Inflation

So, we take off yesterday about 10:45 to go pick up our groceries. Pup is feeling all better. We get home about 2 1/2 hours later and now the kitty isn't feeling well. Zero energy and doing that thing he did awhile back where he'll open one eye partly and the other stays closed. He took a nap with me around 2pm and didn't get back up off the bed until like 8pm and then only to come lay in my lap on the chair. Then he went to bed with me for a good hour or so. Finally he perked up a bit, so I took him upstairs to put him in my office for the night. This morning he is somewhat better, but still not very energetic. He is eating, drinking water and seems to be using his litterbox ok.

When we got to the city we first pulled into the drive through part of the feed store to pick up 3 bags of grass fertilizer dh uses in later spring. Holy cow - the price has gone up 56% compared to the last several years we've been buying it! It used to be $25 a bag. Now $39. I really don't know how in the world us regular folk are supposed to keep up with this inflation. It's infuriating.

Then we went over to my mom's and dh dropped me off. I hadn't told her I was coming and when I got up to her floor and the elevator door opened she was sitting in one of the chairs they have in the common area reading a newsletter or something. I got her med filled up more (it had probably 30 days or more in there - geez). I also set the pin# on her tv remote, so she can't accidentally order up HBO anymore. While I was doing that dh ran over to the car wash a few blocks away and then came back and picked me up. 

Grocery pick up was fine - though I totally forgot to order some swiss cheese slices to go with the french dip sandwiches I plan to have for dinner one night. Boo :( We stopped at Wendys for lunch on the way home. Dh's "treat". Even that seems to be getting expensive - $18 for a double cheeseburger meal and a chicken sandwich (no meal). Guess they gotta cover those $16/hr wages they have to pay.

 

Simple Sunday

I got quite a bit done yesterday, though after getting woke up at 5am by a sick dog and not much sleep after that, I did end up taking a nap after lunch for an hour.

I, of course, mopped the floor. I did some laundry and also made some peanut cookies. I really like this Betty Crocker peanut butter cookie mix. The cookies turn out good and taste really good. Makes about 2 dozen average sized cookies, just a perfect amount.

Then, I got hooked on binge watching Ted Lasso. OMG - what a great show. One of the best shows I've watched in a very long time. Funny, heartwarming and uplifting. All the characters are great. I recommend watching it if you have Apple TV+ or even do the free trial and binge watch it. I think there are 2 seasons.

While our dog ate his breakfast fine, the whole day and evening he was just not feeling well. Just laying there with zero energy. He wouldn't even thump his tail if you'd pet him or talk to him. And he went and laid on the dog bed, which he never uses. We were starting to get worried about him. Finally about my bedtime he started to perk up and seems good this morning,  Most likely he ate deer poop. DH said when they walked to the mailbox on Friday he wandered off a bit and had his nose down on the ground in the snow and didn't want to come when dh called.

Today we pick up our grocery order. I'm going to do a quick stop at mom's and take her some meds to refill one in her dispenser. That's the only thing I don't like about this thing - there is still like 6 weeks of meds and it will start doing a notification every day (on the screen she sees and on my app) that one is running low. It's annoying, especially when you can't reorder yet and it's got lots of pills. I'm not going to call and tell her I'm stopping by. I'm not staying long and I don't need the calls about what time I'm coming and her all worrying about lunch. I'm also going to do the block on her tv remote control so she can't add purchases of HBO and such, LOL.

We're supposed to get more snow, but sounds like later in the day, so hoping it's later and we don't have to drive home in it.

Dinner out

Yesterday I entered a Walmart pickup order that we can go pick up at noon on Sunday. It's been 2 weeks, though I did pick up a gallon of milk at our town store when we went to get the new car licensing done. This trip I'm also stocking up on some baking items. Cake and blueberry muffin mixes, sugar and flour and vegetable oil. I also got a jar of yeast. Also adding some more spaghetti and egg noodles to my pantry. I wish I kind of knew how long the food we have in our pantry would last, if necessary. I'm not good at trying to figure out something like that. My guess is we'd have enough for at least a few months, even if the meal is just soup. We also have a box of emergency food we purchased several years ago that is supposed to last like 25 years and it was 30 day supply of food. And we can always eat eggs most days. The egg production is on the rise this past week - I'm now getting 1-2 eggs a day, instead of 1 every other day or so. I didn't need to buy store eggs for the first time in several months, as I now have about 1 1/2 dozen in the fridge. That's a good amount of extra for me right now, as long as I get one or two a day.

My work stuff on my phone was working fine all morning and then suddenly kept signing me out of Outlook and Teams. I kept signing in, but couldn't use the "authenticator" our IT wants us to use. Then my phone rang and it was one of our IT guys saying he got a notification that my Microsoft outlook had tried to sign in like 5 times in the last hour. I said ya....I think that's because I got a new phone and it's not sync'd up right. He knew how to fix it and it wasn't something I could have figured out.  He had to go into my Outlook settings and fiddle around. It's all good now.  

Until I went to log into work bank. It's a 2 step process. I have to enter our user id and password online and then with an app on my phone I get this "passcode token" which I then have to enter that 6 digit number in online to complete the log in. Except now it apparently wanted me to re-register the token app with some 8 digit code from the bank. I had to email our banker lady for help. Hopefully that is all the issues caused by getting a new phone.

My new phone also popped up a message from Apple that the purchase comes with 3 free months of Apple TV. Cool! Now I can watch the show Ted Lasso that several people have said is so good. I think I can also watch it from our Firestick on the tv. So, I'll see if dh wants to watch it with me. We don't have anything to watch together since the last season of Yellowstone finished.

I'm losing track of my free trials, LOL. Good thing I always immediately go put the cancel date on my outlook calendar. I've got 3 going right now...I think.

DH and I decided to go out to dinner last night. Other than when we dined out while in Texas last summer, here at home, we have not gone out to sit down in a restaurant since June 2020, because of Covid. We also hadn't been back to this restaurant since new owners took over. The menu seems to be the same. I'd been craving fish and chips, and we both ordered that. The only thing that was a disappointment was the bread brought out before the meal. It used to be this melt in your mouth soft bread and room temp butter. This bread was pretty bad. Seemed to me to be several day old bread. But, it was good to get out, though of course dh's stomach has to pay a little bit for it, but he said it was worth it. Oh, and not many places you pull out of the parking lot and there's a hound hunting truck set up, complete with a cougar they killed tied down to the top of the dogs crate. Probably good we saw this after eating, LOL. I know that the hunting of them is managed, and keeps the numbers in line, but still kid of sad to see that beautiful creature dead.

The dog puked at 5am, so that was fun to clean up. He always has to do it spread out so you have to walk around looking for the rest. By the time I got my socks on and got out to the main part of the house, he had thrown up in 3 different spots and a drippy trail in between. Most likely he got into eating deer poop outside, again. I was mostly able to fall back asleep and got up at 7:30. When pay day falls on a Monday we get the $ in our bank account on Saturday, so time to make my mortgage payment online and pay one other bill.

Later this morning I'm going to need to mop the floor :(

New phone love and work

My new iphone 11 arrived a day early, so I got it set up after dinner last night. It seemed harder for me to figure out how to do this time. I remember last time (3 1/2 yrs ago) there were several options on how to back up your old phone first and I had chosen the "Verizon cloud" method and it all went easy. This listed this option among the 3, but then no instructions on how to back it up to that! Then it made it sound like if my old phone had ios 11 or new and bluetooth enabled (it did) I could just set my old phone next to the new one and it would transfer, but it failed at that.

I ended up doing the itunes back up, but even that the instructions on Verizon's website weren't quite matching what I was seeing in itunes, but it backed my phone up and I verified that it did. Then plugged in the new one and it restored the back up to it. All was good. Whew! The only issues I had to figure out was getting my work email to sign back in. We use some kind of "microsoft authenticator" and it wouldn't let me get the code, because I then couldn't figure out how to get signed into the authenticator, LOL. Took a bunch of tries, but finally I got it all working, as well as our "Teams" app we use to communicate with at work. All my other apps seemed to load fine and I didn't have to re enter any passwords. 

The phone takes MUCH better pictures. Now, in the evenings when the light is low in the house, I can take a good picture. I was missing out on a lot of cute cat and dog pics and videos in the evenings because my phone camera and video quality was so bad. The battery life also seems much better.

DH's phone is on backorder and supposed to ship in a couple of weeks. I think I'll be ok to transfer his phone myself, like I did mine. I have an itunes log in for him and can back his up the same way on my computer and then restore the backup to the new phone. It'll probably all go a lot faster, now that I know more how to do it. Of course there is going to be a difference in using the 11 compared to our 6 and 7. There is no home button on the 11, but it's taken me no time to get used to it and I actually like it better. I also think backing our phones up to itunes every so often is probably a good idea, too.

Our neighbors stopped by Wednesday to drop off some home made bread she made, as a thanks for dh plowing their driveway when they were on their little trip. It's a wheat bread and she already sliced it all nice, too. I had it for toast at lunch yesterday and it was good. I think she said there are even carrots in it.

Along with dd getting her nice raise and bonus, her dh also got notified of his. He got a 6% raise and a $6,000 bonus. (they work for the same large company). I'm sure now, between the 2 of them they are making over $200k a year combined. I have a strong feeling they are going to start moving forward with their plans to buy some property and build a house.

