hqueen's collection of Far From the Usual stuff.

[hqueen13]

Thanks ya'll. Still no word. Our lender said it would take 3 to 8 days to get the report back. I have no idea why the wide range, but it is what it is. We didn't ask the appraiser, probably should have done that! Oh well, so it goes.
I'm feeling really discouraged at the moment. I'm really struggling to pay my bills, both personal and business. I've been sliding backwards really slowly ever since I bought my truck and it just f'ing sucks. The BF has been rocking along in his little oblivious world not really getting a whole lot worse, but not getting any better, either. If he'd sell the freaking jeep then he'd be saving over $100 per month, but he's been resisting that so dang hard, too. I THINK he's committed to getting it posted for sale this weekend. We'll see if he can actually do it. He HAS to go back to get the emissions checked tomorrow, and he plans to work on it tonight to try to get it prepped so he can drive it again. He's been working on repairing a bad rust spot on the side next to the fender, and so he's had the fender completely off, which means he can't drive it, and of course he doesn't want to put the fender back on until he's got it fixed. Nothing like a deadline and threat of having your registration suspended to motivate you. I can't say much, because it falls on deaf ears, and seems to make things worse, so it is what it is. He'll get it done or have to deal with the consequences.
I'm stuck with my pay check not being able to cover everything I need it to. I'm barely able to pay for the groceries and my gas plus my truck payment, my health insurance payments, and my debt each month. There's NO room for anything extra, and of course each month I want/need to spend a little extra here and there. $10 on lunch with a friend, $20 on something else... It's almost impossible to only buy essentials, and I second guess every single purchase I make, which is terribly frustrating and not a fun way to live. I really need to talk to my boss about another raise, but there just hasn't been a good moment to talk about it yet. It's been overdue for me (I normally talk to him every single year in Jan which is my anniversary date), so it's high time, but I'm having a hard time doing it this time, which is really odd for me.
I DID start on the first piece of artwork for one of my client friends, and that's ready to go. It took about the amount of time I was hoping, 1-2 hours, so that is a good thing. Now I need to complete 2 more and get them sent out and then get feedback from everybody and decide on a price, and then start marketing it. I hope to get another one done next week, maybe both, we'll see how the schedule goes. I'll have to see if I can get the picture I took off my phone and post it here for yall. The picture isn't perfect, I'm not completely satisfied with exactly how it turned out, but I feel like it is complete enough. I can't nitpick my own work too much, most other people wouldn't see the things that I don't like about it anyway.

