on it. I have rolled it the opposite direction and I have tried ironing it. I'm about to email the company and complain :(

I ordered two handles for my barn door closets that just came. I'm really happy with them and both for only $15 (Walmart 3rd party seller). They are very heavy metal and solid.

Lunch break is over, back to work.

The sky is falling!

The sky is falling. The world is coming to and end. Why you may ask? Well, because someone across the way from us, up on a hill, has let a cell tower get installed. A 300' cell tower, no less. So, now that is within our view from just about anywhere on our property. Our neighbors can't really see it from the back of their house, because their yard is lower and they have more trees, but they can sure see it from front entrance to their property and from their other lot on the other side of them they also own. I was just over on the vacant lot next to us with the dogs and that lot it's really noticeable, as it sits up higher than our lot and less trees.

DH is having a total meltdown over it. We were out on our back patio just before noon yesterday and up on one of the hills across we see this huge huge crane and are wondering what in the heck! Didn't take long to realize they are putting up a cell tower. The guy who owns that property (and lives at the bottom) agreed to it. Rumor has it he's making $6,000 a month income from it. We're also told he's tired of his crappy neighbors over there, so he said screw 'em - I'm going to let this cell tower go up.

Is it an eyesore in our what was once a completely 100% natural view? Yes. Is it the end of the world? No.... It's 3/4 mile away, but being 300' tall (the one across from town is 100') it stands out, for sure. But, according to DH it's just "demolished" our view. (he's always got to be so dramatic. Drama Queen is his middle name, I think)

You can kind of see it, in about the center of this picture. (I didn't zoom in) Granted, a camera view isn't the same as the naked eye view. This is taken from our bonus room window. And it's not done completed yet, as I'm sure all the other companies also using it will add all their stuff to it.

Here is a more zoomed in picture, taken from the same window

DH just thinks this guy who let them put it up is a total selfish jerk. Just in it for money (which I'm sure that's 99.9% why he did it) and who cares what it does to the views of others or just the whole area's view in general. I'm sure we're not the only one's impacted by something this tall. There are quite a few homes down the river a little bit, on the other side. But, really it's no different from what you see just about anywhere you go out and about, in my opinion. Whether it's a cell tower or electrical. There is nothing anyone can do about it, anyway. And I'm sure after awhile, we'll hardly even notice this anymore. I don't spend all my time specifically looking up that way anyway. I'm usually looking down at the river, or straight out across from us (just more mountains like the above). DH will get over it..........eventually.........but for now this is what I get to listen to non stop. Yay. LOL.

I'm not sharing!

Someone in Indonesia hacked into my Netflix account during the night and changed the account email address and password. Good grief! I got online this morning with a Netflix chat agent. She changed my email for the account to a different one I use and then I reset with a new password. She also logged the account out of all devices. When I opened Netflix (I guess because I was already logged in) I could see the new email address the hacker had changed it to, but not the password. I tried a copy of the **** password, but of course that didn't work. I was concerned they could maybe get my credit card info off of there (I pay with gift card DD gives me, but still have my cc in there from when I did used to pay for it). It's also ***** and wasn't able to be copied, so I'm hoping the hacker couldn't get that info. I checked the card (it's a debit card with PayPal) and nothing has been charged to it. According to a USA Today article, Netflix "tokenizes" credit card info, so they can't steal that info. Makes you wonder how in the world they can even get into the account to change the login and password in the first place. Probably some data breach where they get a whole bunch of account logins and passwords. ANNOYING!!!!!

The good grapes were on sale at the town grocery store for $1.98/lb so I bought 2 bags, since we're going through them so quickly. We had another "non-dinner" last night. I think all the months of eating light dinners, we got used to and DH and I are ready to incorporate more of those back into our dinners. Plus, like DH said - it's cheaper, haha! I said yes, dinner fixings are where we spend a lot of our grocery dollars.

The guy that did our topsoil screening/placement wants to buy some of our leftovers, LOL. DH said yes, but not today. Not having them come in while it's raining and making a muddy mess. It's supposed to clear/warm up starting a little later today and the rest of this week. Now DH is stressing because he doesn't know how much to say price wise. I said just do a fair price, it's not that hard. Either he wants it or he doesn't. It's not like there is anywhere else to get topsoil in our county! LOL. Apparently they have come to an agreement for $500 for the 2 truck loads he needs. yay! I could tell it was killing DH to have to even discuss price (he'd rather just give it away then discuss money for it!) so he used me as his excuse, that his accountant wife needs to sell it, haha. Plus, they guy said it was for one of his customers (not his personal use) so of course he is making money off it, too.

DH has another small wood scrap burn pile just started burning in his fire pit area. We should be getting down the the last of it all.

I'm continuing with my MTurks quest for $100/week earnings. Sunday was $9 and yesterday was $19. Today is $7 so far, so I'm going to need some more this afternoon to make it to $20 for the day.

Monday mood

I'm trying to get into the Monday mood. I didn't sleep that great last night, compliments of a big dog, who normally doesn't sleep on our bed, LOL. Yesterday DH took the dogs over to a friends, to get some exercise. Well, exercise for the younger dog. The older dog has no intention of exercising, never has, LOL. Friend just got his 20 acre field mowed, so DH took the dogs and the "chuck it" and played fetch with the younger dog, while the older guy sniffed around. Wore out the younger guy and we're hoping this exercise we've been getting him the past week will result in some weight loss.