This morning there was an email from my company's owner that a long time employee is leaving. With a company of about 55 employees, it's really starting to get where not many of us who have been around awhile are left. So many new hires in the past 2 years. We've never had this kind of employee turnover as we've had the past couple of years. Apparently this guy, (same as the last lady who left) is going into a different industry. Not working in an office anymore I don't see/hear about internal problems, but makes me wonder what it is that is making these people leave, whether it's to a competitor or to another industry. I mean, yes they said he "wants to pursue other interests" (standard line) but what made him want to do that after working at our company for 12 years. I've been making an effort to try to connect as much as I can with some of the new employees, but some positions in our company I really just have no interaction with or rarely. Last week I did end up talking to one of our guys, who got hired after I moved over here, for a couple of phone calls and emails. It was nice being able to talk to him and he seemed like an awesome guy. The order we were working on he ended up sending me the info in a nice spreadsheet and I made sure to pass on to my boss how nice and organized his work was.

So, at least I feel like I know him better now, whereas before he was just a name. I do have a bit more contact with our hourly employees (we only have 6) because I will have to often contact them about a time punch on their timecard. One new guy is very chatty and friendly and we have gotten to know each other a bit, too. He's 30, single, and wanting to buy his first house....only even a complete run down dump of a house is going for $500,000. I suggested maybe he start with a condo or townhouse. At least that would get him in something a bit cheaper and out of renting and building some equity that he can later use to help get into a house. He said that's what he was thinking, too. 

When I worked at the office (even though I was only there part time 2-3 days a week) I of course got to know everyone who was new, for the most part. Much harder to do with me (and everyone pretty much) remote. We have one guy (our marketing guy) who is in charge of sending out a company wide email if it's someone's birthday. I have started sending the birthday person an email saying Happy Birthday - hope you have a wonderful day, even if I don't know them, LOL. I used to just do it for the one's I knew best.

Extra income

It's appearing my mom is so dang busy she's not in her apartment in the mornings to take her meds. Like dd says "she's a busy gal -ain't got time for taking pills!" LOL. Again, I tried calling her for a couple of hours yesterday morning after getting the notification. But, she must stay downstairs after breakfast and wait for wii bowling to start at 9:30. That must last about an hour, because I finally got a hold of her at 10:45 and told her she still needed to take her meds. She says "oh ok, I'll write myself a note, I'm heading down to exercise". I'm said just hang up and take them right now. She had plenty of time to get the 1minute trip downstairs in the elevator, LOL. But, she didn't. Then it was lunch time. I tried about 12:45 and still no answer. Finally at just before 1pm I got the notification she finally took them. I'm going to have to figure out a new time for her to take them, LOL. Maybe before breakfast, now.

The past 13-14 months I have done 2 credit cards where I got $200 cash back bonus, plus put most of the medical bills on one and earned quite a bit at 2% cashback. All my regular monthly expenses, as much as possible, I charge to my PayPal credit card, that earns 2% cash back. Plus, about once or twice a year they offer a short period where they do 4%. So, I looked to see how much in credit card cash back rewards I earned in the past 13 months: almost $2000. $400 of that was the 2 cards bonus and then quite a bit from medical expenses charged. Not a typical year. I earned a few dollars from my Paypal debit card, but I hardly ever use that card anymore. It earned 1.5% cash back, but once I got the credit card with 2% I just started using that and paying it off monthly. 

In other income I earned $56 in 2021 from MTurks. As you can see, I gave up on that early in 2021. Very easy to burn out on. Though in the several years I did it, my total earnings was over $3200, so there is some money to be made from it. It's just you really need to be on your computer a lot to do it and catch all the hits. It was nice when I could do $5-10 a day, it would really add up, but the burn out of doing so many surveys comes on fast for me.

In other passive extra income, my blogging (because I'd do it whether I had ads or not) ads earned $615.30. Rakuten was $159.09. I think that was only because I had signed my mom up for Lifelock and got a $138 huge cash back from that. From also using the Honey app on my computer when shopping, I also earned $16.38 cash back. I think that is all I earn extra money from. Oh wait - I did also earn a $3 reward each month from Verizon UpRewards, which I cashed in for a $3 Amazon gift card code, each month. It seems much easier to just do a couple of those credit card offers with $200 bonus a year, rather than trying to earn the same amount from MTurks.

I do like my AmEx card, even though I hardly use it now. I just used it because I had about $15 in cash back, but can't cash in until there is $25. I will probably keep the AmEx to have on hand. It has a huge limit and seems like it would be good for an emergency. The Wells Fargo one, once I pay off the remaining balance of medical (0% interest for 15 months), I will most likely cancel this card. I read that if you are doing these credit card offers to take advantage of the bonus's, it's good to keep them a year or so, for your credit score.

DD just messaged me. Her company's annual reviews/salary increases just got done. She got a raise of $3600/yr and a $4200 bonus. She's doing so well. And here we sit at my company after 3 years of none. I don't even know what my company is thinking on this. I can't believe that some of the long term employees are happy with this. We have a bunch of new employees the past couple of years. How about at least give the one's who have gone 3 years without, some kind of raise. It makes me wonder if anyone has inquired...you'd think someone would have the nerve to, but if they did they haven't gotten one. Oh, I can't even talk or think about it - I'm getting too mad and frustrated. Really going backwards here now financially.

Upgrade delight and new phones

Holy cow! I was looking at the hotel confirmation email I got with adding the extra night and upgrade to a 1 bedroom suite. I thought/assumed it was their smaller one bedroom, but the confirmation says it's their "one bedroom residence suite"....that one runs for $800/night! The hotel website info says this suite is 935 sq ft. I told dh this is probably too nice for us, LOL. 

We went and got our new license plates and registration for the new car, now that I had the paperwork needed to do this. Good lord, Montana has a million license plate choices! The benefits of living in a very small town - we, again, were the only customers in there. No wait, no line. Quick and easy. The husband of one of the ladies that works at the vehicle licensing office in the old courthouse was a guy who did some work when we built our house. First he was working for excavating guy and was here when putting in all the ditches for utilities. Then he took a job with the propane company and did our propane stuff later in the build. Anyhow, it's been awhile since dh chatted with him and I guess his wife told him she talked to us today, so he called and they chatted on the phone quite awhile. Dh always gets to hear a lot of town "gossip" from him. I don't know if he is still considering running for county council, but he should. For example - this is a county of only a little over 4000 people. Our county's road maintenance dept has a $5 MILLION dollar surplus! What in the actual hell? So, the guy just tells them a budget he doesn't need or plan to use each year and they just hand it over? Dh watches the weekly council meetings online. Whenever this guy is there at a meeting he just always tells them he's not doing this or that - like when a new small group of houses goes in somewhere and it's a county road to it...says he's not taking care of it. Then I say then what the hell are those new home owners paying taxes for? And why does a small community of 4000 people need a $5 million surplus in just one dept? How about he tell them his realistic budget and if he doesn't use it all, it goes back into the general fund at the end of the year. Yet, they keep raising our taxes.

Last night we had some tasty salmon, that comes pre-seasoned/marinated, on a cedar plank. But, I forgot how much it smokes up the oven/house while baking it! I don't know how to not have it do that. It comes in like a vacuum sealed plastic, with all the seasons and marinade on it, while sitting on this cedar wood plank. There is NO WAY the marinade doesn't drip off the salmon and the plank (it barely fits). The instructions say if baking in the oven to set the plank directly on the middle oven rack, bake at 425 for 18-20 minutes. Well, all's that does is let all the juices drip down onto the bottom of the oven and bake on there and make a mess! Last time I tried placing a tray on the rack below to catch the drips and the drips just bake/burn on the tray and create all the smoke/smell. This time I tried placing the cedar plank directly on a sided baking tray and it wasn't quite as bad for smoke, but still did it and all the juices just burned onto the pan, which is still soaking in the sink trying to get off. I can't imagine if I hadn't put the tray under it, the whole bottom of my oven would have been caked with this burnt on mess. It's the smoke filling the kitchen I don't like, so I guess I won't be getting that anymore, darn. We used to get a different brand, several years ago (haven't found it since Covid hit) and I don't remember it doing that at all, but it was also on a plank. These are the types of things as to why I do not enjoy cooking, LOL.

I decided it's finally time dh and I get new cell phones. Mine is a iphone 6 and his is a 7. They are only 32gb storage and we are both maxed out. Not to mention the other day mine got weird and part of my screen was missing! A square section on the corner of my screen was blank. It went away after I restarted the phone, but I'm sure it's ready to be replaced. I've had mine about 3 1/2 years and dh has had his phone even longer that that. So, I decided to get us both iphone 11's. Cheaper than 12 or 13, but I'm sure will seem plenty new to us. Basically 2 phones for what one of the newest models cost. Hopefully it will end the "I don't have any room to take another video or picture" whines from dh. Or like when we were at our friends in Texas last summer and I planned to video tape the surprise at the birthday party, my phone stopped recording because I didn't have enough room. (thankfully everyone else was recording!). DH of course wanted a black phone (not white, or purple or yellow or green or red, LOL) so his is on backorder for 2-3 weeks. I got the light purple one and it should come in a couple days. When I had my last phone sent to me, it came with detailed instructions on how to set up the new phone and transfer everything that was on my previous iphone and it all transferred over no problem, so I'm hoping it goes that way for both of our phones. I'm going to do mine first and if all goes well, I'll do dh's. If it does not, well then we'll take dh's new phone into Verizon store for them to do it.

