hqueen's collection of Far From the Usual stuff.

[hqueen13]

My week has been great! This morning I got to drive to the office like a normal person and didn't have to change clothes when I got here! What a novelty!
Yesterday I never left the house! It was fantastic! I even made the BF bring in the mail when he got home. I got SO much done yesterday! It's amazing what can happen when you don't have to leave the house! I folded the load of laundry left in the dryer and washed and folded 3 other loads, got the chinchilla cage cleaned, and picked up some stuff around the house. I also got the rest of the big work done on my email series that I'm about to launch for my business. Now it's just the final reviews to get straight, and I should be able to launch it on Friday. VERY excited to have that moving forward!
Today I got to the office nice and early since I was able to come straight here, and I'll be able to leave by 2:30. That's delightful! I also cleaned up some of the mail yesterday, and found the gift card for Best Buy from my reward points on my credit card came, so now I can go shop for a new laptop at Best Buy. I think we might do that tonight, I'm not sure yet. I need to get one because I'm using my new work laptop for everything and I shouldn't be! I'll be glad to get that moving forward. I'm also REALLY hoping that I don't need to spend ALL of my tax return to pay for the balance of the computer so that I can put some towards *my* credit cards! I need to pay down some debt, and with the car repair last month I've slid backwards a bit. It's disappointing, but is what it is. Hopefully the new laptop won't cost ALL of what I have, but we'll see. It very well may, because I want to buy something that is quality that will last me a while. I plan to go talk to them in the store and see what they have to say, but I may order it online so that I can get more rewards points (yay ebates!).

So the next big step is to really sit down and figure out what some of this stuff is going to cost that we need to get. We'll have a little extra money for the month of March since we have the car insurance covered. Oh, and the BF's check was the largest he's ever had. So that helped, too! And now that he has one less credit card payment, AND we don't need to set aside money for the car insurance right now it's a big help! Really, the first big projects that we need to accomplish are the driveway and getting the power upgraded. So the BF is supposed to research those. I think we can probably go ahead and order the landscaping cloth that we'll need to lay under the gravel, and then figure out a source for the gravel, plus figure out what he wants to do about the shed situation. He's thinking he's going to wait not rebuild the one that we have, and instead he's going to just build what he wants. I suppose that's ok, but I'd rather have SOMETHING in the mean time. But I can understand why he doesn't want to rebuild it. It'll probably cost close to $500 to rebuild I would expect. Who knows. He's gonna have to get me some figures and then we'll go from there! It's challenging not to be overwhelmed by the things that need, and that we want, to upgrade/remodel/change. It's also a bit scary to wonder which ones are going to become URGENT due to some sort of failure along the way. Of course, the other aspect to prioritizing is deciding which ones will save us the most money in the long run, but that is a challenging thing to sort out, too.
So it goes.
Anyway, nothing real to report, LOL, just babbling about the money again...

 

[sumi]

I'm watching a TV now that I think you will love, @hqueen13 It's called "Taming Wild" and it's on the Horse and Country channel. The channel does have an option to view online, so you may be able to access this show. If you can, give it a watch It's about a horse trainer that went out and tamed and won the trust of a wild mare, communicating with her, etc. It's amazing!

 

[hqueen13]

@sumi that sounds awesome! Thanks for the tip!

The weekend went pretty good. I actually had Saturday completely off. I didn't need to go to any barns! It was AMAZING! The BF and I had a relaxed morning, I can't wait until that becomes the norm. His brother came up with a load of stuff from the house he's gutting so that the BF could take him to the dump since the other county dump was giving his brother flack for how many trips he was making. They took a load, and I went to the grocery store so that was taken care of for the week, since I hadn't gone last week we were pretty low on things. I got home and put everything away, and they came back with Chickfila for lunch. After they finished up, they headed back for a second load, and I puttered around the house. I took care of some cleaning up, and then managed to get in some yoga and meditation for a bit, which was a good thing. They got back and I started the soup for dinner and we hung out for a while.

Sunday I headed to the barn, grumpy from the time change AND more rain. Finished the chores and headed down to my other farm. I was later getting there than I prefer to be, and it as my first visit, and I expect they must have actually left some time on Saturday because the area around the hay feeder was DEEP in manure and the drainage channel was blocked up so there was standing water everywhere. It took me almost 40 minutes to get it cleaned up, and it was all heavy and wet, which was GROSS. I headed home and was tired and starving. We had leftover soup for lunch and then decided to take a nap. Two hours later we finally got up again and decided to go grab dinner and head back to take care of the horses. Came back home and I took a relaxing bath before we crashed for the night.

We didn't spend a whole lot this weekend, which was nice. I did buy my new laptop at the end of the week, and it cost me ALL of my tax money to do it. I was disappointed that I couldn't really get anything for less than that. But, the computer is a good one and so it should last me for a long time, which is the good news. I spent most of Friday transferring files trying to get the old one cleared off. If I can get it cleaned up I might try to sell it for a few dollars if I can.

The only good news is that after reconciling my budget this morning, I think I'll have extra leftover in the grocery and gas funds at the end of the week when I get paid, which will cover my over spending for this month, which is a good thing! That means that the over spending in February is the only thing working against my debt, so that's good news. I was afraid that I would be behind for this month, too.

