hqueen's collection of Far From the Usual stuff.

[wyoDreamer]

I remember back when I was about 14 or 15, I found my Dad in the basement, down on the floor working on the water heater. He had bought a new heating element and when he went to install it he found the water heater has a good thick layer of scale on the bottom of it. He had grabbed a piece of narrow flat metal and was scraping the scale out through the little 1 1/2" hole that the heating element screwed into. Well, I asked if I could help so he had me scraping that scale out for over an hour. We filled about 1/2 of a bucket full if memory serves me right. I don't know how much longer that water heater worked, but I know it was working 3 years later when I moved out.

Good luck with your water heater issues.

 

[flowerbug]

ours makes a lot of noise too. when i flushed it out that helped but it won't ever be a brand-new hot water heater again here. our water has some calcium and rust in it so that eventually does build up.

 

[hqueen13]

Yeahhh.... we're down to very little hot water right now. I can barely take a bath and rinse off afterwards with any hot water. Not fun.
Our neighbor came over for dinner on Saturday night and really wants to help us install a combination unit. He works for an HVAC company, so he can do it, but I don't know that we'll be able to squeeze that much out of the tax returns. The BF still needs to call the power company and find out what it's going to cost to get the power run as well. That will likely be the determining factor if we get a regular water heater or a combination unit.
As for the crappy water, we are looking at installing a filter, his high school friend said that they around $100, and it will be worth it to pull all that junk out of the water sooner. I'm still buying my Berkey water filter to use for the drinking water, but I'll be happy to get some of the buildup and chlorine out of the regular water as well.
The BF surprised me on Friday morning with roses that he snuck into the house on Thursday night after I started to get ready for bed. That was super fun, we did a low key steak dinner at home together which was nice. We don't do much since my birthday is a week before, and I don't enjoy dealing with all the crowds and hype.
Saturday I didn't leave the house and it was fantastic! We took a nap (actually also on Sunday, too!), and we worked on getting a bunch of clutter organized and put away. The guest bed had all but disappeared under a mountain of stuff, so that got taken care of, finally, and we ended up going so far as to reorganize the closet in the guest room, which was overdue and much needed. We actually unpacked a box that had been in there since we moved! Now there's actually floor space, and hanging space in there, who knew?! Now I don't cringe and look the other way when I walk past that doorway in the hall.
Sunday I went to the barn in the morning, and then we headed out to run some errands when I got home. We went price shopping for tires since that's what a chunk of my return is going to, and discovered that Mr. Tire is awful, and BJ's has the best price so far. I can get a set of tires for under $600 from BJ's, so that's a really good deal! We stopped at Kohl's so I could use my coupons and discounts and the rest of a gift card, and ended up coming home with a curved shower rod and new towels (bath sheets of course), which was fun. It makes the shower feel bigger which is nice, since it's a tiny shower already. And the towels are super fluffy! The afternoon included another nap, and then we got up and cooked dinner and relaxed for most of the rest of the evening.
I'm still looking for an alternative barn to take Storm to, I posted on nextdoor.com and have a couple of bites, so we'll see what comes of that. I'm really ready to get out of where I am, I'm so done with all of it, and I want my time back. Even if I don't get paid, I'm totally ok with that, as long as I don't have to pay anything. That would at least save me $175/month, and that's nothing to sneeze at. I also realized the other day that if I drop the barn I was going to go to, while I lose the $50 per week that I am currently making I would gain the time back, and that's worth a lot... I can expend a lot less energy and get 1 client call per week and make the same amount of money with no gas use. So I'm toying with that. I'm not ready to make any changes just yet, but in the least I've got some options.
So not much else to report. Just waiting for the tax returns to clear and get some final quotes on stuff to decide how to spend the funds.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

OH man, hot water is precious! Hope you get it taken care of soon. It would be great if your neighbor can help - if that's the way ya'll decide to go. Water filter sounds like a great idea and will likely help your appliances live a longer life. Hope you get it all straightened out!

 

[hqueen13]

Thanks, FEM! I don't know what we'll do right now, at this point it's a bit of a wait and see kind of thing.
WHEW. I made the payment on my one credit card with my tax refund money and it's PAID OFF. That is exciting and makes me nervous all at the same time. I'm worried that I've paid too much and I'll need the money. I don't think so, but it still makes me nervous to make that large of a payment like that, especially when the debt has been sitting for so long. I have less than $600 left on a balance transfer promotion to pay off before the end of the year, which will get paid off a little bit every month until it's gone. Then I'll be debt free in my personal finances. That's a pretty big deal. Of course I've got a boatload of business debt, but I don't count that the same. Once I get this debt out of the way then I'll start pushing pretty hard on my truck loan so that I can get it paid off faster. This is the start of year 3, so we'll see what happens over this year, and then once I've got the debt cleared out hopefully I can ramp it up and maybe pay it off a year early. That would be marvelous! Of course if I can manage to get that raise I'm pushing for then maybe I can start this year instead of waiting! We'll see how it goes.