Minus 13 degrees when I got up this morning. Gorgeous blue sky and white snow everywhere. Just beautiful.

Power and internet outage

Just so you don't think I only relay stuff that annoys me about others (Facebook stuff) - that couple I mentioned awhile back who never seems to be prepared for anything (like weather or a hacked bank card), though in their 40's and have their own business, etc. Well, she has just posted she has lost 80 pounds! So, good for her! She looks terrific. It does sound like she had the surgery. I hope it works for her/sticks. I know someone who had that stomach surgery about 10 years ago and from the looks of her pictures over the years, she has somehow put it all back on, if not more. Seems a very lot to go through to just start eating again and stretch your stomach back out (or at least that's how I understand it happens).

Mr and Mrs Neighbor got home about 5:30 yesterday evening and Mr. called dh right up to thank him for all the plowing yesterday. Considering the weather and road conditions they made good time getting back home. I guess the girl they had dog/house sitting was only a junior in high school and she did have school yesterday, as apparently our school district was not closed for President's Day.

This mornings temp when I got up: -5, with an expected high today of 12. It looks like we will be back to more normal day temps of mid 40's by the weekend. I imagine today we will go back to the licensing dept at the courthouse and get our new car registered, as the paperwork the dealer forgot to include last week, arrived yesterday and now we appear to have what we need. Unless dh just decides to wait until the snow plow gets to the main road into town. I don't think they have done it yet. They are state snow plows (not county) that does this road and they first take care of the freeway/pass before they do this road, so with a big snow, it can sometimes take a couple days before they get over to this frontage road/old hwy.

Well that was an interesting 90 minutes or so. I was typing this and our power went out. Came back on in a half hour or so, but our internet never came back on. Tried unplugging the router and plugging back in to reset, but nothing. I couldn't even create a hotspot with my phone service, which was very strange. I tried to use my phone data to get online and see if the telephone company, who we have our internet through, was maybe also having an outage, but their website is pretty crappy. Then I texted my neighbor down the street who works from home to see if she also uses same internet service and she does and hers was working. I went out to the garage again, to reset our modem again. It's inside a electrical box and I realized the modem had no lights on it at all, but plugged in. Oh crap. Did it get fried and die? Dh was looking at it with me. I said well, I guess I have to go call the phone company about a new modem and as I'm walking back inside dh figured it out. The plug in that it's all plugged into has a GFI button and that needed to get reset. All works now. Whew! But all the fiddling around, restarting my computer, restarting the modem, etc and almost another hour was wasted.

Of course now dh wants to run to town to do the car licensing. I told him I need to work and reply to a few emails first and get caught back up and then we can go.

Snow day

Kitty won't be climbing any trees today. We got a big snow dump last night and it's still snowing this morning. Probably 9 inches or 10 inches. DH was up at 6 am to get started plowing. Then of course, his stupid "good neighbor" part of his personality starts to kick in and nag at him, and he feels like he should go plow our neighbors driveway.....because they have been out of town since Friday and have a young lady dog sitting and if she needs to get out to go to work, she most likely can't get out of their driveway. You know....the same neighbors who don't give a crap if their dogs are barking non stop or their guests annoy the neighborhood. DH is going to be busy for hours. And it's not going to melt off any time soon with this weeks temperatures.

He is finally doing a little better when I go to bed, the last few nights he's slept for a couple hours at least. Last night he made it until 12:30am when dh came to bed, then he got active. I swear it's like he wants me to take him upstairs. I'm like just go up there yourself, if that's what you want! LOL Then for at least a half hour he sounded like he was tearing my office apart. It sounded like something crashed down loud and I almost got up to go see. But, this morning all I could see amiss was he had knocked some file folders and papers off my desk.

I chatted with my mom around 11:30 yesterday. She had just gotten back to her apartment from going downstairs and getting a cup of coffee and a danish. She does keep busy at least. She couldn't tell me what the dessert/danish was, something pink on top with something else on top, LOL. I said well, whatever it is it sounds delicious. 

Well I see dh is plowing neighbors driveway and the girl left, so not sure if she got out before he started or after. She drove a small older car, so I'm not so sure she could drive through 9 inches on the ground to get out. Mr and Mrs are supposed to be home this evening - they are going to have a long drive over 3 snowy passes and snow here as well. 

I am not feeling the work mood this morning. DH just came inside for a break, after 3 hours of plowing and hasn't even done our driveway yet. He needed a 2nd breakfast, haha. He did get the driveway plowed before neighbors dog sitter left and she thanked him.

Here is a little video of this morning at the eagle's nest

 

 

Up a tree

I'm waiting for dh to get up this morning, as last night he requested blueberry muffins for breakfast. We had a bit of a kerfuffle while the dog was eating his breakfast and didn't like the cat underneath him, so he got mad at the cat. He hasn't done that in a long time, with the cat now being right there now every morning, either walking underneath him or drinking out of the water bowl right next to him. That woke dh up, but he decided to go back to bed. I said good, because it's too early for me to want to eat breakfast, LOL.

I still haven't found that credit card. I looked on my transaction history and the last I used it was Jan 9th - when I called the town lumber store and paid over the phone for what the carpenter guy picked up to do our garage work. So, obviously I was sitting at my desk when I did that (I remember) - so what did I do with the card? If I can't find it soon, my guess is that it got stuck between some papers that I threw in my garbage can, so long gone now. 

The cat also tried to demolish my new box of tissues on my desk last night. He's never bothered those before. 

He also climbed a tree outside yesterday! He is going to be so much trouble, LOL.

After dinner the dog always wants outside, so I take him and the cat out the back patio door. The dog goes off to pee and the cat usually just hangs down near the edge of the patio until the dog comes back. I'm guessing he saw a bird because next instant he was up the tree. Then he hung up there looking around like "well, now what do I do?" I brought the dog inside (because he typically won't stay out there if the dog isn't with him) and then he figured out to come back down backwards, about half the way, and then turned and jumped down and ran back inside the house.

We were supposed to get more snow last night, but it was just rain. The temps are supposed to keep dropping so it will probably turn into snow. Most of ours on the ground has been melting pretty good, as you can see from the picture. It got to 52 outside yesterday, the warmest day so far. Mid week it's supposed to be -8 overnight.

I watched on old cute movie I had saved to my YouTubeTv library to watch at some point. Just Like Heaven. In between dh coming out of his den every so often to tell me this or that that he read or watched, LOL. Thank goodness for pause, haha. I also started reading a new book - it's one from the same author I just finished the series books. It's good, too. Quite a different genre than the series, though.

I'm trying to remember to check my phone app to make sure my mom took her meds. I don't always catch the notifications. Her evening med is set for 6:10 and around 6:40 I checked and the app said wi-fi or power was disconnected. I tried to refresh the screen and then it showed me logged out of the app, which it has only done that once before. I went upstairs to retrieve my login and password and I could never get past entering my email address login. So, I figured it had something to do with the app and not on my mom's end. I decided not  to call and make sure she got her med taken - it would have just confused her. This morning I tried logging into the app again and it worked and she did take her med last evening, so all is fine.

Getting low on things

I was able to complete my side job's last of the December transactions/journal entries within about an hour or so yesterday. All but one - I'm missing some payroll detail so I can break down the payroll paid on mid December into the proper categories. I emailed the lady at the CPA office that I am missing that payroll report, as well as another one done a few days later (must have been for bonus's). Shortly after she emailed the reports for the 2/15 payroll we just had....ok....how about the other ones? She never replied. So, that is the only thing I'm waiting on and then can close up 2021 for them and get the file to the other person at that CPA office who does the tax returns. Hopefully she'll get it to me Monday morning. It will only take me about 20 minutes to finish up once I get it.

Dinner last night was just tomato soup and sandwich, along with some leftover sliced pears I gave dh. I watched a couple of tv shows and finished up a book series I was reading. Now what to read? I'll try one of those books I got from neighbor. 

While getting the dog fed this morning I realized we are out of one of his treats, so I did up a Target online order that included those. It was also time to stock up on toothpaste, toothbrushes and floss. We're also getting low on the disinfectant hand wipes we keep in the car.

I'm getting low on chicken feed, too. I should have ordered some for curbside pick up when we went to the city last Sunday. I was going to have it shipped from the same store, but they want like $18 just in shipping charges. I'm also getting low on cat litter (but probably have enough for at least a couple weeks) so I'm ordering that through Chewy again and adding a bag of chicken feed, too. It's all free shipping. But, of course I'm $1.14 away from free shipping. Always. So, I added some cat treats for a couple dollars.

I've misplaced a credit card. I thought it was in my desk drawer. I only used it mainly for the medical bills charged (where I got 0% interest for 15 months), but if I put another $500 on it, I'll have enough to get the $25 cash back rewards credited to my account. I have $15 cash back on it right now, but can't cash it in until it's $25. So, I was just going to charge a few regular purchases to it until I get that (and pay off, of course) - only the card isn't in my desk. I didn't put it in my wallet because it's not something I planned to use for purchases when I'm out and about. So, where the heck is it? At least, unlike my mom's mind, I don't think someone came and took it. It's obviously my fault it's missing. But, it is very annoying to not remember what I did with it! I've been trying to tidy up my desk to see if it got under some papers, but not finding it yet. I'm sure it will show up at some point. Probably would have been a lot safer in my wallet!

