New Van and Other Things

My blog has had many thousands of hits this year.  I have no clue who is reading it at this point, I used to be able to name all five of you and your kids-the first year I had 900 visits the whole year!  :)  So...hello new people?

Some things that have happened this week.

Wednesday I went and got the new van.  I am so happy with it, even if it did flatten our savings AND use all my camper money I wanted to spend on kayaks.  The purchase price was not the real issue, it was the tax and tag and title stuff AND the guy tacked on some $99 'fee' after all of that.  It was $ I could have done without having to scrape up!  Then Matt went and got new brakes, alignment and an oil change on his car.  Goodbye, groceries!  Okay, not that bad, but our big plans for the pay period include $5 night at the pool.  And...that's it.  LOL!

But thank goodness we had savings to cover it, I do not want ANY more debt to deal with after it taking us 3 full years to get debt free last time, I am determined to avoid avoid avoid.  We can pay ourselves back over the rest of the year, just won't get a big trip this fall, or kayaks.  waa

Jake has been working with a landscaping crew.  It's hot and hard and he aches and I am SO glad. Nothing like manual labor to make the rest of the crappy job options out there seem a little more climate controlled. He is getting paid well, though, so he's managing to muddle through somehow.

As of the 31st of May, Matt's job dropped Vitality-which means we no longer get points for walking-in fact, we came to our senses and tossed the fitbugs.  2 years and 7 months of tracking our steps EVERY SINGLE DAY is over.  I was going to keep tracking mine, then I accidentally dropped it in the toilet and thought, eh, screw it.  That's a sign, yo.  Besides, I dropped 30 pounds just walking to walk.  Walking with the fitbug-zero.

We still have to hit certain goals to keep our insurance rates JUST the rate and not another $75 per month in 'fees'.  I don't think it's fair-we already did all the crap to get all the points to keep from being fined in 2016, but they changed it with 5 months to go.  Now we have to hit 6 points-non smoking, BMI, HDL, glucose, BP and triglycerides.  The HDL (good cholesterol) alone I will never hit.  They want it over 50 and in the 4 blood tests I have had, it has never been higher than 42.  My 'bad' cholesterol is really low, too, though.

The Panther Run is coming up!  Matt and Ben ran last year but this year Elan, Kurt, Emma and Alex, Melanie and her Ben and Gina and Jeff are joining them and running as a team.  I am still on photography, though Kurt and Matt both think next year I will be running it.  It's like we've never met.

I have hit my 15 miles a week of walking every week and thought I would up it to 20 miles in June, but Matt and I were trotting the track at nearly 10 last night to get that last mile done so I will stick with 15 a while longer.

The neighbors on the corner showed up-20 of them-and set fire to the rest of the house they took the roof off of.  They were wearing matching shirts-pink for the women and green for the men.  It was kind of surreal.

This is days later when it finally stopped smoking.  How hard can it be to burn down a decrepit house?  hahaha!
Apparently, very!

 Not as surreal as across the road!  They set the old chicken house on fire and then started cleaning out 20 years of accumulated crap.  Then they brought in 4 HUGE earth movers and started scraping.  The local theory is they have to get under the diseased part of the ground from the old chicken houses before they put in NEW chicken houses.  Yes-right across the road!  And one of the 'farmers' in that group has a side business of spreading chicken shit on fields!  I am sooooo hoping they won't be storing it here, since he already has a place that is so well known for the stench that people drive 5 miles out of their way to keep from passing it.

But for now, it's this vast red pit (honestly, I think it's going to hold water the very first rain-they have made a giant clay bowl) and it's this huge negative space where 2 weeks ago there were trees, a hill, a pond and weeds and junk galore.  I wonder how many snakes were in the tin pile?  They have been at it for 8 hours a day, 6 days a week.  It's loud, the whole thing is loud-the machines and the scraping and the backing up all day and when the houses are done, they will have huge exhaust fans going 24-7 and it will never be quiet here again.  :(  It doesn't seem right when someone else can take something from you like that.  From the whole community.

Anyway, that's the news.

Sunday

First, let me apologize for the plethora of cutesy photo apps you will see in this and likely future posts.  I have a new toy and must over use it a little while.

It's been a long week, Chan had dress rehearsals and the Christmas play was today.  She's back out at a bonfire tonight.