 

[flowerbug]

kudoes for getting it paid off! i know it feels good to reach that milestone.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Congrats! Getting out of debt is a wonderful thing - you'll get there! Hope the raise comes through for you!

 

[hqueen13]

Thanks yall!! I'm supposed to have a meeting with my boss some time today, but I'm not going to hold my breath. He didn't give me a time yesterday, and I'm in the other office today by myself, and he is planning on going to the main office today, but he didn't give me a time for that, either. He is going to do more filming, and it's highly likely he'll get so wrapped up in that that there won't be time for a meeting. Not surprising at all, and I know it will happen, I just have to bug the crap out of him to get it done.
We had a pretty good weekend. We got 1/2 cord of firewood delivered on Friday afternoon (about 2 hours after I called the guy!) for $140.00. That seemed like a pretty good price, and it's a nice load of mixed hardwoods.
Saturday we got that stacked up, and then ran a few errands, which all took most of the day.
Sunday I headed out to do barn chores, and then met the BF over at Cowboy and Coyote's to get the manure moved, FINALLY!!! I'm SO happy we got that out of there. It took 4 loads in the pickup truck to get it all, that's how long it's been sitting there. We took the last load over to SR's for him, and then tested the tractor out using his bags of feed. It lifted the required amount, except that in order to get it to full height, the BF had to tip the forks up all the way, which is entirely impractical for work use. It would go up close to 5 feet keeping the pallet level, but couldn't go all the way up with the pallet still level. SO, I don't know what the dealer will say now, but to me that's not a working load, so we'll see what they have to say. They haven't bothered to call me back to collect payment for the 50 hour service yet, and at this point I'm not chasing them down, either. If they want to collect money they'll call me, and then I'll ask them what they want to do about this to resolve the issue because we're not pleased with how we were treated. We were told the tractor could do more than it can, what it can do is questionable, and there were rust spots and corrosion on the tractor when it was delivered that had been covered up with spray paint. Yeah. Not real happy with John Deere at the moment. It's a good tractor, and I'm grateful for all the work it can do, because it does work hard, but things just haven't been quite right from the getgo.
After we tested the tractor, SR had a few things he wanted the BF to move for him, so he took care of that. We finished up there and headed home again to unload and get cleaned up to go to his mom's for dinner. She invited all of his bothers and GF/wifes up for dinner, which was nice because I didn't have to cook, but I was really tired and we got home way later than I would have liked.
This week I actually don't have a huge amount to do and I'm REALLY excited about being able to be home and just take care of stuff. The house is a mess, and I'm pretty far behind on some of my stuff for my business, so I need to get caught up and take care of all of that. Hopefully tomorrow I can be really productive and get a lot done. We'll see how it goes... I do have Friday after yoga, which is most of the day to take care of things as well. I did swap my feeding from Friday morning to Friday evening to help out TM since she's still working the expo this year. I decided not to do it, primarily because I expected to have that new job by now, but also because it's a LOT of effort for only $500, and I end up having to pay to keep other things covered, so I don't end up netting nearly as much for the sacrifice of time and energy. I'll also feed on Thursday evening to help her out, and then I told her that I'd take a day off in a week or so before I leave (of course I still don't know when that will be) so that the BF and I can go to the beach for the weekend just to get away. We just have to make sure that his parents won't be there because I want a weekend away alone with just the two of us so we can relax for a while. It's overdue at this point.
That's about all that's happening around here right now. I have sent out notes to just about everybody I can think of asking about options for boarding so I can get Storm out of TM's place, and nobody has any leads. I'm a bit frustrated, and can't keep stalling with TM for too much longer before I have to tell her I'm not leaving. And I really don't want to do that, but I also can't keep making up stories about why he hasn't left yet. If I could figure out how to make about $15,000 materialize that would really help!!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

If you figure out how to make that money materialize - please let me know!! Hope you get that weekend at the beach!