I can't seem to get too motivated yet today. Everything is clean and tidy - it would just need more like "deep" cleaning and I'm not in the mood for that.  Maybe I'll make some brownies.

Get this week over with

To say I'm glad it's Friday is an understatement, LOL. Though I will be very busy during my lunch break today and this weekend getting back to my side job, now that I can. 

With this little vacation we will be doing in June, I emailed the person listed in our "welcome email" that handles the hotel reservation, if you want to upgrade or add days. I emailed that I wanted to add the next night. I got an email back from someone at the hotel, saying there weren't any of the same rooms left for the next night, but they can do a 1 bedroom suite for $309 for that night, or if we don't want to have to change rooms during the stay we can book it for both nights. According to their website and the room (standard 2 queen) we get free for the first night was around $300. I emailed her back to say yes, lets do the 1 bedroom suite for both nights, so we don't have to move rooms, and just to clarify, what is my cost to upgrade for the first night that Ford covers? I'm sure it won't be very much, since she's giving us this suite at $309/night. On their website (and Expedia) this suite goes for $454 a night! It looks like we will be very comfortable :)

DD is busy planning their vacation to NC. Miss organized - she's already got all their days planned out, LOL. (I would do the same, haha). They are staying that free night in Asheville and then the remainder of their nights she booked in downtown Charlotte, it sounds like.

Ok, this is what cracks me up about living here where it's cold and snowy. When we were in the city last Sunday getting our groceries, as we're walking back to our car on that beautiful sunny day, it was only like 39 degrees out. Everyone is out in light sweatshirts or jackets, like it's warm out (us included). It was a nice warm day! LOL. In this mornings Facebook newsfeed is a weather report from the local tv station saying "the light jackets can stay out out a few more days, but get the winter coats ready again". Ya, it's gotta be down in the 20's before we need winter coats around here, LOL. So, more snow coming this weekend - still not getting our new car anytime soon!

LUCKY

LUCKY is the word of the day. They were able to apparently get everything off that hard drive and reinstall the files onto a new computer and get the accounting software installed and working. All is good! WHEW!! Boy, I can breathe and sleep again, now. I didn't lose anything, though the only thing I was concerned about was the accounting program and it's 13 years of financial history!

So, when we took the paperwork that the dealer sent so we could register/license the new car, we knew it would be a bit different, in that we bought it out of state. I handed over all the paperwork the dealer sent me to do this at my local licensing place. It appeared they must do this, for people buying something out of state, pretty regularly as they she seemed to know what to do, but the first thing she asked was "do we have the title yet?" Dh and I were both kind of like ? we don't know? She looked up on her computer and said she wasn't seeing it. Then she said well it sometimes takes several weeks before we get it. So, we ended up with a temporary plate that cost me $10 and we were done and she handed me back everything. We drove home, both a bit confused. Dh was like how does the dealer know where to send the title? He thought there would be something called a MSO that is the factory title. I don't know? I guess they know to mail it to Montana somewhere and it ends up at our local office? The lady at our office said when they get the title we'll be notified to come back in to then get the license plates.

So, the lady from the dealership just called and left me a voicemail while I was on the phone w/IT guy. She said she forgot to send the MSO/title with the paperwork she sent over! She apologized and is sending it overnight. Ok, now we can take that back in and take care of it all and get our plates. Geez!

Just speechless

Wow. I don't even know what to say. Just speechless. I'm still trying to get back to having a working computer at my side job office. And today their office manager guy is telling me that the accounting software program was not on their server (AS IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN!). It was just on that computer...all by itself...with no back up. Their IT company is trying to see if they can recover anything from the hard drive, but that takes time and let's face it - highly unlikely they'll get much off of it. 

I really don't think their office guy is even grasping the magnitude of this, if the file is gone. He said their IT is getting a new computer put together I can remote into and they also need to get the download for the accounting software, so they can reinstall it. I said "it's going on the server now, right?!" He was trying to figure out how to download the program because he doesn't have our license/registration info for it. Well, don't you think I might be the one to ask for that information?

So, I emailed him how to access our software license/registration online, which also, once signed in has all our registration/license info and also a link to download their latest version. I also explained that having the software reinstalled does me NO good, if I don't have our "company file" from the computer that crashed. That is the file I need to restore all the company's financial data saved on it for the past 13 years. When I am using the program it constantly saves to this file, automatically. That is the main "backup"...and then of course wherever you have the program itself residing, that should be getting all backed up regularly. Only they didn't.

The only time I pretty much ever create a back up copy is once a year, when I upload it to their CPA to do their tax return. So, the last version I did that with was a year ago, when I sent everything for them to do 2020. If they can't get anything off the hard drive so that we don't lose any data, well, I guess there will be ALL of 2021 that needs to be re entered! I don't even want to think about it, or how long it would take. 

Then office mgr guy just called and said they were able to get that company file off the hard drive - they just don't know yet if it's damaged or not. Once they finish getting the software installed on the server, they can try to restore that file. Fingers crossed and praying!! If it is all good, well they got VERY LUCKY!

A little vacation planned

I still have not heard one way or the other from my side job. Like hellooo? might be nice to know what is going on!

A little more snow overnight and then 5 minutes ago it just started dumping big flakes. 

I guess we're going on a little vacation at the end of June. With the Ford Explorer we purchased, because it is the "ST" (high performance, that's for dh, LOL) Ford offers an "ST Driving Experience". Basically a day where they show you how it handles, etc, but you use their car(s) (I guess, LOL). They offer this either in Park City, Utah or Asheville, NC. Of course DD, SIL and DH want to go. But DD and SIL want to go to NC. The cost of getting there is at your own expense, so we're going to go to the Utah one, where we can drive there in one day. It's a dinner (I think for the whole group/class that is attending the next day) and a nights stay at this nice hotel and then next day is the all day class. 

It's about an 8 or so hour drive there, so we can leave home fairly early morning and get there in time to check in and do the dinner. Since it's free for that one night, the registration process only books you for that night. If you want additional night(s), at your own expense, you can add them on your own. Well, it gave a name, ph# and email to contact, but I didn't write it down while registering online last night, so now I'll have to call and figure it out. We'd like to stay a 2nd night, as the class will take most of the day and we don't want to drive back home late in the day. It's like a $300 a night hotel, apparently. I guess we deserve to treat ourselves for one more night. Especially as I hate staying in hotels, I'm sure this will be a much nicer one they we usually stay in, LOL. We may take another couple days and drive down to see the Grand Canyon, as long as dd can pet sit, we might as well.

I plan to just take that whole last week of June off and now just realized the next Monday and Tuesday is our 4th of July holiday's so it will be a nice long vacation time off.

DD asked me yesterday if we had figured which dates we were going to go (they offer quite a few all throughout the summer months). They were trying to schedule when to do theirs and then she said "and I'm sure you guys would need pet sitter while you are gone and either she (or both of them) will come over and stay at our house while we're gone. Oh! well, that's very nice to offer as yes, we'd have to figure out something for the pets (and chickens!) if we go somewhere. And since I booked it to do a Monday/Tuesday experience, she can come over on Sunday and not have to take off work to drive over here and, if she wants to, she can just work from here while we're gone, if she doesn't want to use any of her vacation days. Her dh earns lots more days then she does (length of employment) so if he wants to come he can either use up some days or, if by chance, he gets the new position he's applied for, it's a work from home job, so he could work from here, too. They are going to do the mid June experience in NC and extend their stay a few days and do a bunch of sight seeing, since neither of them have been there before. 

Something to look forward to. I have driven through Utah once or twice years ago, but I don't think we ever stopped anywhere there.

EEEEK!!

OMG - now the office guy from my side job called and said they (the IT company they use) were trying to get my office computer fixed and realized now it's the hard drive that crashed and that's why I haven;t been able to connect to it. He then asked about the accounting software....I said I ASSUMED it would be on a separate drive on the main server that gets backed up regularly!! He said he wasn't sure, they are trying to figure it out. OMG! If it's not, then they are completely stupid. Who sets up a good sized company's accounting software with no way to back it up regularly and automatically???!!! I would not think the IT company they use would do something that stupid. But, stressing out waiting to hear. But, it's taking way to long for them to let me know, which is starting to worry me. I honestly don't have a clue what to do if they lost 12 years of financial data! I just can't even think about something like that or I might throw up.

 

Tuesday this and that

Well, another day's delay in fixing the remote access to my side job. A different IT guy than Friday calls me up, after getting a message from someone at the office that I still can't log in. He says "well, the reason you can't log in is the computer there is turned off". I chuckled and said well, they just told me it is on and that they even restarted it so I could try after that. That's why you guys got contacted again. Then he was confused, LOL. So, he tried to access it remotely himself and couldn't either. Then called me back about 15 minutes later and said apparently 2 devices are now set up with the IP address, so that's the reason it's not letting me get in/error message, but they haven't figured out yet what the other device is. He will have to fix this after hours, when he can reset their server without disrupting everyone working. He said it should work in the morning.

So, I try to log in this morning, hoping to get to work at 7am and nope, still can't get on. I guess I'll wait until 8am their time and email about it.