So not a whole lot of news, but that's a good thing!

This week the BF is supposed to call the power company and discuss having the power upgraded so that we can move forward with other projects when we are ready. I'm praying that it isn't going to cost us almost anything to do that, but we'll see what they say. We have money that we can apply towards that, if it does cost anything, but I'd rather put that money towards finishing the driveway if the rain will ever stop long enough for the mud to dry out.

 

[sumi]

You're welcome! I really hope you'll be able to watch it. I'm sure you will love it! I thought of you immediately when I saw what it's about and how she's working with the horse. It's just really awesome

 

[hqueen13]

Really cool, @sumi

This daylight saving crap is annoying. I struggle so much when the time changes. And yesterday there was a really big accident involving a tractor trailer that didn't stop for a red light, and hit the cars already waiting at the light. 2 people were killed, including a 7 year old boy I haven't heard what the reason was that the driver crashed, my BF thinks he was texting. But with daylight saving time just happening I think it's equally likely that the driver fell asleep at the wheel. It happened at about 7am, and it was still dark then due to the time change (where as it WAS light by then before). I think daylight saving time is the stupidest thing ever. It doesn't "save" anything, and frankly wreaks more havoc than anything. There are more accidents, pedestrians hit, suicides, and heart attacks the week following the time change, both spring and fall. There is NO reason to do it because no one changes any of their routine whether the sun is up or not. We're a 24 hour a day culture, and jobs don't change just because the sun is or isn't up. I can't wait until this ridiculous practice stops, it never was progressive, and it never was for the farmers, or for saving power.
Alright, rant over.
Can you tell I'm still tired and cranky from the time change?

 

[NH Homesteader]

I am so with you. Time change with a 14 month old... I'm dying of exhaustion right now. Lol! That is so awful about the accident

Maybe they'll get rid of it... wouldn't that be lovely?

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I think Texas is proposing to do away with it - don't know if it will pass or not. I'm so glad I have the week off so that I can adjust slowly.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Agreed, the practice is stupid. I wonder how many other countries participate in such foolishness?

And, here's the answer:

http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/g.html

 

[sumi]

Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry to hear about the accident I completely agree with you, it's a stupid practice that does more harm than good. Here in Ireland in winter it's light around 08:00am to 04:30pm in the afternoon. Summer times it's light from around 06:00am to nearly midnight. No amount of messing with the time is going to give us more daylight in winter, or make ANY difference in summer! Thankfully the EU is pushing to abolish the practice here this year: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...nd-member-states-abolish-daylight-saving-time

ETA: We didn't do this time change in S.A. and it didn't matter. Just saying...

 

[hqueen13]

I'm with you all, I wish it would just die!! I'm STILL dragging, and it's now Thursday.
@Lazy Gardener that's very interesting! I'm amazed that most of the world did it for so long, but many of them have already stopped doing it.

Not much to report, really. Things are still grooving along. I got my pay check and it stretched further than I expected. Now I'm wondering what I forgot. That brings up anxiety, but in the moment, the funds are covered. I also got a rebate back in the mail yesterday, and they paid me $30 instead of the $25 I was expecting. Totally ok with that! Now I think I can go get some more hair products, which will be a good thing! I also ordered some supplements that I have to cover the cost of, so that has to be squeezed into the budget as well. It'll all work out, I'm just feeling anxious at the moment, which probably has less to do with the money and more to do with the energy that's going on right now. Between daylight saving time and solar flares I'm just a little bit fried.

Not a lot else to report. I have called a local nursery landscape place to do a consult, they had a sign offering free consults, so hopefully we can get somebody out to give us some ideas and guidance on how to handle the yard a bit better. I can't wait to really have it well landsacaped, but it's going to take time. We won't be able to afford to do it quickly, and with some of the adjustments we want to make on the house, things will have to wait anyway. I'd like to put in some beds, though, and then have plans for what to do. We have some evergreen shrubs that we haven't been able to identify, and I don't totally know how to manage them, only that I would prefer if they grew taller than they are now. The house is too long and low looking as it is, we need some height in front of it, and taller, thinner shrubs would go a long way to helping that. Once we replace the windows in the two bedrooms on the front that will help, we plan to make them taller than they are now. Currently they're there high and wide 1960's style. Which means you can put a lot of furniture in the room, but it makes the rooms dark, and makes the house look very short. So hopefully we can get those changed out soon. Plus we want to put a porch on the front of the house as well, so I don't want to do anything with the bed in front of the house just yet until the porch is done. Everything that is there will get ripped out as it is, so there's no sense in putting much in it since it will all have to be moved. I think I need to get out and prune this weekend, I'd like to talk to someone before we do, though. We'll see what happens with that. I think the weather is mostly clear, it looks like the bad weather is coming through on Friday. I think it will be a bit colder, but at least it won't be raining. I also need to learn when to prune some of the other things that we've got, like the japanese magnolia, since it's about to bloom I know it shouldn't be pruned right now.

So that's about all there is to report. I'm back at Cowboy and Coyote's again. Then I have HR this weekend, and then chickens again in 2 weeks. That's a fairly short trip so hopefully it will be mostly easy. Grateful for the money coming in anyway!