But, about the time I went to bed DH said the dog was "breathing weird" and he was concerned. I called him into the bedroom and he got up on the bed and snuggled with me and the "weird breathing" didn't last long. I'm guessing he was having reverse sneezing and I'm guessing a result of breathing in all the fresh mown pasture. He was fine after a few minutes, but then decided he's just stay in that spot......until 3am, when I finally made him go lay on the floor next to my bed, where he usually sleeps. Then I couldn't go back to sleep for awhile.

It will be interesting to see how the Canadian Prime minister election turns out today. My half sis lives in Canada. One of her daughters (same age as my dd) apparently isn't too fond of Trudeau, based on her Facebook posts. LOL. I commented on her last one "but, but...Obama endorsed him.." I really know nothing about Canadian politics. U.S. politics are ridiculous enough.

Had a relaxing day, overall, yesterday. Just did some daily chores in the morning. Watched some of the Nascar race with DH, mostly while reading a book. Then I took a short nap and he took the dogs for the exercise. We had a late afternoon snack of nacho's, so we ended up not really having dinner. Later DH had a sandwich and I had some scrambled eggs.

My lunch break today will be a trip into town for a few groceries. Out of milk, ice cream and lettuce. They've also had really good red grapes the last couple of times I've shopped there, so I want more of those, too.

Reading update and Saturday chores

I started reading the recommended Alex Cross series by James Patterson. I read the first, but the second wasn't available yet and then the 3rd one became available, so I read it. Now, I'm about to start the 2nd one, as it popped into my queue last night.

They are ok, but I'm not totally hooked on them. I think that there just isn't enough info about the supporting characters, that are a big part of the main character's life (and of course in every book). Other series books I've read the authors kind of make you feel like you also get to know the supporting characters a little bit better, too. I don't know, I just can't quite put my finger on what it is that I'm not loving this series/character as much as other series books I've read, in similar genres.

We had a spot of heavy wind yesterday afternoon. We didn't realize until last night one of our new patio lounge chairs blew away! DH realized it about 10pm when he took the dogs out the patio door. He went and got a flashlight and found it . It has some mud on the frame and I'll have to check out the rest and see if it got damaged any. I hope not.

I had my best ever day with MTurks yesterday - $38! A $112 week, plus whatever I can eek out of it today to end my "work week". I've been sitting at my desk for more than a half hour this morning and nothin'.

I need to do a bit of house cleaning today. Time to clean bathrooms and dust, at a minimum. And remember to taking something out of the freezer to thaw for dinner......I'm thinking hamburgers tonight. I bought buns, so need to use them before they go bad. I should clean my desk - it's a mess of papers piling up. Not a relaxing feeling at all!

DH has gotten back to making his little video's of the house build, so that's giving him something relaxed to do the past couple of days. He finally got one done of the mason stone work. Then he did a video of the topsoil screening project and then one of putting up the flag pole. His next one will be the sprinkler system, but I think he's waiting to work on that one when then sod gets put in, in about 10 more days. He just likes to do them for himself to watch and have a memory of, and shares with friends and family on his Facebook page.

Our thermostat is connected to the wi-fi and I have an app on my phone where I can adjust the temp in the 3 zones of the house. Only it doesn't seem to work half the time. I'll turn it all down a few degrees when I go to bed, as we like to sleep with it a bit cooler. It will show on my phone that I changed it, but sometimes it doesn't end up changing it at the main thermostat. So, we'll wake up in the middle of the night breathing in warm air and realizing the heat never went down. I need to figure out how to set it on a schedule and have it automatically turn down around 10pm.

I also need to figure out how to get our garage door openers connected to wi-fi and our phones. I tried once, when we were in the shop, but I couldn't figure it out. It can't be that hard to figure out.

Friday Yay

Friday is going good. Even with working on some MTurk stuff, I'm getting lots of regular work done. And I hit upon a $10 MTurk hit just as I was going to take a lunch break, so that was 45 minutes, but during lunch break, so that was good. I'm at $37 today, so I have surpassed my $100 week goal and still have a few hours left in the day to maybe do some more, plus tomorrow. I've been keeping track of my earning from Sun-Sat. Now I've still got 15 minutes of my break to do this blog post.

The weather has been bit all over the place today. Rain, cloudy, then it will turn blue sky, then cloudy again. And very windy off and on. Supposed to have snow again tomorrow.

We are getting a little grass growing, so maybe when spring comes the areas just seeded (that won't be sod) will fill in, I hope. Our neighbors have this little grove of walnut trees (not native to here) they planted a  year or so ago. They looked great all summer and were growing. After we had that snow a couple weeks ago the trees totally lost their leaves and look awful. Poor trees. Supposedly they do lose them in Fall, but neighbors aren't sure if they are ok or not, LOL.

Each morning I keep forgetting to take something out of the freezer for dinner that night. By the time I think of it again, it's afternoon, so I don't take anything out. I don't know why I'm having such a hard time taking something out in the morning! The last 2 nights we had soup and salad. I just took some steaks (thin cut) out and will just have to use the microwave to defrost them when we have dinner in a couple of hours.