Yesterday afternoon the paperwork the dealer sent, so we can license and register it, arrived. We'll go into town sometime today and take care of that. There were also copies I had to sign that need to go back to the dealer. She had them marked with notes and also included a return label to just re-use the envelope they sent the papers in. I can drop that off at our town grocery store, as they have a UPS pickup service. I can rarely get the gallon jugs of drinking water with my Walmart orders anymore, so I'm going to see if the town store has some while there. I like to have a couple on hand and use the water to fill my Keurig. If they have some green bananas I'll pick some up. They usually are pretty green there. That way about the time the current bananas I have are too ripe or dh has finished them off with his morning Cheerios, I'll have more on hand. Once the bananas start getting pretty spotty and soft, dh doesn't like them in his cereal, so I have a pretty short window of being able to actually use them.

I woke up to snowing this morning, about an inch so far. I guess our warm almost 50 degree days from last week are gone again for awhile. I see next week's forecast shows overnight temps back down in the low teens. 

It's pay day. My 3 bills out of this paycheck are on autopay. I also just transferred some to my savings for propane. I've got $500 saved up there so far, so by next fill up in June or so, I should have saved most of what I need to cover that. I also just paid off a "paypal credit" balance I had been making 0% interest small payments on. It was from purchasing the Casoron bags we use for our weed control. They are really expensive at over $200 per 50# bag and we have to buy 2 of them. We needed them right when I was paying those thousands and thousands of dollars in hospital and doctors bills, so I charged it to the paypal credit/no interest for 6 months. The final balance isn't due for 30 days, but it was down to $73 owed and I wanted it gone. We apply the casoron weed granules annually and while it's pricey stuff, it works very well and still way cheaper than paying for a service, like our neighbors do for their yard. DH doesn't mind applying it himself.

Upstairs in my house we have this kind of long and wide hallway that goes to the bonus room. My plan has always been to have bookcases built along the wall and that be my "library". I'm hoping we end up having the carpenter guy we just used recently to build them. I've been thinking I'd like to get one of those antique library card catalog type of cabinets to put in the middle of the wall and have the bookcases on each side. Kind of break up just having a long wall of bookcases. I've been them at one of the antique stores we've been too, but that stores stuff is usually a bit overpriced. I am going to see what that antique mall in the city might have. They had good prices on that china hutch and church pew I got last summer. If I can't find something, I've also seen them available as new type of cabinets online, so there's always that option. Plus, I think the new ones are designed to look like a card cabinet, but hold CD's and DVD's.

When I was a kid I used to eat cream of wheat. I decided to get some to try and see if I remember it still tastes "ok". It was never great, LOL, but I didn't mind it with some milk and sugar on it. I think I might have overcooked it (did the microwave method), haha. Next time I'll try cutting down the cooking time by 30 seconds.

Typical Monday

It was so hard to wake up this morning. Well, I woke up with a jolt, right out of a vivid dream, and it was 15 minutes past my normal get up time. I then get up and let the dog out and feed him. Then go let kitty out of my office, then I come back downstairs and get my coffee and finish up with the dogs cosequin tablets and a brushing chew. The whole time I was still half asleep and fumbling around. I'm still feeling a bit groggy even 45 minutes later, even with coffee. Weird.

I sent off an email to my side job's office guy who sort of handles the IT, as far as if he can't fix it, he contacts their IT company. He was on vacation last week, so that it why I ended up directly with the IT guy. Anyway, I let him know I spoke with the IT guy Friday afternoon and he said my computer at the office is turned off, is the issue. Hopefully someone is there this morning and can figure it out.

Mid February already - oh and Valentine's Day. Never cared a whit about the day, LOL. Even as a kid the exchanging of the little Valentines at school was dumb, I thought, LOL. I've never expected dh to to anything. We just had our anniversary and my birthday a few weeks ago. I don't need more.  

SIL and his buddy got the intercooler installed on our car yesterday. Sounds like it took about 3 hours, instead of the 6 it took to do their car. DD sent dh pictures during the process. Basically he had to take the front end off the car to install it and then put it back together. He's a very smart guy when it comes to cars and what's on them. Dh knows alot, too, but SIL is kind of like an encyclopedia of knowledge as he just retains it all. Now we wait to see when we can get the car, LOL. Next 3 days is rain/snow and most likely just snow on the pass nearest us, so there go the improved road conditions. Oh well, no hurry. We'll get it when we get it.

DH and I made a quick trip to pick up another grocery order at Walmart yesterday. Just before we were leaving I went to find the cat (who I had just seen a few minutes earlier) and put him in my office while we were gone. Couldn't find him, so figured he must be hiding somewhere. As we are pulling out of the garage and the door is starting to go down we see the cat in the garage. He must have followed dh out there when dh went to put the cooler in the car. Dh is just oblivious to it happening, of course. So, I get out and put him back inside the house and didn't bother taking him all the way upstairs to my office. He was fine and the house was still in one piece when we got back.

When we got to the city he decided to do another trip through the car wash, mostly to get the underside sprayed off again. Then we got the groceries. No issues with picking up this time. They seem to have gotten staffed back up and have several people to bring out the orders to the cars. Of course dh needed to pee by this time and we decided to stop in the other grocery store for a couple additional items and for him to use the restroom. Everywhere was crowded there at noon yesterday. We thought maybe it would be quieter, being Sunday and the "big game" day, but I guess if we would have waited until late afternoon/evening it probably would have been dead. Last stop was Wendy's drive through. I swear to God dh just does not listen or even remember. I always order a grilled chicken sandwich and if I order a drink, it's always a small strawberry lemonade. So, of course as we pull up he asks what I want. I say grilled chicken sandwich and small strawberry lemonade. She asks to take our order and he says "chicken sandwich and medium strawberry lemonade". OMG. So then she says what kind of chicken? and before I could remind him it's "grilled" the lady starts to say all the different chicken sandwiches they have, LOL. And then she says "and what size drink did you say?" This time he says small. 

Since I've been wanting Rice Krispies and there's none to be had I decided to try the Walmart brand. A small box was only $1.48 and if they weren't good I could always make treats or something. Anway, after the big lunch, that's what I had for dinner last night. They were fine. The taste seemed same, the "texture" was what was different to me. I'm weird about textures in food, which is why I don't like eating most fruits, though I like the taste of the fruits. The store brand krispies were much flatter, so felt different chewing them, haha.

As I mentioned in my "Remembering for Mom" blog yesterday, she called and suddenly thought her cell phone just went missing (it's been 5 weeks), when she got up from her chair to use the bathroom. I'm still not convinced it wasn't her remote control she set down or covered with a magazine and got her devices confused. I do not want to have to get her another cell phone! I'm sure today, she will have forgotten all about it again. Her meds have dispensed fine now the past 3 doses. And even though I plan to take her computer next visit, to try and "fix" it, I'm worried she's going to keep calling me up and saying "my computer is missing, someone took it". 

I've read all the "Jack Reacher" books, so I was interested in seeing if the Amazon Prime new series was any good. Because, if you've read any of the books, Tom Cruise is NOT Jack Reacher, LOL. It's an ok series, at least the actor actually resembles the main character. It's not as good a show, as say, Bosch is/was, but it's something to watch. I  haven't felt the need to binge watch it, so just been watching an episode in the evenings.  

No reply yet from side job office, though it's 8:30 am there. I just tried to log in twice and twice it gets into my desktop and then immediately disconnects. I do not think the issue is the machine is not plugged in. So, I'm sure it will be all day trying, again, to get that resolved.

Another weekend going by too fast

Our new car is safely at dd's house now. SIL drove it home and dd drove theirs back. DD said they have one set of neighbors who are super nosey, so said they are probably wondering what in the heck?! Two brand new Explorers?! LOL. Today SIL and a friend of his are going to install the intercooler. It will be interesting to see how much quicker this install goes, now that he knows exactly what to do and has the extra rivets and such he needs. The unintended funny was when dd sent a picture of the car dash all turned on after they got to their house (it had 4 miles on it when the left the dealer) and the song on the radio said "No Rain". haha.

Kitty's eye was a lot better yesterday, so I'm hoping whatever it was is over with. A couple of times it looked maybe a little bit closed compared to the other eye but he wasn't walking around with it half or closed like Friday.

I finally decided to clean the mess of crap all piled up on the floor in one area of my office. I had a big bin with papers and such overflowing it, with no lid. The rest of the stuff was spread all over on top and around it. One thing as a fairly large box the the "Breeze" litter box, still in the box it came in, that I ended up hating. I asked dd if she could use it (that is the kind she uses for her cat) or wants to take it to try to sell on her local marketplace and she said she will take it, as hers is several years old now, so she'll replace it with this new one. I then asked DH to get me 2 more bins and 3 lids from the shop. I put everything in the bins as well a ended up with a full bag of garbage to take out. The bins are as ugly as hell, but at least looks much neater now. I'm sure I could throw out at least half of all the papers and crap I put in them, but that will take several hours and I wasn't in the mood for that yesterday. I did start shredding a huge stack of old checks to get rid of. Years ago, when we were moving, my side job lady sent me a big stack of checks and didn't realize she had ordered the kind for a dot matrix style printer - didn't even realize they had such a thing anymore LOL. I didn't have a shredder then, so they went into a box, while I was moving. I also want to find/order a bookcase for one part of the wall, so that's next on my list to do.