Yesterday morning there was a bit of drama in the barn again. I got there to bring in the horses, and as I'm walking down the barn aisle I hear horses down on the end of the barn where our horses are. It's well before TM and MM would be bringing in horses (I like to get there early when I'm there in the morning), and when I get down there I discover that Valentine is in his stall, with no water, and Cookie isn't there. I'm really confused as Valentine is certainly not happy about being in, and then head around the corner into the feed stall and discover that RO's trash cans with her feed are gone. I text TM and say, 'hey, what's up with Val being in, and is RO leaving?' TM texts me back and says that RO was 'going on an adventure today' and had asked MM to cover her chores that night. I was like "an adventure with all her feed too?" and took a picture of the spot where her trash cans and feed should have been. TM texted me back and asked if all her extra feed was still in the storage stall, too. I looked and sure enough it was gone. I'm making the assumption at this point that RO is trying to ghost TM. I keep on doing the morning feed (VERY relieved to only have to walk up and down the dang hill once), and as I'm getting ready to grab Storm, RO comes back. I say good morning because I only saw her out of the corner of my eye and didn't have a chance to realize that it wasn't MM coming in to help with the morning feed. As I headed out of the barn I texted TM to let her know that she was back. TM was already in the tack room talking to LM, her husband, so she was in the barn, and I heard her coming out as I headed out the front of the barn to get Storm. They were talking in the barn aisle when I brought him in, so we cut around the side of the track (barn has a track along the perimeter, stalls are in the center) to get out the side door so I could hose him since he was sweaty already. I finished getting him hosed and put him away, and then got feed organized, and by that time RO was gone. I didn't see TM, so I headed to my car to grab the money I had to give her for eggs, and headed back to the tack room. LM was the only one in there, so I gave the money to him and he got the eggs. I remembered that I forgot to turn on Storm's fan, so I headed back through the barn. TM was there, and so we caught up on what happened. Apparently RO's story is that she just served her abusive husband with divorce papers, and he threatened to kill her horses. He knows where the barn is so that's the reason she is moving. If she hadn't muttered that she was going to pull the horses out by the end of the month on Saturday when she was so ticked off about the loose horse, it might be easier to give her credit. I told TM that even though she did say that she may have had a feeling she was going to need to move them because of the divorce. So I can see that, and see her needing to be prepared. Assuming that her story is ligit, when you're under that kind of stress it's easy to do things that aren't kind or necessarily the best most well thought out, so I can give her the benefit of the doubt (and after how mean/rude/nasty she's been to me that's saying something). TM was still pretty upset about that, but she also said that RO had left the next month's board already in the envelop where it belongs. So she DID pay for the next month, which is the obligation when boarding to give 30 days notice. I told TM that she did what she was obligated to do so the story doesn't matter. TM is still a bit hung up on the fact that she lied and told her she was going on an adventure instead of coming clean and telling her she was leaving. I get that, but I would have been MORE upset if she'd actually ghosted, and not had the money in the envelop before she came back for Val. It would have been one thing if she'd paid TM while she was standing there, because it would have looked like she might not have left the money if she hadn't seen TM, but the fact that it was already there says she was going to do the right thing anyway. So I can let it go. TM is more upset about losing the income, and I get that, but I told TM that it was better to not have someone with that kind of energy in the barn. TM said yeah, but you were the only one that she had a problem with. I'm like yeah, because she made me into the whipping boy to deal with the fall out every time you had to reprimand her or tell her not to do something that way. I'm like that's not cool. AND having her there was costing me a lot more time instead of making my life easier, which is NOT cool. Adding someone to the group should make it easier on everyone. TM was like yeah, well, one day you got to do fewer stalls. I was like but I had to walk more horses out, so it wasn't really saving me anything. AND on the day I had to do ALL the stalls it was taking a LOT longer, especially because she was bedding her stalls too deep. I'M happy that she's gone, even if TM isn't totally. I get where she's coming from, and I've been there, too, but I also told her what was going to happen in winter when she's an hour away and decides that she can't get there to do chores? All of the other 3 of us have to be told not to come because we try to come anyway. She'd be the one to just say she couldn't get there and oh well. Not that I plan to be there in deep winter if I can dang well help it, but yeah.
So I'm glad to see her go. I have a feeling I know where she went. There's a barn I looked at back when we had to move that had an indoor and was for rent, but I wasn't going to mess with that. It was a HUGE barn, with a big indoor, but not nearly enough pasture space, which would have required stalls to be done. Whoever is renting it now has been advertising hard, and offered a deal of $275 each if you bring in 2 horses for the first month's board, and it's full care for $350 per horse regular price. With what RO was having to pay TM to do extra chores for her already I'm sure she was paying close to that anyway, so I don't blame her for taking that deal to not HAVE to drive up so many days per week. I get that totally. I don't have a problem with her. She treated me like crap, but if she's really got a mess going on in her life, then I can understand. Hopefully she's able to get out of it and not treat the rest of the world like crap, too.
That's about all that's happening around here. We really want to get lots done this weekend, I hope the weather cools off but doesn't rain too much so we can get it done.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Geeze! So sorry about the money shortage - that's no fun. Hope it gets better for you soon! Dang there's been a lot of drama at that barn. I'll bet things will settle down some since drama queen is leaving.

Hang in there...things will work themselves out. Really optimistic that the appraisal and subsequent refi will help you out.

 

[hqueen13]