DH's woodworker friend is here and DH is trying to help  him figure out an electrical problem friend is having with his truck.

DD's inlaws invited themselves again to stay at their house for a long weekend, starting last night! She wasn't too thrilled, LOL. She just kind of wants to unwind after a long work week and putter around the house, not go looking at properties with them and have to play host for 4 days. Plus they bring their 2 dogs, which just creates chaos with their 2 dogs.

I don't know what we're doing this weekend. Not much of anything I don't think....watch it snow? LOL

work, work and more work

It's been a productive week, work wise. With all the payroll/HR company changes, all the meetings and trainings for almost 2 months, I've been getting behind on my normal day to day work. Way behind. I just now got June's financial reports done. And I just filed several quarters of city tax returns. Ugh. When we moved our HQ office to another city, our CPA didn't think we'd have to file anything in the old city. But, we still have a small office in that city, but we don't process any sales out of there. It's basically a spot where we have two support staff employees there FT, and it's used as a landing spot when sales people or customers need somewhere to stop and work a bit or pick up samples. There's really no way for me to determine what to report as our sales for that city. Between our CPA and the city, we determined we would use those 2 employees % of our total payroll as a % of our total sales and that's what I'd report. It only ends up to about $200 per quarter, so not much. The kicker is the annual business license for that city. $2400 a year! Just insane how much it keeps going up...it  used to be $190 a year a few years ago.  Anyhow, it felt good to get these to tasks off my to do list.

My boss is going to get some relief soon from some of her responsibilities. She also oversees our inside sales/cust. svc dept, which I know takes a lot of her daily time. They are now putting someone  as a dept manager for this department. I'm sure that will be a huge difference to my boss and her work load. I'm really happy to hear this news. If anyone needs a reduction in their work load, it's her.

Our neighbors are really having trouble with this new dog (3 yr old lab) they got. He's peeing in the house, on the 2 girl dogs, tearing up things in the house. Then he got in a fight with their male dog last week and they had to take him to the vet and he's now wearing a cone. Neighbor told DH he and wife are having a hard time agreeing about this new dog (ie arguing). At least he's not much of a barker. Hopefully, he'll settle in with them soon.

Just another day

The sprinkler system is in, but guy said he can't get the sod for 2 more weeks. This would have been a perfect day to do sod. It's going to be 70 degrees. Our luck, in 2 weeks the ground will be covered in snow. The guy has a big crew and they worked until like 5:30 and got the sprinkler system all in. It's a big cost, but DH can't be trying to drag hoses and sprinklers around all this yard every summer, especially as he gets older. He's done that on our last 2 yards. Our last yard was a tiny yard and it was still a chore.

Towards the end of the day I saw one of the workers standing on our back patio taking a picture of the river :)  Kind of disappointing we aren't going to be able to see instant green areas today.

I've been struggling with MTurks compared to the previous couple of weeks where I was averaging $20 a day. This past week has been about $10-$15. I think Lucy at A Dime at a Time has all the work now! LOL! I still should be happy with what I'm getting, as it's way more than I was doing before.

My DD is so funny. Last time she was here I gave her a set of "fine china" dishes that were still packed in a bin. I think I've used them like 3 times in 20 years. They belonged to my step dad's mom, who apparently had several different sets. It's a huge set. DD was finally unpacking it the other night, as she now has a nice big hutch to put them in. She messages me "who needs 18 teacups?" "I don't even like 18 people!". LOL. I said I don't know why such a big set - I've never even met anyone who had a dining table that could seat that many people!

DH is having stomach/bathroom issues again this morning. When he had it last Friday evening, we had had spaghetti two nights before. Last night we had lasagna. He's now convinced it's related to "pasta or pasta sauce". I'm thinking to myself...ya, cuz it doesn't have anything to do with the bags of candy and chocolate you've been eating since Friday.....(when he bought them at Target).

And he's completely cranky today, also because the sprinkler systems guys didn't do exactly what he told them to do, so now it's created manual labor work for him, related to a drain pipe from our heat pump/condensor. He told them he needed to extend it out, but was waiting on them because he wasn't sure exactly where their lines were going. They said what they were doing wouldn't be in the way, but it is, so now he's having to dig up the whole drain pipe by hand and re-do it. Rather than just saying to them yesterday "DO it the way I SAY", he just lets them do whatever they want and then I have to listen to him complain about it. I really do not get why he can't be more assertive with these contractors. I assumed because he was self employed all those many years, he had that aspect down, but I was never really involved when we was out working/on job sites, etc, so I never saw how he interacted with others. I'm guessing that's why he sucked at being self employed and was never a success, LOL.

At least it's a warm sunny day and he's not having to dig it up out in the rain or cold.

Travel time

I booked my flight to go see my mom. Ugh. Wish I would have realized that one day I was seeing those cheap flights that it was a one day only sale. Now I gotta pay $419 RT. Oh well, I figured it out so I don't need to rent a car or get a motel.