For some reason my mom's med dispenser did not dispense her evening (cholesterol) pill last evening. We couldn't figure it out over the phone and I'm not going to stress out over 1 cholesterol dose missed. Hopefully, it will work fine for her morning pills, but if for some reason it doesn't dh and I will be in the city to pick up our groceries around noon and I can stop in and fix it then. I just have a feeling she pressed the button to dispense wrong or something. Or it's possible she actually took it! The app showed me a strange message about it "not dispensed but offered manually" but then it shows the "taken" highlighted. It's entirely possible she tried again a half hour later (when she called me) because she thought she hadn't taken it. I'm just not sure what caused the "not dispensed, but offered manually" notification.

After dinner I spent the evening watching some shows on my ipad. I watched a news talk show, then got caught up on last weeks Resident Alien episode and then watched about half of another episode of Reacher on Prime Video. 

I got a pretty good picture of the eagles at the nest in early evening. It helps now that the tree branches are out of the way of the view, LOL.

We also had a flock (is that what they are called?) of ducks sitting in the river, on the other side, in the area that is a bit calmer (a spot the fishermen like to stop their boats and fish, too). So, we are starting to see signs of the season changing.

Ok, so while I have spent time typing out this post, I see my mom's morning meds dispensed fine, so that's a relief. One of the things I will ask my mom's doctor at her next checkup is if she even still needs to be on a statin med in her 80's. From what I read, it's not necessary by then. It's not likely to prolong her life at this point, I wouldn't think.

Saturday happenings

I got a bunch accomplished for my main job Friday morning and the latest financial reports to my boss around 1pm. I decided to take my lunch hour and a little extra time and get some year end work done for my side job so I can finish up their 2021 stuff for their CPA. Except I couldn't get logged in remotely. Ugh. I waited a bit and tried again. This time it actually logged in to my desktop, but instantly disconnected. Then the next try it wouldn't log in at all, back to the error message. I tried this a few more times over the next 20 minutes or so and the same thing kept happening.

I put in an email to the side job's IT company help desk and it took them over an hour to respond, with a "did you try shutting your computer off and trying again? If that doesn't work let me know when is a good time to call you". So, I tried that and that did not fix the problem either so I emailed right back and said call me anytime. He finally called at 5:30 my time and determined the machine at the office was turned off and just needed to be turned on. I was a bit skeptical as 2 of the times I logged in, it did make it into the computer/desktop there, and then instantly disconnected. Are you sure? Ok, fine. Of course no one was at the office, even thought it was still 4:30. Everyone was remote. I did get a hold of one gal who answered their main line and she said she would let the person know who will be there on Monday about it. So, I did not get to utilize the couple of hours I had allocated to get my side job work done. Frustrating.

DH frequents a car guys forum where they discuss lots of topics, in addition to cars. One of them being this potential truckers convoy being planned for the US, supposedly first of March. He though it wouldn't hurt if we stock up on even more stuff for our pantry, just in case it turns into a delay in goods to stores, so since Walmart thankfully is back to having lots of pick up time slots again, I put in another order this morning and we will run into the city tomorrow and pick it up, as well as get some lunch at Wendy's drive through. With my groceries (and stocked up on some stuff) last week and then again this week, we should be very tied over for a couple months, except for milk, which I tend to go through in a week or two, with what I can fit in my fridge.

DD and SIL just picked up our car and are on the way back to their house. I think they were only at the dealer about 20 minutes max, so that's good. One more step closer to getting the car :)  They have a nice sunny day, too, no rain. We are supposed to get more snow on our closest pass (and maybe even here) starting Monday for a couple days.

I had my Walmart order done, my time slot picked and thought I had already placed the order this morning. I went to add an item I forgot, just now and realized no, I didn't place it! Now my time slot is gone, so I had to pick noon. oh well. I think I got distracted when dd messaged they were on their way to the dealer and then dh got up and I went downstairs. I guess good thing for the additional item or I wouldn't have known I didn't place the order yet.

Yesterday the cat started having one eye closed or almost closed. No runny eye or goopy eye. Not sure what is going on. He seems better with it today, but still doesn't have that eye quite as open as the other one. I guess he'll have to tough it out until Monday, if it's something the vet will have to look at, because they aren't open on weekends.

The bald eagles appear to be getting ready to lay eggs. I was watching through the telescope this morning and one was in the nest busy poking around. Then the other one flew in carrying a huge stick that he/she got placed just where they wanted it, LOL. Hopefully in about 12 weeks there will be a baby eaglet or two up in there.

Friday updates

How did it get to be Friday again already?! I can't seem to keep up with the days this year. Every time I turn around another week is done.

The weather has been quite warm the past few days. Yesterday it got to 57. Lots of snow melting going on. Actually starting to see a little bit of grass under the trees (albeit brown) in the back yard. 

DD's dh got their "intercooler" installed on their new car, with the help of a friend and even dd. I guess there was a couple of times he needed all 3 muscles. He said it took about 6 hours, but that also included 2 trips to the auto parts store, LOL. DH is going to let him and his friend also put ours on for us.  Like they all said, now that one's been done and they know how, the 2nd one will go a lot easier/faster. 

So, the plan as it is right now is they will pick up our car at the dealer tomorrow morning and take it back to their house. SIL and friend will put on the intercooler on Sunday. Then we will watch for the roads to be bare and dry over all 3 passes and then dd and sil will bring our car over, at some point. In the meantime, I will figure out some nice gift or giftcard to give them for doing all of this for us.

As I posted on my "mom" blog  yesterday, it looks like I just really need to get my mom's computer away from her. It's just a constant confusion and she doesn't know how to use it, every time (seems to be about once a week) she tries to get on "to play her game" (that she doesn't even know what the game is anymore, when I showed her on Sunday). Every single time she turns it on, somehow she disconnects the wi-fi connection, let alone, even if it worked, I'm fairly certain she would have no idea how to even navigate to solitaire anymore. My plan next visit is to just tell her I need take it with me to fix it and let it go from there. It wouldn't even do any good to get her something like a tablet with a solitaire came on it. She would never remember to charge it. She had an ipad that she never charged and would constantly put the charger away in drawers, because she didn't know what it was for. I took the ipad last year to use myself (but it's almost as old as mine, bummer, LOL), since she hadn't used it in over a year. I never did find the charger for it (2nd one I had bought for her because before I moved her I couldn't find her original one so she could charge it and use it).

We got our propane tank filled up yesterday with our prepaid winter gallons (530). I think we made it a little longer this winter than last. Seems like last year it was January when they filled it. The little reciept the guy left shows the current price at $2.64/gallon and we prepaid at $1.94, so a total savings of $371 by prepaying and locking in the early price. I forgot that this propane guy ended up buying the house next door to where we lived in town....the house that had been a rental with that AWFUL renter guy and first his wife and kids, then his girlfriend and her kids...The landlord finally sold it and now this guy and his wife live there. It seems like they would have been much better neighbors, LOL. 

When we bought that little house on that street there were only 2 houses. The other 6 lots, 4 across the street and vacant lots on each end of our side. After we sold someone finally bought the corner lot on the other side of rental house and built a house. It's kind of a strange looking house. Looks maybe like a mfg or modular. Then this past year or so someone bough the corner lot on the other side of the house we had and so far has built a shop (like 2 feet from the fence, LOL) and is living in a camper trailer. (we saw this when dh was at the hospital) and we also heard that the guy who built the other house ended up buying all 4 vacant lots across the street, but nothing built there yet. We found out yesterday why he bought them. Some developer of "low income housing" was going to buy them and put low income houses on the lots. So, this guy decided to buy them to help protect his property value. So glad we are out of there and built our home!

Vroom!

Finally, we own a new car, LOL. Ok, it's not in our possession yet, but the purchase/loan contract is signed. About 5:30 yesterday another email showed up and this time the link to do the e-sign worked. I was so glad to get that all off my plate. I really didn't want to continue to have to deal with it today, as I have payroll to do today, among other work projects. The paperwork so we can license the car at our local courthouse are being sent UPS, so should be here in 2-3 days.

This is the toy version dh got me for Christmas, LOL. It's been sitting under my monitor.

After we had dinner I came backup upstairs to my computer and added the vehicle online with our insurance. As of today, the plan is still to have dd/sil pick our car up on Saturday. I guess sil took yesterday off work to install their intercooler onto the front of the radiator (or something like that, LOL). It was about a 6 hour job and he needed extra muscle (friend and dd). Of course, now when ours gets done, they'll know what they are doing so it'll go faster. sil had to make a couple trips to parts store as I guess the installation instructions weren't updated for a 2022 model, so he had to make some adjustments, add rivets or something.

I'm hoping for a no hassle payroll today. So far, so good. I've already done all my prework and emailed by boss with my questions and only 2 questions today. We have an online calendar for PTO and I compare it to what's in our payroll system for taken days off and often it doesn't match. Well, I spoke too soon, thought I was just going to zip through this payroll. Who was I kidding! Back to having to email our payroll advisor person because it's not working right. Sigh....