The kids had dance class on Thursday, we spent Friday hanging out with friends and yesterday we had to make a run to the music store for more banjo strings because Ben's banjo FINALLY arrived undamaged and ready to go and he managed to break a string about 10 minutes after getting it.  I have more ordered, they just are not here yet and that child was DONE waiting.

Emily got to come hang out for a day and later on, Brit came to spend the night.

Friday we spent the day with several friends combining different sugary yummies into snackables. We made peppermint bark, haystacks and then ended up making chocolate/cereal/marshmallow/candy/pretzel mixtures.  It was great!

When we got home from the goodie making, Ben's 2nd banjo was still here-they were supposed to pick it up but did not-and his 3rd banjo had arrived.

He had just enough time to look it over before we headed out to see the dress rehearsal for the Christmas play, Snowflake County Christmas Extravaganza.  We opted to go to the dress rehearsal because it was easier for Daddy to come see her then, his church was doing their play the same time and he wanted to see it, too.  So that worked out very well.  Plus, we avoided the crowd of total strangers, always a bonus in my book.

Anything with these 3 in it is Academy Award material!

Emily is flat adorable, she is SO freaking cute, I love that kid.

Ah, 14. That hair, it's like Matt went back in time and made a wig.  

I have been taking lots of selfies with the new tablet.  I did not get a hair cut, it's in pigtails.
Upon playing with it the first day, I discovered I can't see the settings with my glasses on.
Ah, 39 and a half...

This is the world right now.  BLEAK.  Clouds, damp, no color, everything is dead and it's chilly ALL the time that it's not downright cold.  I HATE winter.

In other news, the van has started making this...noise in the belt/flywheel area. I have some kind of theory that the belt is not a big expense, so I am not worked up about it at all, which is unusual for me.  Getting worked up about crap is my #1 hobby, ask anyone.  Going to get it all checked out Tuesday at my oil change and AC WTF check because tomorrow is MORE dental stuff.  I swear, the world would end if the van was not on a rack every 6 weeks and one of our rear-ends was not in a dental chair at least once a month.  

Speaking of dental work, my jaw is VERY sore where I had that filling replaced.  Last filling I had replaced, I lost the tooth a couple months later because it got infected during the procedure and I ended up with an abscessed tooth and opted to pull it rather than gamble on a $$$ root canal.  I had this one done November 20th.  I imagine I will know right around Christmas if it's another abscessed tooth or maybe just sore from me grinding my teeth at night-which is why I am cracking my fillings.  I am pulling out all my home remedies and trying everything I can to stop it before it gets started.  At least this is the only other tooth that had a cavity and it's in the VERY back, I will just have it pulled, too, if it comes to that.  Not much of a self-esteem boost though, I will have to admit.

Today we cut more wood and hauled it to the front yard to cut into stove sized chunks.  We like to use fresher cut wood for overnight, it burns longer than the dried stuff.  There's a big tree down by the barn, so we have been sawing it into sections and pulling it up the hill by hand.  That's work, even me and my aversion to cold managed to get up a sweat in the 35 degree weather working that hand saw. 

We've had some bad news, a death in the family, but I am not ready to get into that.

That's it, all the news from the week.  This is Matt's last work week of the year and we have fun plans for the weekend and the kids are wanting to go to the homeschool Christmas dance.  I will have to buy suits for the boys, so I guess the budget after Tuesday will decide that one for them.  I do have an alternate invitation for the evening if it does not work out at least.

Dog Days of Autumn

We had planned to split up today, Matt working on the roof with Jake helping and me off to socialize with the camera ladies in Huntsville, but yesterday, Nettlevan started making some noise when braking.  I don't mess around with noises, I popped her in the shop ASAP yesterday afternoon and it was not until this morning that Jerry was able to give her a look-see.

It's that rotor AGAIN.  It has a hot spot, so it was not turned completely flat and it's rubbing the brake pad at very low speeds.  He did not charge me anything, but he also did not call until 10:15 and I had to be in town at 11, so I made my excuses and am planning to join them next time.

With the day ahead of us-Matt apparently made his excuses as well-we cleaned up a little around the house and Matt worked on finishing up some recent repairs to Jake's computer system.  I had spent a good bit of time looking at a certain Small Dog on a rescue website yesterday and finally told Matt this afternoon that I really wanted to go meet him.