I'm flying in Thursday 10/31 afternoon arrive at 4:30pm. DD can pick me up at the airport after work (she gets off at 2:30 and it's probably at least a 90 minute drive for her to airport) and we can go back to her house. She's going to take Friday off, so Friday morning we will go down to my mom's. She can spend the day with us, too. Then she will drive back to her in-laws (halfway between my mom and her house) where they planned to spend the weekend anyway, as it will be her MIL's birthday. Sunday she'll come back down to my mom's and pick me up and take me back to the airport.

And I'm flying over again mid December. For a work year end meeting/lunch. That one my company is paying for, but I'll get to combine it with a weekend visit with DD and my mom, again. I had emailed my boss the requested dates off for this first trip. She says send me the flight info and she'll book it for me on the company! I said NO, the company is not paying for this (and I already had just booked it)!! I'm not even going to get a minute to stop in and see her, so she's not paying for it, but I'd like to come over for the company meeting/lunch on Dec 13, if they want to pay for that. So, done deal on that, too.  She will pick me up at the airport (like 10 minutes from the office) at 7am. The meeting is at 1pm to 4pm and then DD can pick me up there (not convenient for her to drive, but oh well, LOL).

The yard guys are here today, getting started on the sprinkler system and sod. Yard looks like a big mess again! He says it will take 2 days. He's got quite a big crew. There must be at least 6 guys working here. A bit noisy with the little machine that digs the little ditches for the sprinkler system.

High 60's today, 70 degrees tomorrow - and snow on Saturday. HA!

Monday diets, tv, and small town life

Yesterday was a relaxing day. Nice sunny and about 55 degrees. We did take a little drive and saw several deer along the way. And a couple groups of turkeys.

Our 7 year old dog is getting fat. He's used to getting exercise and even though we have 2 acres, it hasn't been conducive to throwing the ball anywhere (especially during all the construction). So, yesterday we started just throwing it on the vacant lot next to us. It's kinda bumpy and tall grassy, but he has to get exercised. He got a session with me yesterday morning and a longer (DH can trhow farther!) session with DH yesterday afternoon and this morning. Hopefully he'll quickly start losing some of that fat! He's also been shedding like crazy. I've been trying to be better at brushing him more often. I've been doing it about once a week the past few weeks. DH decides he'll do it yesterday. Well dang, he tries to do it so fast and so hard, the poor dog kept trying to move away and DH was getting mad. I said, he's fine with me, let me do it, so he happily handed it over. Dog was fine, he stands still for me. I do it nice and easy and slow. Geez, not that hard to figure out.

Our friend from town who stops by for visits, usually once every 2 or 3 Sundays, stopped by about 4pm. Such a small area we live in. He says "hey, were you guys heading home from the city Friday  night?" Yes...."oh, I thought that was your car I saw at the small parking/rest top". We laughed and explained we were on our way to watch a football game but had to turn around because DH was sick and that was his emergency pit stop, LOL. Can't keep anything personal in this town, haha.

I'm doing the 2 week free trial of YouTube tv, so during dinner we watched the first Jack Reacher movie, then we watched the second. Then at nine was another movie, I started watching it but went to bed around 9:45, but I think Dh finished watching it. We've seen them all before, but it was nice to have something to watch besides the stupid news. We had the tv pretty loud because it always seems like movies are harder to hear, so I shut the bedroom door when I went to bed, so DH could leave the volume up. A half hour later (I was already asleep!) he comes barging through the bedroom door "what going on in here?" I wake up and say I shut the door because the tv is loud. He says oh, you could have turned it down. He goes to the bathroom walks out and doesn't shut the door and doesn't turn the tv down. So, of course I'm trying to go back to sleep. Finally I get up and look out the door and say well, either turn it down or shut the door! Are all men that clueless? LOL.

And we're still waiting on the sprinkler system and sod! Last Monday the guy acted like he was ready to get it started last Thursday or Friday. So, DH says yes, let's go and now it's "I'll let you know". This should be the very last contractor we ever have to work with again..........(and this is the guy DH was friends with as a kid)

Stomachs, grass, and vets

We tried to go watch a friends son play high school football last night but it was not meant to be. Right before we were going to leave DH got a bad stomach ache and diarrhea. I said we'd better just stay home, but he said let's go. Well, we were almost there and it hit him again.We turned about and he was trying to get back home as fast as he could. Luckily there is this small rest stop with one bathroom on the way back and he was able to stop there. We're guessing it was from the Arby's sandwiches we had earlier in the afternoon. He had 2 beef n cheddars, I had one, and we shared potato cakes. My stomach was fine, though. So, maybe we will try again next Friday night to watch him play. I think they only have one more home game left, but sounds like they will be in playoffs.

We are starting to see some blades of grass, but have decided to go ahead with the sod in a few area. Two areas are where the topsoil sloped down. Dh doesn't want the topsoil to just end up washing down before it can get solid with grass roots. The other is a small area right in front of our house. Supposedly the guy who is doing that and the sprinkler system is coming next week. Early this past week he acted like he was coming at the end of this week. But you know how that goes with contractors.

I was sound asleep and around 11:30 last night (Dh was still up) our dog that sleeps on the bed with us puked up a big pile of his food, that he had eaten like 7 hours earlier. It soaked the duvet cover and the comforter, so I had to pull them off and get in the washing machine. I ended up taking the queen sized comforter off one of the guest beds so we'd have something for more warmth while sleeping. He seems fine today, so not sure what caused that.