I think the barn is already better. TM isn't happy because it means that she has to help out with the co-op more again. But whatever, I don't care, it's made my life easier. I know she'll miss the money, but honestly, she hasn't advertised this year at all, she hasn't done her pony parties like she's said she's going to for ever (of which she has no less than 4 horses in the barn that she is caring for herself on her dime for that purpose. 2 are mini's but still), and she has 4 horses worth about 20k eating her feed and her hay and taking up her time that she needs to sell. They were lien seizures that didn't sell at auction last year, so she's been feeding these horses on her dime and caring for them with her time for a year now and hasn't sold them. I totally get that she's afraid someone will try to sabotage her, but at some point you gotta do what you gotta do and say screw the rest of them. There are plenty of ways she could come up with to move those horses, and she's chosen to do nothing instead. Not really my problem.
Thanks, FEM, for the good wishes! We found out that the house appraised for 267,000 on Friday, but we haven't gotten to talk to the lender yet. Hopefully the BF should be able to do that today and we can figure out what the next step is and how much in our favor it will be. Keep your fingers crossed!!
Friday night was a nightmare getting home. I got to the barn as usual about 5, and thankfully RW was there messing with her horses. She was kind enough to drop feed for me so everybody had already eaten. Then she also walked one of her two horses down, so I only had to deal with one which is much easier than wrangling 2 down the hill. That was really sweet of her. As we were finishing turnout, a big black cloud was hanging out of the one side of the farm. I was hearing rumbles, but it didn't seem like it was that big of a deal. I checked the radar, and it was beginning to pop up, but no big deal. I knew it was in the forecast so I wasn't all that worried about it. I closed my truck windows and had my raincoat in the barn so I hoped that would cover me as my "insurance". Well the bottom FELL OUT. It was raining SO hard on the barn roof that you wouldn't have talked to someone standing right in front of you. It was insane. And it kept raining like that for what had to be over an hour. I missed a small window where it let up to get the wheelbarrow outside and dumped, but then it let up a little again. I even went and used a second wheelbarrow to get the sawdust because I didn't want to walk out in it and get drenched. Rain coat doesn't do much good in that kind of weather, AND I was soaked from sweating already, so putting a rain coat on wasn't that appealing. I kept watching the radar and it kept swirling around and sitting RIGHT on top of us, and further north, where I live... I finally left when it had lightened up a little. I had 2 more stops to make on the way home, including checking in on the ponies for my friend, and getting them tucked in for the night (they're in every night. It's the child's decision... I can't argue), and taking care of their kittens. I then headed down to cowboy and coyote and checked on them for the evening. It had mostly stopped by that time, though I was seeing lightening a lot. Not much thunder, so it seemed like it was mostly far away. I had already planned to avoid the highway due to the holiday because I knew it would be a parking lot, and I was right. I probably should have gotten on it anyway because I had no idea that the roads would be so bad. I got rerouted 3 times trying to get home. Every low lying spot had water over it, and water was just rushing down the roads everywhere. While I was trying to get around the second re-route, I got caught in emergency vehicles trying to get to a swift water rescue. Unfortunately, they were never able to get to the people, they were washed away further up stream, and they found one man on Saturday, and didn't find the woman until Monday. It was HORRIBLE. I finally got home, over an hour after I had left the other farm (it's normally a half hour drive), and found 4 5/8" of rain in the gauge. In a matter of about 2 hours. I took my shoes off at the door, the kitchen was dark (it's almost 9:00 pm, and I'm tired, sweaty, and starving) and trek across the kitchen to get the light, the light switch isn't by the door. Almost to the switch, my socks hit a cold puddle of water. Apparently the rain was blowing against the window, and it leaked through, and a huge puddle of water ran across the floor. At this point I turn on the light, and am standing in this puddle leaving muddy streaks from the bottoms of my pants which have been dragging the ground all evening. My socks are soaked to wringing wet, and so I stepped over to the basement stairs, stripped my socks and pants off right there, and then went down to the basement to get the mop. I was almost finished mopping up when the BF got home (he had a terrible afternoon, too). I ended up eating 6 toasted raviolis for dinner, and the BF didn't eat anything. We fell into bed.
The next morning I drove the routes past where the water had been. The final route that I tried had been under water so badly that the dirt had washed away to the road, the guard rail was IN the hole, and if it had kept going for much longer it would have taken away the road itself. On the way home I drove past the other 2 reroutes that I had to go around, and the water had been across the road for over 50 yards in each place. There was a car wedged in the trees in one location. I don't know if that was the car of the folks who went missing or not. It was really crazy.
We were supposed to get more rain Saturday and Sunday, but gratefully, it never did. Instead it was just humid AF, and about 90 degrees. Miserable. I spent as little time outside as possible.
The BF was a trooper though. He managed to finish the paint work on his Jeep and get it buffed, and then he had to do some work on the brakes. He got it listed for sale on Facebook, which is terrific. I don't think he's going to get quite as much as he hopes for it, but I don't really care. At this point I just want it off of our plates so we can save the money on the car insurance every month. Cash in the pocket will help, but the monthly cost reduction will help a lot! I avoided being outside as much as possible except for the barn chores I had to take care of.
I also got the old desk bases listed for sale, and the bookcases. I have someone that wants the desk, and someone that has inquired about the bookcases. I hope those go quickly. I also listed a bunch of hand tools for sale, I may have to lower the price on them, but we'll see. A lot of the tools are old, so it's not anything fancy. Most of them we didn't pay for, so I'm ok with getting whatever I get.
We also managed to not eat out since last Wednesday. I was pretty proud of us for not caving and eating out this weekend, especially with the long weekend. We shopped at BJ's, and then I stopped by the farm for veggies, and went to the grocery store. I still have about $20 in my grocery budget to make it until the 15th, so we'll see if we can do it. I really don't want to eat out again this week. The BF will get paid at the end of the week so if we can make it until then and not eat out then we'll have a fresh budget again.
That's about all the details from this neck of the woods. TM decided to keep the horses in during the day for another week. I'm glad because it's supposed to be 90 again most of the week. It wasn't supposed to be, but this weather is just crazy. Hopefully it breaks for good soon because I'm really tired of it. As much as I don't like taking care of the barn in the evenings, the only up side is the stalls aren't THAT bad because the horses have only been in for about 8 hours, and as hot as it is they don't move around much either. On Friday somehow Storm hadn't peed in his stall at all, which made picking it super fast! When TM decided to hold off for another week, she went ahead and helped make arrangements so I wouldn't have to be in the barn on Sunday since we have a family party to go to. I had asked her before about it, and when she said she was switching before then I told her it would be fine. I appreciate her taking care of it before she even told me she wasn't switching.