I know, after the Charlie fiasco, we should have our heads examined, but I miss Zeppie and that's nothing to do with finding a friend for Kuma.  We have Jessie on a new regime and she's losing weight and feeling MUCH better, I think she has years in her yet.  We have decided not to 'replace' her until she's actually gone, and then with an older dog.  Kuma is not a people dog, he needs a dog friend.  Every time we have tried to bring in a "3rd dog", it has failed.  They are a 2 dog pack, I need to just let that go.

I have been Small Dog looking for a couple of months, we have been to see a couple of dogs, I have spoken with rescue people and animal control people about other dogs I have seen and been curious about and ultimately opted out of getting any of them due to a variety of issues.  I don't want a barker or cat chaser, I don't want a baby dog or an older dog that has just been locked up for years. 

Sometimes I wonder if no kill shelters are better or not-dogs are not meant to be kept in kennels 24-7 for months on end.   It makes them so hard to train when they are used to peeing right where they sleep.  And they go nuts when they get outside and don't respond normally to people because people have never done more than hose out their cage and feed them every morning, and not always the same people.  There are so many more dogs than families, humanely putting them to sleep after a certain period of time seems more logical than letting them stay in cages until their hearts break and their minds are addled.  I never would have said that before Charlie came along, but he was damaged somewhere along the way.

If people would just take care of their pets, this would not be an issue.  Spay, neuter, get vaccinations, care for them.  UGH, it's not rocket science.

Anyway, I wanted to see this little boy and I finally got up the nerve to tell Matt and he went in and grabbed a bite to eat and changed clothes and we were on our way in 20 minutes. 

When we got to the pound, I said I wanted to see Rugby, so we had to give them all kinds of info and then go wait in a little room.  A volunteer came in with a scruffy black dog who shook like a leaf when she handed him to me.  I knew right away, this was Pele and not Rugby!  I have been looking at dogs for a while, in case I did not mention that...

She left Pele with us and went to get Rugby and we patted on him and tried to get him to not be so scared.  As soon as she walked in with Rugby, Pele relaxed all over and was very happy.  They pranced around together and sprinkled on the chairs and played and they were both so sweet and cute and came right to us when we patted our laps.  The volunteer stayed with us the whole time, talking about the process and about small dogs.  She listened to us talk about Zeppie and was very understanding.  We talked to each other about the cost of such a small dog-we HAVE to get the fence done before we get another little dog.  Zep could go right through and that was ever an issue, even if it was not what did her in.  They are 4 pounds smaller than she was.

We filled out the paperwork but with the understanding that we would call Monday and tell them what we ultimately decide.  And, I can't decide.  Not about which to get, we would get them both.  Not having a friend was hard for Zep and I am sorry we never made more of an effort.  These two get along perfectly, no guesswork about reactions and temperaments, no getting one trained and then bringing in a new one to start all over.  They are both over 2 years old and have only been at the pound a couple of days.  No worries about the mental issues a long-incarcerated dog could have.

Could these be more of the rare mop-headed Jack-weasels that we love so much?

We have talked about it a LONG time.  Lists of Pros and Cons, occasional name suggestions ranging from tolerable to horrible.  Mostly just talking about Zephyr.  Jake never wants to talk about her, he leaves when I bring her up.  Today he listened while I told about the time she rode in the van and barked at her eyeball monster that had fallen on the floor.  It was rolling as the van moved and when the eye would look up, she'd yelp.  We laughed and then had to wipe at tears. I miss that dog, it never stops aching when I think of her.  I know new small dogs won't replace her, but they would fill a gulf she left, and we have lots of love just waiting around.

We will talk more tonight, more tomorrow, hopefully reach the right decision.  I know if we don't take them, they will be adopted PDQ, they are so cute and small, they won't be there long, so 'saving them' is not a factor, which is good, I want to make a decision not based on life or death.

Weekend

We had such a nice weekend!  Saturday afternoon we headed to Katy's and spent the rest of the evening hanging out there.  They had the zipline up and going, Matt and I jumped on the trampoline, we ate all kinds of new-to-us things.  My favorite was veggie dip made from cashews, it was so sweet!  The GF cake was yummy enough for seconds and the conversations ebbed and flowed, by 10 or so, several couples were in the sitting area inside the house chatting and catching up while the kids ran around outdoors or played on the computer downstairs.  It was a great, relaxing way to spend the evening.

