hqueen's collection of Far From the Usual stuff.

hqueen13

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Just got back from NC with family. It was a great trip, though emotionally really challenging. There were LOTS of laughs, and a few tears, and a beautiful memorial service for my grandmother. There was so much food given to us, which was amazing, and lots and lots of support. We had 23 family members in the front row, which is WONDERFUL. There were a few missing, but not many at all. My allergies did ok down there, not as bad as up here, thankfully, but yesterday on the drive home they just exploded. It was NOT fun, and I was in bed before 8:00 last night. I took a benedryl and slept pretty good. This morning my lungs and ribs hurt from all the sneezing so I feel like I can't get a good breath in. It's so awesome to feel asthmatic while I'm still sniffing and sneezing.
I need to get the # for an a/c guy from a friend because ours isn't working. The BF tried turning it on before we left, and it didn't work. Thankfully it cooled down while we were away so the house wasn't all that warm. Now we've got to figure out how to get it fixed. I'm not looking forward to that bill or future power bills, but it needs to be done. That poor washer is never going to get purchased at this rate.
While I was down there, my dad told me that some friends had purchased 2 shares of stock when I was a baby. The company was sold recently, and the new company decided to cash out the stock at 17% over what the market rate was on the day they closed. So I came home with a check for $347.42! That was a LOVELY blessing! I should be able to catch up on my "working" credit card, and then maybe have a little left over to treat myself to something.
So we're hanging in there. I think there's rain coming later this week, at least I hope so because I need a break from the pollen for real. I'm in the office the rest of the week covering for a coworker who is away, which will be extra hours for me, thankfully, since I had to miss some being away.
So things are still chugging along, in between sneezes at least.
 

frustratedearthmother

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So glad ya'll had a great tribute to your grandmother!

Hope the AC repair doesn't break the bank. :( But, congrats on the windfall! That's always a nice surprise. Hope the pollen clears up and you can breathe again.... it gets to be quite a PIA struggling to breathe in between sneezes!
 

baymule

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Family drama.....they at least behaved until on the way home. LOL

AC ....... that is something we have to have. A house without AC is like trying to live in the oven. NOT HAPPENING and I don't care what it costs! well yeah, I do care what it costs, but I'll cry while writing out the check.....
 

hqueen13

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I could do without A/C a lot better if we had ceiling fans.... but we haven't gotten that far yet!! The house does get reasonable cross breezes, but still. Yeah. I'm with yall!! My friend GH had a name of someone, which I expected cause they know everybody, so he's coming over on Sunday. Keep your fingers crossed it's something silly, and not a whole new unit!! Thankfully I have contacts for that, too, but still... I really want a new washer still!!

There was a bit of drama with the BF's family as we were leaving. His mom had said that she'd be happy to watch the cats for us, she was all excited, and I texted her the dates and times we'd be leaving, and he mentioned it when he stopped over at the house earlier in the week. We get up and roll out about 5:30 on Friday morning, and we're stopped to eat breakfast already in West Virginia at about 8:30 when his mom texts and says, could you ask the neighbors if they could take care of the cats in the mornings instead of me? I was like WTF. She KNEW about this, and frankly, she knew this was coming for a couple WEEKS even if she didn't have exact times. Her schedule doesn't change that much that she wouldn't have been aware that mornings would be challenging. I said no, I'm sorry, I can't do that at this point. (thankfully we had already fed them before we left) So then she says, well, I can't get up there until after 11:00 on Sunday. I'm like DOUBLE WTF. You KNOW you have church every Sunday, and this was NEVER an issue when we discussed any of this prior to. Never once did she say "Sunday morning will be difficult so it might be best if we work out alternative plans when you are ready to travel." WTF. So I told her, I'm sorry, but they need to be fed. They're used to eating as early as 5:30 in the morning (HINT HINT: get your REAR out of bed and GO DO IT before you have to be at church....). I'd LOVE to think that she'll have a little more respect for me managing taking care of other people's animals now, but somehow I don't think that will be the case.

Then of course, the BF's dad decides to come up to the house while we're away, and he offered to "take a look at the a/c" for us. The BF was like IT'S BROKEN. DON'T TOUCH IT. But of course, he tried to turn it on, and of course, it didn't work. Go figure. Somehow for all the smarts he knows his sons have, he really treats them like they're idiots and didn't learn anything from him sometimes. Then he tells us there are carpenter ants in the basement, which we've never seen before.

So yeah. His parents aren't going to be watching he house anymore, and I'd really like to get the key back, but I don't know that we can easily do that. I was rather upset when he gave it to his mom anyway, but whatever. So that was really the only family drama to speak of, and it wasn't even my family, LOL.