The longest car purchase in history

I get the call at 3:30 from a lady at the dealership that she is getting ready to email the e-sign document. Shortly after, it arrives. Yay! Not so fast. The link opens to an error message that says contact the dealer for assistance. She says to try using a different browser, that usually does the trick, or try it from my phone email, if I have that. I tried 2 more browsers and my phone. Nope. Then she got back into the document to resend me and it's all froze up and won't let her do anything with it. Plus she said I was also supposed to get a text notifying me about the e-sign, which I did not. So, she's working on it...might not be able to re-do it until tomorrow morning now. I also told her to send it to a different email I have. Maybe it's my email that is causing the problems the last 2 days (though it's working for everything else) SEE??!!! This is why you don't wait until the last day to get important stuff taken care of!

Remember the FedEx package that was delivered Sunday "at the gate" but we couldn't find it? Well, dh found it Tuesday. It was at our first gate (the one that goes to the big shop door). That gate doesn't have any walk through on either side and it's locked. They just dropped the box over the gate at one end. Well, with the snow built up from plowing, we couldn't see it from standing in the driveway nor when I did actually look to see if there was a box next to the gate when I drove out on Sunday. They have never left it there before, but glad it's found. Luckily not weather damaged at all. It was just dishwasher tabs and shampoo.

Curious, after reading posts about inflation and higher food costs by fellow bloggers at Intrepid Debt Blog and A Dime at a Time, I decided to do a little comparison from 1 year ago prices for a Walmart grocery order compared to day. I had the prices of each item from February 2021 and looked them up for Walmart's current price today. In total 18% higher than 1 year ago. Ouch! I did notice that Walmart has done well on most most of it's Great Value brand items to keep prices the same. Most of their items were the same as a year ago, the milk and a couple things were a little higher. It's all the other, brand name, items that went up. If I just calculated the percentage increase on the brand name items it was a bit over 20% increase. That's a bit of a hurt on the budget, to be sure. I don't recall what we were paying for a gallon of gas a year ago. Seems like it was at least a $1/gallon less than it is now, that's at least a 40% increase. I just got notification that my mom's monthly rent is going up $250 per month, in 8.5% increase. Of course more than her social security increase was. Luckily she can easily absorb it, but what do those on fixed incomes do with something like that?

 

 

It never ends

I guess some things are just destined to be a pain in the butt, no matter how hard you try to prepare and stay on top of it all. What can go wrong seems to be, which is EXACTLY why I HATE waiting until last minute to take care of important things!!

My banks cut off to do a wire that day is 3pm. I'm constantly checking my emails. At about 3:30 I see something in my spam folder. It's an email he replied back to that he got my insurance card. WTH?! why is this in my spam folder? Then about 4:10 another email pops into my spam folder with the wire instructions.

So, there was an attachment in the email with the wire instructions...only I can't open the file. It's some .ink extension file and the file name says "shortcut to ...". My guess is he was trying to attach the pdf file and in error just attached his shortcut link from his computer. I replied right back that I'm sorry, but I'm not able to open the file. 

About half hour later he calls, wondering if I got his wire transfer email he sent? well, yes, just about a half hour ago and I emailed you back that I can't open it. He said that's strange - he emailed that the evening before, after we got off the phone! I said well it was strange that all of a sudden your last 2 emails ended up in my spam folder, when nothing has before. It took almost 24 hours to get to my spam folder. Great. He said he has had this problem before, and it appears to be on his end, he will have to contact his email provider. He tried to re-attach the document and resend it to my email, also cc'ing another email address I have, just to make sure I get it. I got neither email. I tried to forward his last email to my other email address and it came back "permanent error". Definitely something wrong on his end. He then said he would text me a picture of the wire transfer instructions, which he finally did about a half hour later. 

I am ready to call the bank when they open this morning and get that done! Hopefully he will send the documents to sign today. It sounds like that will come via Docusign, so I'm hoping no issues getting the email.

DH came to bed last night saying he just read that Ford is stopping production at like 3 plants, one of them being where our car was just produced. So, really sounds like it was a good thing we ordered ours when we did. That's also very bad news for all those people's jobs and most likely our economy, again.

Making progress

The dealer finally called me at 5:30. Did I mention that while I was waiting yesterday I checked my credit score through my credit card website? 838. Can't do much better than that. I don't even know what it was 12 years ago, when we filed bankruptcy, but very glad to overcome that and be back into excellent credit rating.

So, as an unexpected bonus, we got a $2000 incentive rebate on the car purchase, so that was good news. I could have gotten 0% interest at 36 months, but that was pushing my payment beyond what I wanted or was comfortable with (at least on a monthly basis being locked in to it). While I'm hoping to make those kind of payments, it's not likely I will be able to do that every month, as other emergencies pop up (and of course they will), so I went with the low interest 60 month. I emailed him a copy of my auto insurance card and he says he will do up the paperwork for me to electronically sign today. He seemed in no rush, but I told him that while it's most likely dd/sil will pick up the car for us on Saturday, it's also just as likely dh will see dry roads on the cameras and head over with his truck and trailer to pick it up, so I'd rather get it all done asap, so we have options. He is supposed to email me the info to do the wire transfer, but I haven't seen it yet.

Though unlikely that dh will be doing that - this mornings traffic alert is a semi roll over accident on the pass nearest us. That pass has been an absolute nightmare for travelers this winter. This is happening at least weekly, if not more often. Or its happening on the freeway right near us. There have been constant crashes in the early mornings because it's below freezing and icy and they are all just going too fast.

For now the plan is dd/sil will drive down to the dealer on Saturday and pick it up. As dd said, it should be a quick stop there as no paperwork and she doesn't need the "speel" of the walkthru on the car and how it all works, since she just bought the same car. It should be handing them the keys and that's it. Then hopefully we get some dry sunny days over the 460 miles between us and them and the roads on the 3 passes dry out.

Of course, I'm not holding my breath that he'll get the paperwork done today. He'll have some excuse why it didn't get done. I mean really, how long does it take to draw up a finance contract on a computer these days? It's been almost 20 years since I bought a car from a dealer, but with technology these days, it should be just a matter of entering my info and the cars info and the $ info and there's the contract ready to print out or email to sign. Obviously they do this all the time. Take a half hour and devote it to getting mine done!

I'm sure there are those out there who thinks dh is just being a big baby about not wanting de-icer all over a brand spanking new car. Ok - well here is what de-icer did to our driveway when a guy parked there for not more than 15 minutes, when he stopped by to pick up some construction stuff dh was giving him! Just ate up the concrete right up, while the crap dripped down off his car. So much for our nice concrete driveway pad.

 

 

Again with the waiting on people to do their job

When we ordered the car and were told March delivery, we honestly expected it would most likely take longer than 4 months/120 days. (the local dealer was saying 6 months!) When do we ever order anything that is on time? LOL. We quote business's all the time at work with estimated time to get the products, but it's almost always ends up being longer. But, even with being into March we figured there was a good chance by then that the 3 mountain passes wouldn't be an issue by then. We really just assumed ya, it'll probably end up being more like late March, even into April. But then they bumped the cars up a month on their production schedule, so that was a surprise and here we are, in early Feb, of course, having to deal with winter roads. 

I've been making every attempt to try to stay on top of getting this paperwork completed. I called my bank first thing this morning. Is there a way I can do a wire transfer giving you the information over the phone or do I need to come in person? She said it can be done over the phone, no problem, and gave me the short list of information they will need to process the wire. So, if that works for the dealer for me to transfer the down payment, when I hear back from him, I've got all my ducks lined up for that to be done quickly. I didn't want to have to be talking to him and then say "ok, let me see if my bank can take the info over the phone or if I have to drive there (50 miles) to do it.". Another option was I'd just overnight a check, but a wire would be my preferred way. That way they have the funds right away and no waiting for a check to clear on their end.

And then still sitting twiddling my thumbs with no call from the dealer (well, not twiddling, I have tons of work to keep me busy). So just before noon I email him - say hey, just checking back in with you. I spoke with my bank and can do a wire transfer with them over the phone to send you the down payment today. This is the info I will need to do it....still no call or email.

In the meantime all morning, expecting him to call any time now (because that's how I take care of business) and my boss calling me a couple times about this project and she needed to call me back again, I want to call dd, but know as soon as I try to call and talk with her about all this, one of them will be calling me.  So, I emailed her and sent her a message I emailed. I'm the type that has to sit on situations that bother me for a bit. I don't like being reactionary.

Basically I said we aren't trying to give them heartburn with getting our car, but we were under the impression since almost the beginning that they would pick up our car for us (if I could do electronic signing, which I can) and then when roads good either they would bring it to us or we'd to to their house to pick up. Then all of a sudden you are telling us it can be stored in your back yard at the same time SIL is saying the dealer can store it for us. Totally gave us the impression you guys didn't want to store our car for a few weeks in your garage. I explained what a now 14 or more hour day this would be for us, with the added trip of driving from the dealers to their house, etc.

She replied back that she is sorry, they apparently mis-communicated and totally added to our confusion. She only meant that while they needed to pull their car into their garage to put their intercooler on, they would keep our car stored safely in back, behind their fence, for the hours/day it took to do the work on their car. She didn't want our brand new car parked on their street, just sitting there for someone to potentially run into it. They just meant that the dealer would store it safe for the week (or whenever I got paperwork done) until they could make the trip back down there to pick up our car for us. She said they fully intended to store it in their garage and if the roads are still bad for awhile, sil and his good friend can even get our intercooler installed, too, if dh wants  - which that is what we thought was the plan before, but when they started saying store it in the back yard or at the dealer and he'll do the paperwork when you pick it up...well, you can see how we thought we were being blown off with the help they had offered. 