Now the zip line goes off the top platform on the Fourt!

Adults were given the option of using a harness or not.  The kids all were harnessed, including this one.

The platform is about 30 feet up, it was quite a ride to the end!

Sunday, we knocked off the fascia boards and burned them!  I am THRILLED.  I hated those things, they were so riddled with carpenter bee tunnels that they were rotting off the house in places and it was bringing me down to even look outside and see them.  Now we can put up nice fresh ones and it will look 100% better!  

In other news toward getting things taken care of, I FINALLY ordered the new tail light cover for the van, it should be in by Friday.  I only have 2 more things in my 'sooner' list and 5 in the 'later' category.  Yay!

Ups and Downs

This week has been interesting and that's not always a good thing.  Usually interesting=money. 

Monday was nice, Brit was here and the kids played and I read and did my own thing.  On Tuesday, we went to the library (up) the orthodontist (up and down) and to Karen's for tea (up) and to Daddy's for dinner out (up).  

Wednesday, I called and did lots of talking on the phone because Tuesday, we got 2 sets of news from the ortho man.  First, Chan's consult-she must have oral surgery to continue treatment. (down) Then Jake's consult-next time he goes in, he will have an eval for removal.  (up) At this time, there is no need to go ahead right away with the jaw surgery it looked like he would need (up).  However (down) IF he does not fill out more, he will need the surgery after he turns 18 (down) and, AND, he will need to go BACK into braces for another year (down, down).  Insurance only pays their meager ortho contribution once per person and to no one over 18.

Chan's surgery will be July 28th, they will do the following:  knock her out, yank her baby tooth (a canine), cut open her gum, glue a bracket with a chain to her impacted adult tooth (which is currently sending roots into her sinus cavity), dangle the chain and then sew up her gum.  (all down-though I am glad they can do such things).  10 days after that, she will go get traction added to the chain and over the next year, they will guide her adult tooth into place.  Cost in addition to the $5k for braces: $935, not counting the meds for pain and a round of antibiotics.  (down)

Their brackets are red white and blue for the 4th! (up)

 You can see on her right side that there is a gap in her brackets.  That's the offending baby tooth that refused to come out.  It's not even loose!  Her adult tooth is lounging on its side somewhere further up in her head, being VERY lazy.

Wednesday at lunch, I checked the mail and got a letter from Matt's job.  Hello, what's this? 
They want me to go to a website and fill out a health assessment and also go to my doc and get a physical so they can have a bunch of info about my blood and weight and BMI.  If I don't, we get fined $50 a month on top of our insurance costs.  Matt had to do that last year, now I have to join in.  When I went to the website, I saw they already had a tab for 'children', so I imagine they will be part of next year's demand. 

So this year, we avoid the fee by just having physicals.  NEXT year, we avoid the fee ($600 a year) by logging in our workouts.  Not just ANY workouts, but workouts either at a membership gym that we pay for or using an electronic device that we pay for.  We get 10 points a day each for doing the workouts and uploading the info (heart rate monitor or step counter from their partner companies).  We need 6,000 points jointly to qualify.  That's 300 full workouts in a calendar year.  (down)

You can get points for other things: stop smoking, stop drinking, managing diabetes.  I guess I could take up a drinking or smoking habit.  That would get me out of 40 days of workouts (400 points) when I quit.  I feel like an idiot for losing that 30 pounds last year, I could have been obese and then gotten points for when I just became overweight instead. 

I am fairly pissed...it's no different in my mind than if they sent someone to check my toilets to see how clean they are.  I am not an employee, yet I have to jump through their hoops.  It's BC/BS insurance.  I can SURE guess what the BS stands for now! (down)  Guess what else?  There's a drawing you can enter when you lose a certain amount of weight, you can win...a flat screen TV!  WTF?  Here, sit on your ass now that you've reached your goal! (grrr)

Yesterday also had some ups.  First, Daddy loaned me his pressure washer and I washered the sidewalk, became addicted and washered the porch, then the house, then the windows and then we cleaned out the whole shed and I burned limbs and wood and such on into the evening. (all ups!)  The house looks SO nice, I am pleased as punch. (up)

Here is a pic of my handsome Benny (up) and his fuzz.  He said I have not posted one in a while.

note the different shirt! (up)

I should get some kind of beautification award for all the pretty babies I have contributed, I tell you. (up, also, no shame)

We are replacing the fascia boards next week!  SOOO looking forward to looking out of the kitchen and NOT seeing carpenter bee tunnels!