On our way home from getting groceries yesterday I noticed this brightly covered big van type vehicle parked at a house we drove by. It was a mobile vet. I looked it up online. It's a vet that started it about a year ago and it says he services out in our area (mostly dogs/cats). I think I'm going to try it out soon. Our dogs are due for a wellness/vaccines soon. He also does lab work, xrays, and even surgery out of that mobile van. The pictures of the inside of it are pretty neat. Quite the set up. I read a few reviews he has and one said his prices were reasonable. Even if it was a little more it would be worth it to me to have him come here. It's a pain taking 2 big dogs to the vet! I'm going to let our neighbors know about it, too. Sounds like something they might be interested in, with 4 dogs.

Well, I'm going to see if I can throw the ball to our dog over on the next vacant 2 acres next to us. It's a bit rough, but our younger dog is getting fat! Not enough activity, especially with us not letting them outside much and not being able to run around our property wherever they want, since we're trying to get a yard in.

Finally Friday

I just received a $5 Staples rewards coupon, probably from buying DH's new computer there. I don't know what to get for $5! It does appear that rewards members get free shipping, so I could order something rather than having to go back to the store.

DD uses YouTubeTv. She just received an email she can share with friends, for a free 2 week trial. I think I'll do that. Might as well get a little extra stuff to watch for a couple of weeks. I never got to see the last few episodes of the Big Bang Theory. I have watched that for years, so I was bummed not to get to finish it out, as it was one of my favorite shows. She thinks the old episodes are available with the YouTubeTv. Plus Firestick now has the YouTubeTv app back.

It was my half work day today, so DH and I went into the city and picked up our Walmart grocery order. We also stopped in Target so I could return a sweatshirt I ordered online in the wrong size. Decided to pick up some TP and laundry detergent. It was buy 2 laundry detergent and get $5 Target gift card, so I bought 2.

I tried to increase my groceries to last more than 2 weeks. I planned out 30 days of dinners and made my list from that. Plus I wasn't quite sure how much freezer space I'd have for the extra stuff. But, it all fit in and some out in the tiny fridge/freezer in the shop. I don't know if I got enough of everything to last a month, but for sure 3 weeks. It'll probably take me a few tries to learn how to shop for a month.

It's a beautiful fall day. Such a pretty drive with all the trees turning colors, the blue sky, and snow still here and there in spot, especially up on the top of the hills/mountains.

I chatted with my mom. She seemed a bit frazzled. I guess the movers broke her tv or something so she had a tech guy there when I called. She called me back a bit later. She hasn't been able to find her phone charger. I'm not sure how she's lasted a week and a half with her battery, but I guess she has. I told her to just go to a Verizon store if she can't find it, they can sell her a new charger, I'm sure. She also said she knows it's been hectic with the move and that her BF seems to be getting upset with her and she knows she's starting to not remember stuff. (this is really the first she has admitted she is forgetting things) and she knows it's been rough on her BF the past week. I told her it will all calm down soon and get easier. My plan is to go over there in a couple weeks, but apparently those super prices I had seen were just offered like that day only and I didn't realize that. It's still not a bad price, if I just wait and go on Nov 1st and stay a few days. She said I can stay in her apartment and she will stay at her BF's.

She also mentioned maybe she should have thought more about moving out near me, so I'm glad she remembered we talked about that! I said, well it's still always an option we can look into. She said she wasn't sure about her health insurance, if she could use it out of state, so I am going to see what I can find out about that. She has insurance through my dad's retirement plan (Kaiser), plus medicare.

Finding some savings

With my new health insurance my 2 prescriptions are cheaper. Not a huge savings, but I'll take it. I used to pay about $18 for a 90 day supply on both meds. Now it looks to be about $5 for 90 day supply for both. One was at no cost to me, the other was the $5. The refill arrived (2 days earlier than tracking said) so I'm good to go for another 90 days.

My cold seems better today, so at least it didn't turn into some major thing. My poor boss is out for her 3rd day.

We had spaghetti last night for dinner. We've been trying to be better about eating leftovers. The leftover meatloaf I made the other day got eaten as sandwiches and DH at all the leftover blueberry muffins from Sunday morning. He says he's going to have the spaghetti for lunch today. We also discussed trying to stock up as much as possible so that we are only making one trip per month into the city for groceries, instead of every other week. We need an extra freezer, but unless we come across a used one for sale, we're going to hold off for now. We also have the small freezer in the shop refrigerator that we haven't been using. Part of what is taking up room in my freezer is we keep reusing the bag of ice to put in our cooler when we go pick up groceries, so we don't have to buy a bag of ice every time. But, it takes up too much room, so going to move that out to the small shop freezer, if it will fit. I haven't checked yet. I remember there was a shelf in the freezer so might not be able to fit it, but I can put some frozen food stuff out there, if necessary.

I'm sure shopping that way would help keep the budget down, because we would be making sure we are eating up what we bought for the month. Plus we'd have 12 less trips a year to the city. It all adds up. I can think of a few things that we just cut out of our budget that seem small, but over a years time, does start adding up. We (finally!) are not renewing a membership we have had for 20 years, as well as DH is no longer doing the website for the club. We were paying our membership annually ($175) and paying for the website domain and hosting ($155 annually). The prescriptions above being cheaper save me $52/yr. Driving to the city 12x less a year would save about $130 in gas a year.