Otherwise things are fine. I'm still sneezing. We still have no a/c. It did storm a bit last night. Nothing to amount to anything in the guage, but it rained hard and fast for a bit, so it did help wash things down a little. There's more on the way tomorrow and Sunday, so that will be helpful to knock this crap down a bit. The BF commented he thought it was worse this year and I agreed. Last year we were lucky enough to get a little rain every 3-4 days and that helps tremendously. So it goes.

That's about all that's happening around here right now....
 

NH Homesteader

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Three words. Change your locks! Lol, but seriously my in laws will NEVER have keys to my house! What a nightmare... Hope you find someone reliable!
 

frustratedearthmother

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I don't like people in my house when I'm not there....Heck, I don't like people in my house when I AM there, lol. Call me anti-social...

Hope the cats get taken care of adequately while you're gone... geeze.
 

baymule

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Yes, absolutely change your locks.

Pollen was so bad here, I went outside and saw smoke in the yard. I sniffed, couldn't smell any smoke, walked around the house to investigate, before I realized that smoke cloud was POLLEN! Fortunately it doesn't bother me.
 

hqueen13

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EW @baymule That's so gross!! There have been days like that growing up where it was that bad. Generally you can't see it up here in MD, but it's bad enough even if I can't see it!

We will be changing the locks eventually, anyway, so maybe then we can just oops forget to give her another key.

The weekend was pretty good. Saturday I had a bunch of errands to run, and the BF was working anyway. The mill was doing their discounted fecal counts, so I took advantage of that. I had to stop by the barn and grab some poop, and then I met my friend for brunch which was fun. I had to give her some stuff I ordered for her anyway, and we'd been wanting to get together for a while. I swung by Cowboy and Coyote and took care of them, and then went up to the mill. The place was crazy busy, come to find out it was 4H day that day. I took care of buying the fecal counts, and grabbed the fly spray for Cowboy since they were out and he was getting eaten up already, and lo and behold, they were offering free lunch to anybody who bought something. Score. I had a pit beef sandwich (our local version of "barbeque", it's top roast that's been smoked low and slow and then shaved for sandwiches. Very yummy!). That was a good thing because it was way later than I had already anticipated. I stopped by the barn again to drop off feed for the other gal I had grabbed an order for, and then headed down to SR's to say hello and pick up more eggs. There were several people that he needed to talk to so I wandered around with him while he chatted with a lady discussing the possibility of doing a concert on the farm. We came up with some good ideas and it was fun, and I didn't mind hanging out. He and I finally got a chance to talk and we caught up on several things. I got my eggs and some honey, and then left, and it was already 3:00. The BF had stopped by his parents to see his brothers and chat for a bit, and so he wasn't even home yet either. When I realized how late it was I decided to just go straight to take care of Cowboy and Coyote rather than going home and needing to go out again later.

I finally got home and didn't really do much of anything for the rest of the day. I was tired and I'd been sneezing so I wasn't interested in getting much done. We pretty much crashed after that.

I love our neighbors. She came over and knocked on the door to let us know that the windows were still down in the BF's truck. VERY glad she reminded us, because he didn't remember, and it POURED right after that. It was a fairly short storm, but pretty heavy rain. We went to bed, and then overnight it rained another inch. We needed it and it really did a lot to clear the air up.

I headed to do my barn chores on Sunday morning, and didn't take a chance and still wore my dust make. I HATE wearing it, your face sweats/condensates under it which is GROSS, and my nose was running when I put it on which is even more annoying, but it's better than sneezing myself into exhaustion for the entire day. I finished things up quickly, and was able to get home just after 10. The A/C guy had come while I was gone, and as we were afraid we need a whole new unit. Thankfully we have contacts to be able to get stuff at discounted prices, but still. Not pleased about that cash outlay. I will say that I am a little relieved because I was very worried about how high the power bill was going to be in the summer with that old unit. At least we'll start out with a much more energy efficient unit this way. Knowing how old the other unit was, and the discounts we'll get, the new unit will probably pay for itself in a year or two, depending on how hot it is.

We finally ate lunch after sitting around for a while after I got home. Then we decided to tackle getting the winter clothes put away. I had swapped everything out of the closet and drawers right before we left since we needed cooler clothes going down south. But I had piled all the winter stuff on the guest bed because I didn't have time to deal with it at that moment. It worked out well since I brought some of my grandmother's things home, so I was able to put them where they belonged, too. We put a lot of stuff into space bags and put it up in the attic, and then loaded the two trunks up and put them back into the closet again. I'm relieved to have that project done. That's about all I got done though. My allergies were bothering me since I was in the pollenated house, and it was so chilly we had the windows closed. I ended up laying down for a nap, and slept for about 3 hours. I got up finally around 5 and we started dinner, and then I took a shower and went to bed. Fighting my allergies all day makes me really tired.

This week should be closer to normal, which will be really nice. I'm ready for some normal schedule time! Hopefully I can get back into my business and get things moving again since I've taken so much time off to focus on other things. I need to generate some serious income again!
 
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