 

[hqueen13]

The weekend was good. Last week kind of stunk feeding in the evenings, though it did mean I could get up way more relaxed on Friday morning which was nice! The weather was AWFUL on Thursday and only slightly better on Friday - both days were pretty bitter cold and WINDY. Like windy to the point where I wasn't sure if I was going to blow away or Storm was going to blow away first (his would be from fright... I'd just blow away because the wind was that bad!).
Saturday the BF went down to help his brother work on a rental house he's rehabbing. He had to gut it because it was in such bad condition, so they were working on the wiring finally. So he was out of the house all day, and so I caught up on the cleaning. It was long overdue. It took me 15 minutes to vacuum all the cat hair off the couch. I didn't get much more than some picking up and the vacuuming done because it was that bad. I also spent quite a bit of time working on my business, so that was a good thing.
Sunday I got up to go do chores, and then came back home and the BF and I worked on pruning everything in the front yard in prep for spring. We got the shrubs done, and then started working on the big cherry tree. It's old, and in the process of dying, but it still has quite a bit of life left in it. Part of the problem is that it was never well taken care of in the first place, so there are a lot of branches that are crossing and laying over each other. We got quite a bit cleared out, so it does look better. There is still some little stuff that we need to take care of, and we need to work on the Japanese Magnolia (SOON before it blooms!) and the Crepe Myrtle, still. It was nice to be working outside, even if it was a bit chilly. I'm SO glad we have the tractor, too, because it made cleanup off all the limbs super easy. We piled all the limbs up into a couple of piles that were stacked pretty neatly, and the BF used the forks on the tractor to scoop them up, quick and painless cleanup!
That afternoon I had several errands to run and had a meeting at a potential new barn. That took longer than I expected (I should have known), so I ended up really late with the rest of the errands. The visit was pretty good, though, the woman is just starting out, so I gave her a lot of pointers and tips that I had learned when I started up my barn. I think it might work out to board there, the facility isn't great though. The stalls are TINY (like 5 1/2 cinder blocks wide! ) so I need to talk to her about that a little bit. There is one stall that had a wall dividing it, and if that wall can come down then it would be a reasonably sized stall for Storm (actually really large), but if she (or the landlord) doesn't want to take down the wall, then I will ask her if he can simply use the barn yard area which has a shed in it. There's no way he could use a stall that's less than 6 cinder blocks wide (I can't remember how long they are, but they're not much more than a foot each, so the stall is probably roughly 7' wide or less). The farm is also REALLY hilly, and the only place to ride would be a pasture in the back that is more levelish than the rest of the pastures. I'm going to shoot her a message and see if she'd be willing to meet again tomorrow to chat a little bit more about things just to make sure it's going to be a right fit. It's going to cost $200, which is technically $25 more than I'm paying now, but I need to find out what her plan is for hay in the pasture. If she includes that, and doesn't require the horses to be stalled at night, then I'll be saving money, even though the monthly rate will be higher. I spend so much money on hay right now, especially in winter(Actually, I just checked my budget... I'm averaging $75/month in hay for him since July of last year... so I'd be saving $50 if she's including most of the hay that I would need (Yay for geeky budget numbers!)). So anyway, I need to chat with her further about that to see what will work out best and go from there. The up side is that it's closer to home, and sort of kind of between me and Cowboy and Coyote. So that helps a bit. I think I'll also be able to arrange a flexible schedule with her to help share the load of chores, which will also help. And if she ends up doing all field board, and doesn't have stalls to muck then I'd be saving time even if I had to feed more horses. Frankly, I'd probably be saving time anyway because there's no where to walk with this farm, the barn yard is attached to the pastures, so there's no hiking to turn the horses out. That is nice!
I finally had the raise conversation with my boss, I wasn't as forward as I wanted to be, but I think it went well. There have been quite a few things that have been going on lately that are pretty good, so that helps. Of course I was asking him about several things that we need to wrap up, which all involve spending money, which he reminded me of. I laughed and said, yeah, well, the ultimate goal is to get away from the marketing company that we're using now, which is costing you $6000/month! I'm trying to do these things to SAVE you money! They'll cost money up front, but in the end they'll save quite a lot of money! I don't expect anything to come through on that for a little while because he wants to get the transition to the new system underway before he changes my pay scale, which is fine. I also pitched to him a couple different things, including asking for a match for my 401k. I told him it doesn't have to be the same 3% match that full time employees get, and I reminded him that 1-2% was seriously only like $200 annually. It's not really that much of a stretch for him for sure.
So there's some good stuff happening, but it's not moving very quickly. But that's alright, at least stuff is happening.