It sure is pretty here in the snow. We lived here through last winter, but we were in the shop and the few windows in there we had covered with towels to help keep in the heat so we didn't have any views. Now our view are like living in a winter mountain lodge :)

DNA relatives

So, you know how people find relatives through Ancestry DNA testing? Well, apparently it's a thing for dogs too! My DD had her dogs DNA tested while back. Someone just messaged her that their dogs share 26% DNA, meaning like aunt, uncle, grandparent or half sibling is what the message said. Crazy! The dog looks nothing like her dog, LOL. Who knew you could find your dogs relatives? haha.

We received several inches of snow overnight/this morning. Right as I was getting out of bed this morning, to start my day, our power went out. Almost 3 hours later it finally came back on. DH figured out how to use the battery back up on the gas fireplace. The fan won't work without electricity, but it still put out a lot of heat, which was nice.

I've been fighting a bit of a cold all week. It's not terrible, but making me feel tired and run down. My boss has been out sick the past 2 days. I was texting her this morning (telling her our power was out and I wasn't working yet) and she said she's felt like she got run over by a truck with a bad cold.

I'm looking at flights over to see my mom. If I wait about 3 weeks out, there are several days where the price is $188 RT. That is a great price. I just couldn't do the $600+ for that last minute pricing, especially when it wasn't an emergency. I also had another thought that I probably won't need to rent a motel while visiting her. She used to go spend weekends with her BF in his apartment all the time. I'm thinking while I'm there for a couple of nights, she can go stay with him and I can just stay in her apartment.


Not much else going on, really. I'm still really working hard at M-Turks. I made $118 last week. I'm was on track for $100 this week, but probably won't make it now that I lost all morning with the power outage. I'm only at $7 today and it's 3pm already. I've really been getting some nice bonus's too. The higher paying hits I have been able to find now sometimes pay out a bonus, too. Last week my bonus's totaled $21.

I think I'm going to make spaghetti for dinner tonight. We haven't had that in awhile and it sounds good. I picked up some garlic french bread from the grocery store yesterday when I had to go mail something at the post office in town. I'll freeze the other half of the loaf for another meal.....ok, that's if I have Spaghetti sauce in the pantry. The way I've been lately with my pantry, I wouldn't be surprised to find out I don't have any............

Felt like a long weekend

It was pretty much a housecleaning weekend. But,that's ok. I went over all the hard flooring with the dust mop. Then mopped it all with the spray mop. Dusted. Washed bedding. Making a king size bed and putting the comforter in the duvet wears me out! The mopping and bed changing/making always makes my back hurt for awhile, so I left the vacuuming until Sunday. I also managed to get rid of a big plastic bin from my master closet. Since DH hasn't built the shelving in there yet (ugh) we both still have bins of stuff in each of our closets that will eventually go on the shelves and hanged. One of my bins just had some shoes and a couple other items, so I got the shoes put on my shoe organizer thingy and put the other few items in one of the other bins that had a bit of room left.

Saturday I took out some chicken breasts as I planned to make a chicken/rice dinner. Then realized, after it thawed, that I was out of rice. Ok, I'll make chicken with stovetop stuffing. Nope, out of that too. We ended up having salad and baked potatoes. I didn't have time to try and figure out something else with the chicken and DH just doesn't really care for plain baked chicken. I had already ran into town for a few fresh groceries earlier in the day and wish I would have known I was out of that stuff.


Yesterday I made meatloaf. Not my favorite meal, but I do like the cold meatloaf sandwiches better than the dinner meal. Maybe we'll just have the sandwiches with salads tonight.

In good news, my mom does still have her Comcast for tv viewing. Apparently it was just down temporarily through her move and now it's back available again. I'm going to cancel the Hulu live tv, in a few days, after the free trial is over. I just can't see spending $45 a month when we really only watch a couple of channels, that I can get from using her service for free. We'll go back to using what channels we can get off of her account :)  I share an Amazon prime with DD, so I just sent her $60 for renewal, so I get those shows to watch, too. Plus, DD said she will still give me a Netflix gift card as gifts, since I like having that, too.

People are just weird. So, we put up that new flag pole. I think it's a bit taller than our neighbors (big deal). Theirs is probably 20ft, ours is 25ft. What DH read for recommended height was to do with how tall your house is. With our steep roof, 1 1/2 story house, ours is taller than neighbors, who's house is one story with a daylight basement. So, makes sense we should have ours taller to match the house height. Plus, we also have the state flag flying below the American flag. And that's only because DD had given it to DH as a gift when we moved here. I guess the neighbor down the road a mile said to our next door neighbor, "I saw their new flag pole, you better step up your game".  Didn't realize a flag was a competition, LOL. I did order a solar light from Amazon for $22, so DH doesn't have to keep taking the flags down every evening. At least I hope it will work. The reviews I read on it said it will light up that high and higher. Once he get the electrical working out there (when he puts in the gate, I assume) I'm sure we can use that solar light at some other area of our property to light something up.

I did manage to get started on the first Alex Cross book by James Patterson. Pretty good so far. I need to go get my eyes checked and probably need new glasses. My right eye isn't seeing quite as well through my glasses anymore.