So, if this dealer ever decides to get a hold of me and get this paperwork done, they can go pick up the car (hopefully next Saturday or Sunday. I certainly don't expect them to take time off work to go get it this week) and most likely we will have them bring it over when the roads are decent. Or go get it ourselves. We can manage an 8 hour trip and stay overnight at their house. 

The work/business day is almost over and no call from the car dealer. I sent an email at 10:20 his time and than called at 12:50 his time, but she said he was out to lunch, so I left my name and number. No call or email back. I don't get it. If I was sitting in his dealership wanting to drive away in my new car, it would be done right then. I mean seriously, he has my credit app - it takes minutes to get a credit decision and then he just has to see what rate/incentives Ford is offering right now and tell me. Then get the paperwork done up. I know that the paperwork can take a couple hours, but geez, nothing's been done yet.

Sunday happenings

Yesterday I went and visited with my mom a couple of hours. She was doing well, and I'll write about it over at my new blog https://rememberingformom.blogspot.com/

FedEx delivers on Saturday and Sundays here. They are a contracted delivery service with small FedEx vans. I'm signed up with FedEx to get email notifications on deliveries. Saturday morning I got part of my Walmart online order. Dh has told the driver several times it's ok to leave the package at our gate plus I have those instructions on our account. Usually they do, but Saturday he brought it to the door. Then Sunday morning I didn't look at my emails until 10am and saw that they had dropped off the rest of my order at 9am. Nothing at the door, so I walked out to the gate and found nothing. I asked dh if by chance he had already gotten it and set it in the shop or something. No. He went out and looked around the gate, but no package. I looked online at the proof of delivery and it says "left at front gate entrance". Stolen packages are not something we have to deal with out here, but I don't know what else could have happened to it. It was some dishwasher tabs and shampoo. I'm hoping that somehow it just got marked as delivered but they still have in in their van and it will get delivered today.

When I decided on Saturday to go see mom on Sunday afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised to see Walmart finally has expanded their pickup time slots again and had available time for 3pm, so I placed an order. We didn't need bunch of stuff, so mostly it was a "stock up" order. My slot was 2-3pm and I pulled in at exactly 3pm and checked in with the app. There was one other car who had just backed in next to my spot. A girl came out with my order and said my name. I'm like yep, that's me. Then she said Oh, this is the wrong order, I have to take it back inside. Oh ok. A few minutes later a guy comes out with an order about my size and says my name and I'm like yep. He starts to take out chocolate milk an OJ and I say "oh, that's not my stuff either!". The guy next to me, who's drivers side was next to me said "that's my order". So, the guy got him loaded and I sat and waited for this girl or someone to come back. At 3:10 I get a text that my order was picked up. I figured it was because she had done that on her little handheld before she realized it wasn't my order. At 3:20 the guy who unloaded next to me starts to go back into the building and I say "excuse me...can you see what happened to my order??". He tries to enter my name in his machine and says nothing is coming up. I said the girl and then you both tried to bring out an order for my name on your machines, so it was there before. As he's saying he'll go back inside to check another guy comes out with my order. Whew! I love the convenience, but boy, either getting a time slot or having other issues with the orders seems to be pretty hit and miss lately.

I got home at 4:10. I had taken some steaks out of the freezer earlier to have for dinner. We have several steaks in the freezer and dh hasn't hardly eaten any meat since is pancreatitis/gall bladder removal, but these are small, thin ribeyes, so not huge steaks. They need to get eaten as they've now been in the freezer awhile. So, we gave it a try and will see how his digestive system does with it. If ok, I'll get those steaks used up over the next couple of months and we'll have steak for dinner once in awhile (though not weekly like we used to always do).

Mostly the rest of the evening I was tired and just relaxed. I didn't sleep well Saturday night and then spent the morning doing some housework before I went to see my mom. I woke up around 5am this morning and wasn't sure what day it was...Monday, Tuesday? Then I remember yesterday was Sunday. Oh, it's Monday, haha. Time to get working on that project for work.

Cute kitty and rant

The cuteness that is really a little stinker!

As I predicted that project I got slammed with last Monday morning isn't done yet. I've been tasked now to do the work necessary from the results of the reports. I figured this was coming. I'll get started on it Monday morning. I'm guessing it won't take me more than 2 days at the most. My boss said she is going to work on half of it, but I'm hoping I'll get mine done before she does and then I can just offer to finish up her part.

DH and I have never been the type of people to ask favors of others (though he gets asked all the time and readily does them over and aboard what is asked, often), even family members. We don't like to bother or inconvenience people, but every so often you just need some help. I'm trying to figure out why, though, when we "expect" some help, it's not forthcoming, yet you see these family and friends doing them for others, all the time. I just don't get it. Let alone, almost anytime we have asked a "favor" we actually pay the person for it, friend or family!

Long story short (haha, not really), our new car is at the dealership and ready as of last Friday. DD and her dh ordered a new car (same car, different color) at the same time and both came in this past week. The dealer is a long time family friend of SIL (that is why we decided to go ahead and order from him). They got notified by the dealer friend Friday evening that their car was ready. They drove the 3 hours to his dealership first thing Saturday morning, of course excited to pick it up. We, since deciding to order from there in November, have been trying to work out the logistics of picking ours up, since it's winter (the cars came almost a month earlier than we were originally told they'd be done). We will be selling our old car on our own, not trading in. So, we need to drive our old car 400+ miles to go pick new car up and then both of us drive a car back home. But, it's still very wintery and 3 snowy mountain passes. I can't drive those passes in snow. I would probably have a panic attack at best, an accident at worst. In addition to that "obstacle" dh is anal about cars, especially a brand spanking new one and doesn't want to drive it over the passes with all the de-icer crap all over the roads right now. It's just a mess and ruins the underneath quickly. He wants the roads bare and dry. Ideally, we want to wait and get it as soon as there are some bare and dry roads (they are and will of course get better every week we get closer to spring).

All along dd and SIL have acted like they could even pick up the car and drive it over here. Well, that sure would be nice! The dealer already told me I can do all the paperwork electronically. The other option we all liked was having them pick up the car and store it at their house until we can go over and pick it up. That way we aren't inconveniencing them with trip over here (because we hate inconveniencing others). Then this past month SIL started hinting that the dealer can store it for us and then dd said "or we can store it in our backyard for you". Ok, well both of them know dh well enough that he's not going to want our brand new car sitting in their backyard under fir trees, needles and sap. ok, I guess we'll leave it at the dealer. 

The other issue, adding the the logistics, is both of us bought this aftermarket radiator cooler to install. They were ordered together and shipped to our house (to save on shipping and no sales tax) before Christmas. The plan then was they'd pickup their car and ours and drive both over (this was before we knew the production schedule got bumped up a month early and were assuming roads would be better at that time in March) and both guys would put their new intercoolers on together in our nice big heated shop and dh has all the tools.  Then when they were packing their truck to go home, suddenly they decided to take both intercoolers home with them. It was all a big rush and dh was kind of confused and was like umm..ok...but after they left he's like I don't understand the thinking - why take both/ours with them? At this point we then assumed they still would be picking our car up and taking it to their house, so ok, we'll just either put the intercooler on when we go to their house to pick up (adding another day, for installation) or I guess dh just hauls it back here, LOL.

So, now as the whole thing stands, since it's being stored at the dealer we will have to drive there, a good 8 hour drive. Spend however long picking it up. THEN drive the 120 miles to dd's house, at least 3 more hours (because by then it will be prime commuting time, so likely 4 hours) to pick up the intercooler (that should have just been at our house!). A good 14 hour day at the least. All this with a dh who literally has to pee every 20 minutes. Fun.

What bothers me the most is that dd and her dh let a co-worker of hers, that she hardly even knew and isn't even close to, store a car in their garage for 2 YEARS!! (it was just supposed to be a few months) and then when they finally got him to take the car back, then dd's father in law stored his car in their garage for many months (like a year I think)! We are asking for a few weeks of storage to help us out, until the roads are better and it's apparently too much for us to ask. 

Then throw on top of all that that the dealer just totally dropped the ball on getting the purchase paperwork processing for our car. I had emailed with him 3 1/2 weeks ago (as soon as we knew pretty close what date the car would be at the dealer), specifically discussing the electronic signing option as well as told him I wanted to finance through Ford Credit, so do I apply online or what? He emailed me a credit app, which I sent back that day. He replied back that it was received and he'd be in touch. Well, he's apparently done nothing with my credit app and didn't even bother to call us to say "hey, your car is here and ready when you are, I'm getting the paperwork started". I had to finally call him yesterday, after no call from him, and found out he hadn't even done my credit app yet. Apparently under the impression we were doing it when we came to get the car? No, we specifically discussed doing it all electronically. (for 2 reasons, if we pick it up, we don't want to drive 8 or more hours, then sit in a dealership 3 hours doing the paperwork, we wanted it done ahead of time. Or, if we have DD pick it up it obviously needs to be all completed for her to be able to drive away with it). So, then he told me the credit website is down, so he'll have to do it on Monday.  Sure.....

I'm just disappointed in dd. They can and do favors for their friends and SIL's parents (all the time), but I guess we're asking too much. That's how we are always made to feel if we ever ask anyone for a favor, it seems. So, us asking anyone is always few and far between!