Kuma is not amused, not one jot.

May Already

 Our internet is still very hit-or-miss.  The above is popping up WAY too much for my own personal happiness.  But, other than our broadband being in and out, it's pretty much back to normal after the storms.  I can't believe that was just 2 weeks ago!

This week, in an effort to get myself out of my rut, we actually left the house Tuesday and went to the year-end picnic at the park with our bigger homeschool group. 

In Alabama, you don't really homeschool, you are a satellite of a church school that is also your legal covering-these vary widely.  Then there are the regional and local support groups for field trips and making friends and for us there's 'our' homeschool group, which is to say the roamschool group of families that make up 95% of the people we do anything with, ever. 

The park day was mostly roamschoolers and we all ended up at Heather's afterward to swim.

It was nice to hang out with the moms, though I did not have much to say for a change.  ha! 

Afterward, we came home with Brit and Austin and I dropped the boys off and the girls and I went to get groceries.  Matt had practice. 

The kids stayed up until around 3 and were back up before 8.  I had planned to go to the library today, but 3 tired kids is not my idea of fun hang-out buddies when I am in the mood to cruise the stacks for an hour or so.  I want some skeery books for the camping trip!

So, we came home and finished loading the camper and I made menus and packed food and made shopping lists for everything else I need to pick up.  I always bring SO much food, I overpack in every area, really.  I thought I would be more sensible by now, but I don't seem to really have that...gene.

Jake rode with me while I ran local errands today-Mr. Holmes, post office and so forth.  Mr. Holmes let me write my check for a dollar over so we could buy drinks.  hahaha! He's such a great guy, I really hope he gets good news Monday about his broken hip.  Well, it's mended, but he needs therapy now.  We are hoping that he will get the news that he's healed enough to start walking on it again. 

Jake and I were talking-first about how I can belch and he's horrified because he can't and he made me promise to never do it in front of his friends so they would not know of his inability.  Poor kid. I only recently learned myself and can only do it if I chug a cold soda, otherwise, nothing.

Once past that little exchange, he talked a while about how kids in groups always have to have an adult with them.  Field trips, backstage, in dugouts and dozens of other places where you'd think they could just hang out and do their own thing and not need to be herded and managed. 

I told him I thought it was a mainly public school issue, safety being first, but that kids are just accustomed to being told what to do ALL the time and they can't really function without threat or bribe or reward.  I remember if the teacher ever left the classroom, we would go nuts-the longer she was gone, the more rowdy we all got.

I wonder about that now.  If we had not been kept under such rigid control with rules and schedules and time-dependent activities, would we have been nuts when left alone?  I don't really have any way to compare, when homeschoolers are together in groups, there are moms everywhere and the occasional dad as well.  It's easy to say it's public school mentality 'cat's away, mice will play' sort of thing, but it's just a theory.

The only other bit of news I have this week is that Matt has a new top boss and it seems like the new guy is planning some changes that will improve the company as well as our personal lives.  The change I am most excited about is the shift to a 4-day work week over a period of time.  That will save us...$420 a year in gas alone, plus around $240 in lunches and an oil change's worth of engine wear-so in the neighborhood of $700 a year and it gives him a day to schedule appointments without having to take off work and 3 day weekends every single week.  That would be SO good plus I think we would be healthier-think of all the hiking and camping we would be able to do!  I hope it works out that way!

I am so awesome, part 2.

So the fence is finished, the camper is ready to camp in and the yard is looking SO good.  I told Suzette Friday that we have been here for 7 years, we are common law married to this house, it's time to act like we live here and aren't just staying a few weeks.  Plus, it needs some repairs and such, it will be easier to part with the money for a house that's not ours and may never be, if we do a few things to make it feel more like our own space.

Next up in the cosmetics department are the boards that go around the house under the roofline.  They have been housing carpenter bees for generations of said bees and are rotting right off the side of the house in some places.  Or at least they are looking grim and as if they want to rot off.