Sold

The trailer got sold yesterday. He accepted $500 below his asking (2 others had offered $1000 below). Sold in 2 days. The way DH acted you'd think it was the biggest ordeal ever, LOL. And I'm sure the one time, 10 years from now, he could use a dump trailer for something, I'll get the blame that he "had" to sell it. When we moved over here 3 years ago we bought a 53ft semi trailer to put all his shop stuff in. Then he was supposed to sell it right after we got it all unloaded. He ended up trading it straight across for this dump trailer.  In this state you have to have signing off on the title notarized. What a pain. So we had to go into our town/county office to have it notarized. The buyer doesn't have to be present, at least.

My company changed health insurance companies in August. Last weekend I realized I needed to get my mail order prescriptions transferred to the new insurance's plan/mail order rx service. That was about a 4 day job to get that taken care of. I called, gave them the info. They called the next day asking for my dr's name and ph#. I called the next day to check and she said the person you last talked to didn't get all the info. We need your dr's name and ph#. I said I gave that to him. Then she actually took the time to look at the notes and saw it was there. Anyway, the order finally shipped out yesterday....on the wagon train to get here in 7 days.

A couple weeks ago, on my book list post, an anonymous reader commented a trick to keep reading a library ebook after it's due back. I tried it, turned off the wi-fi to my ipad to try to  keep it from being returned, but bummer, it doesn't work for me. The title expired anyway and I'll have to request and wait again to finish it. Looks to be a couple months wait again :(. While I'm waiting I can get started on the Alex Cross series. The first 2 books are in my reading queue.

I feel like I'm in a waiting/holding pattern with several things at work. A payroll system issue, an email system issue, a tax related issue. Just waiting on others for answers before I can get these tasks completed.

Did I mention I signed up for Hulu Live? Since my mom doesn't have Comcast anymore, I can't use her log in to stream shows. I don't find their menu to be all that great to navigate, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. I hate paying for this, but we do watch some tv on a regular basis and this is about the cheapest I can find, where we get what we want to watch. (I'd say it's because we like to watch Fox News, but you know, then I offend people, LOL.). I figure with what I've been able to now earn in MTurks, I can pay for it in about 3 days work, so I'm ok with adding it to my budget now.

I need to go check the mailbox and let the dogs go for the walk with me, but I've been waiting on a call all morning from our IT guy to help me with my email system issue. I know as soon as I decide to get up away from my desk, he will call.

I ordered a new hooded pullover sweatshirt for DH that came. Somehow I apparently ordered in in Medium. Not sure how I did that. It should be XL. I'll have to return it to Target next time I'm in the city (next weekend) and I just went ahead and ordered another one in the right size.

I just ordered a solar light to try to use on the flag pole, so DH doesn't have to keep taking down the flag every evening when it gets dark. The reviews on Amazon say it will shine up a 25' flag pole, so I hope it works. My luck it won't, but DH doesn't want to take the time to research for what to get and I guess he can't hook up the power that is out there yet, or something, I'm not sure.

Trying to sell something

I recently came across this funny video. DH and I got a chuckle out of it.  Now even more so, since he listed his trailer for sale.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06LU9P_qWlQ

People are just like this, haha. The latest one to message DH says

what did you haul in it dirt or concrete?
Dirt and gravel. The last load was topsoil, so it's dirty inside box. I hauled a few loads of topsoil and one load of gravel. A friend hauled a few loads of dirt with it. The guy I bought it from didn't use it much.
oh, ok it looks like it hauled concrete (how he could see this when the picture DH posted didn't even show the inside of the box!)
How did the paint chip off the front end of trailer? were you sandblasting next to it?
I don't know how it chipped off, it was that way when I bought it. It's used, as I said in the ad.
So, then DH used the hose, sprayed out the box, tipped it up and took 2 pictures and sent to the guy.
Does this show it better?
oh, yes, you didn't have to do that
It needed to be cleaned out anyway
ok, well I'm interested, I'll let you know tonight 

Of course he never hear back from him.

Another guy wanted to complain about the condition it's in for it's age (from one picture) LOL. It's a dump trailer, of course it's going to have wear and tear after 8 years. The first owner didn't use it much, we hardly used it. I can only imagine what it would look like with regular use. Then the guy says "well, I have a buddy who can get me a new one for that price". DH said, well, then why are you messaging me about this one? LOL

When we listed our sofa and other misc items a couple months ago, I did the listing and messaging back and forth with the dingdongs. I'm sure by the time DH is done trying to sell this trailer he's not going to want to sell anything for a long time, LOL.

Wednesday what not

Our dinner out with friends last evening was really fun. We always have a good time with them and enjoy their company. We tried a restaurant, about a half hours drive from our town. As we pulled in to park another car pulled in next to us. As we were getting out the gentleman said "I've been following you the whole way, LOL". I said well this must be the place to be then, we haven't eaten here before and he said they haven't either, they just moved to our town. DH chatted with them a couple minutes as we went inside the restaurant/bar. Turns out they are from our old state. They've retired and they said they just had to get out of that state (that they lived in their whole lives). Couldn't deal with it any longer. DH said we completely understand, same reason we left. The sad part is they lived in one of my favorite towns and sad to hear it's gone the route our town did, too.

The food was just ok. The place always posts pics of prime rib and seafood on our local community facebook page, but I guess they only offer than on weekends, so we basically had to choose from burgers and a couple other meals. Not sure I'd drive that far again for it. The other restaurant we frequent still has the best food. Oh and friends bought the dinner! I think we might have bought the last one, I can't remember, I know we paid for one of our dinners out. And we drove the 75 miles round trip and left the tip.

I got to see our old neighborhood. DH was right, the guy who bought our house has filled the driveway and part of the vacant lot next door with cars! The renter moved out and the lady that owned the house sold it, so it's no longer a rental. The new house built on the other side of it is ugly, LOL. It looks more like a shop than a house and it's blue with this dark blue metal roof.

We can burn outside again, so DH has 2 fires going today. One is a big brush pile and the other is leftover wood scraps. This time of year is good and bad. We can burn yet we also have to smell the rancid garbage burning (not us!). I think burning garbage should be against the law. It's such a nasty smell. Burns the eyes and nose. Just pay for dang garbage service! DH should have the brush pile burned down today but the wood pile might need another day to finish it off.

I've been getting some nice MTurk bonus's the past couple of days, from hit's that already paid higher amounts. I finished yesterday at $18 and then got emails that I earned another $6 in bonus's.

DH finally listed our trailer for sale. First 2 inquiries about it wanted to know if he'd accept $1000 less than asking. No, thanks, he would accept $500 less than asking. Then some guy messaged through Facebook marketplace at 6:30 this morning asking if it's still available. DH said yes. Then crickets. Typical.

I think DH needs a break from people! ie his opinionated friends (not the friends from last night). Example: he has a very very nice 1999 Ford F-350 truck. It's pretty much like having a "classic" car type of thing now. Only about 55,000 miles on it. In like perfect condition. He uses it to haul stuff when necessary but it's not a daily driver, that's for sure. He is so sick and tired of everyone judging him about having this nice truck. Why do you even keep it? you never drive it. That's stupid, etc etc. This truck is paid for (obviously years ago, LOL) and is handy when he does need to haul something or pull a trailer. Plus he loves the condition he's kept it in. Why in the world should he sell it? Lots of guys have cars they keep just for "show" or because it's like a collectible. Is DH not allowed to have something like that? Well, like DH says we certainly can't afford a new pickup truck at $70k!!

Making progress in the week

Mom got all moved yesterday. She called me early evening, after she and her BF got back upstairs from dinner. She sounded really good, even considering how tired I'm sure she was. I called her again this morning and she had just gotten back from breakfast. She has to go back to her old home to return the gate remote that her BF had and also put her garbage cans out. She still has unpacking and such to do, but of course, she has all the time now to do that. She keeps saying how nice and welcoming everyone there has been. She sounds really good and I'm glad it's all done now.

It sounds like she is just transferring her Comcast/Xfinity account to the new home. Good for me, LOL, as I use her Xfinity log in to watch a few channels for free on our tv. So, it doesn't look like I'm going to have to start forking out $45/mo for live tv streaming just yet, haha.

DH went and got his permanent crown put on this morning. Now he is at the Forest service office getting a burn permit, as today is the first day you can burn again. We have 2 big piles to get burned.

Yesterday he got our flag pole up. Sure looks nice there. This is how small this area is...he's at the dentist office this morning (like 30 miles away) and one of the assistants is the sister of one of the guys that worked on our topsoil job. They live about 5 miles from us. This morning she said "you got a new flagpole" LOL.

Still no green grass. Just a few blades coming up. Pretty sure we're going to have to wait until Spring now...and probably replant, somehow, as the past few days it's been hundreds of birds show up and eating all the grass seeds! Don't know how to plant grass, if they are just going to eat the seeds. There's $400 in grass seed wasted.

Tonight we are going out to dinner with our old neighbors we lived across the street from in town. Haven't gone out to dinner in too long, with them. We are going to try a new restaurant. Well, I'm not sure if they have ever eaten there and it's technically not new, but apparently it has new owner/cook and they keep posting pics of the food on Facebook and it looks so good, so we are going to give them a try. The last time DH and I went out to dinner was 2 months ago.

I'm trying to get my mail order prescriptions transferred to our new insurance plans rx service. I almost forgot until I was refilling my weekly pill container and realized I only have about 11 days left and of course OptumRx/United Healthcare isn't going to send me the refills now, since I no longer have that insurance. Yesterday I got a hold of my new mail mail order pharmacy which is Alliance/Walgreens. She said they would contact the old one and get transferred. A guy called back this morning that they were having trouble - either I didn't have refills left or they needed to contact my doctor. I said I have 2 90 day refills left and he also took down my doctor name and phone number. Hopefully they will get it figured out. I would think it would be a pretty similar process of just going to a new pharmacy and having them transfer, which has always been easy.

I was trying to get to $20 in MTurks income yesterday but by the end of the day I was at $16. Then I looked at my emails and realized I received 2 nice bonus's totaling $6 and was at $22, so that made me happy and I had reached my daily goal. It's mid day today and I'm up to $11. Supposedly, I'm supposed to get some bonus's from a couple hits I did today, but no idea how much. I think at least $1.