Inside the house, it's a toss-up between a new couch and new kitchen floor covering.  I truly, truly hate the paneling in our bedroom, it's from the 70's, it's nearly 40 years old.  It's warped in a few places from some water damage before we ever moved in...it's starting to pull up at the edges here and there and it's dark.  I would love to just have white walls.  Take out that wall heater, maybe do a few built-in bookshelves around the chimney housing, replace that one window on the west wall with a bigger window and a big window seat to watch the sunsets...anyway, that's just dreaming, I have been told the paneling is off limits.  *sigh*  I have tried to hide as much as I can with pictures.  LOL

Inside repairs, first on the list is the dishwasher, get that puppy running again. 

And, of course, insulation.  We can get the blower free with 20 packs of insulation, so we are going that route several times over the summer and into the fall.  That way, it's just $200 a pop, the calculator says we need 100 bags.  I hope we can get by with less than that, but I don't want any more $400 electric bills, so I guess we'll just see as we go with that one.

The house needs to be painted on the outside, we are just going to match the current color instead of changing anything for now, I like the faded blue color just fine.  Then the new roof.  That won't happen until the fall/early winter when it cools off some.  I want a silver roof, like an old tin roof.  I think that will look the best, since the house is an old farmhouse.  With bright white trim (new boards!) and a red front door and the fresh blue on the house.  It will look great!  Get some red geraniums in some big blue pottery pots and hanging baskets all along the front of the porch filled with red and white petunias.  *pretty*  : )

So all of my travel plans for this year revolve around Lowe's and Home Depot.  With gas going up and up, there's not really any point in going on a road trip anywhere, and if I am stuck, I might as well be somewhere I love being!

I am so pleased with everything we have gotten done, and we have barely spent any money.  The fence was under $70 to finish and everything else has been working with what we already have.  Well, and the camper repair.  But that was less than I thought it would be, the stuff to fix it was around $50, even adding in the wood.  Wood is cheap, I feel like building a fort...
 

A Wednesday

Not much going on around here, thank goodness!  I love blocks of time without stress or pressure, they seem to be too far apart, but I guess I do have them more than I sit and acknowledge them.

At home, we have been setting up against the cold, getting the animals a cozy place, pulling out heaters and blankets and heavy clothes.  We had already repaired the shed over the summer to keep it nice and cool in there.  For winter, we put heavy plastic flaps over the openings for the dogs and cats to get in and put in 2 big heat lamps.  It's 20-30 degrees warmer in there than outside-plus no wind, we opted to put the pigs in the shed instead of the house for now.  They have a little heat lamp right in their cage, we checked them today and decided it might be too warm in there, they had abandoned their houses and were laying belly-down on the floor of their crate.  Oops.  I took off one of the panels of blankets and plastic wrap to give them some air.

Our haul, pre-World Market!

I loved the colors, had to snap this one going down the road.

We have not done much lately, other than the shopping trip Saturday, I have been home a while.  We have done some math, some science...mostly we have been doing our own thing, just passing the time together.  This morning, I sang about 20 songs trying to get the kids interested in trying out for a musical this coming weekend.  It did not work very well, but I did remember how much I love to belt out a good song at top volume and ran through my John Denver and James Taylor repertoire and everything I knew from various musicals.  We finally hauled out a Christmas carol book and the kids did not know any Christmas songs from it.  We are learning a couple.

The other day, I was playing with natural lighting in here in my room.  Of course the kids were dragged into the experiment!

Phots of late

Is it odd that my dieting Mickey up there is heading across a treasure map? 

I can't decide if he's creepy or okay.  At least it's not the skull-covered one.  LOL

Okay, a few recent pictures
The sunset last week from the top of the All-Steak in Cullman:

Here is what I had for breakfast:

Also, yesterday we went to Hobby Lobby and the findings were half off, so while I waited for Jake at the ortho, I made 2 new pairs of earrings for less than $7.  Yay!

Saturday, Chan and I hung out with Suzette and Emily for a couple of hours, and I took this picture of an alley!

And, here are all 4 cats, all vaccinated and legalized, which came in handy just this morning when animal control came to pick up a stray beagle.  I was able to show ALL the pets here are up-to-date with vaccinations! 

Also, this morning I went to look for a book to read and instead found this in my library bag:

Finally, I caught Matt sniffing all the smelly out of my headache sachet and he was not even in pain!  Until after the picture, anyway. bwahaha