Got to the office this morning and the A/C isn't working. Fun times. I let the boss know so we'll see what happens. Hopefully they get it fixed before tomorrow because we can't see patients like this.

I have one of the first art pieces ready to mail today. Or at least I'm packing it up while I'm here today, and will mail it on the way home. I hope to get a second one done tomorrow, and then mail that maybe Wed when I run out, if not, then Thurs or Fri for sure. I want to get these out so I can get feedback and then put something out there to start making money!

I don't know what's going on, but my stomach hasn't been right since last Friday either. We made a shrimp dish, and so I thought on Friday it was that, maybe the shrimp were a little too old, or the cheese wasn't good or something. But it hasn't gone away all weekend. I don't know what's going on but I wish it would stop! I know that I could be eating better, so hopefully this week we can do a little better.

Not much else to report, really. It's been busy, but mostly ok right now.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Glad things are settling down at the barn. And really hope that appraisal helps y'all out!

No A/C is no fun at all. Can't be pleasant....

Ugh on stomach issues! May that pass quickly for you.

Even if you have to get a little less for the jeep the big return will be , like you mentioned, no more insurance pmts!

 

[Britesea]

Glad things are (slowly) looking better for you! Eating out can really mess with your budget-- I know our finances started really looking a lot better when we stopped eating out, and then they improved even more when I started cooking from scratch more.

 

[sumi]

A friend of mine has a second car (sports car) that he doesn't drive over winter to protect the paint, etc. He told me he cancels the insurance for it for those few months, since he's not driving it. Is that an option for your BF's Jeep? Especially since you'll hopefully be selling it soon. Sorry, I can't think of or remember another vehicle he uses for every day driving.

That storm you had sounds CRAZY! So sad about the people getting caught in it though

 

[baymule]

Flash floods aren't anything to mess with. They are common here. TURN AROUND, DON'T DROWN is the saying here.

 

[hqueen13]

@baymule yup, that's the saying here. It's difficult though when the water rises in minutes. The flood back in May in Ellicott City that made national news literally hit in less than 10 minutes. People had so little time to get out, and by the time they realized it was getting bad, it was already difficult to walk in the street, and then it was impossible.

@sumi I don't know about the legality of that here, I think if you do that you'd have to turn in the registration or something. I'll have to mention it to the BF and see what he says. If we can even lower the coverage that would probably help at this point. Now he's talking about getting the frame fixed, repairing the rust spot in the fender, and then getting the whole thing painted. I hope that somebody buys the dang thing before it comes to that! I'm so ready to be done with it!

@Britesea I would love to cook from scratch. I used to do more of it, but my BF at the time was much more supportive, and pitched in to help a lot more. With as much time as I'm spending working between the office and all the barn chores that I have to do (some paid, some not) it is really challenging to spend a whole lot of time cooking. We have done pretty good this week, still, which has made me happy. So still no eating out since last Wednesday! Happy we've made it a week at this point. I remembered to get chicken out this morning, so I'll do that plus veggies that I picked up at the farm last weekend since they need to be cooked. I'm not excited about cooking, but the veggies will go bad otherwise, and I hate it when that happens!

We heard from the lender and it looks like we're going to get money back!!! We won't owe anything when they close at least, which is AWESOME! Depending on how much we get back, combined with no payment this month or next month, we'll have somewhere between $4000 and $5000 to do whatever we want with!! I had a conversation with the BF last night about not blowing it on stupid crap that we won't remember in six months. I told him that I was fine with buying a few things that we want, like the router table he wants to build, and that I would appreciate a little bit of money for something for me, but that otherwise I really want to try to get some items knocked off our list. So we'll see if he can resist shopping. I certainly hope so because I'm so tired of the over spending. Hopefully I can knock out his one credit card that he's over spent on that's charging him interest, and maybe also knock out mine, too. We'll see how much it ends up being. There is also always a month in the fall when there's an "extra" paycheck, so it's 3 in one month instead of 2, so that is coming up as well.

Hopefully he can call this week and talk to the power company about how much it will be to upgrade the power. I'm hoping they tell us they'll put it in for almost nothing since we'll be using more power, but we'll see.

I managed to mail the first piece of artwork I did, so she should be receiving that tomorrow or Saturday. I didn't get one done yesterday, but I think I should be able to do another one tomorrow since I don't have yoga class in the morning. I also had my first call with the business coach that I hired yesterday, and she was awesome. I'm really looking forward to getting some things revamped and moving forward in my business. I need income!!

Speaking of income, I'm going to find time today to nail my boss down and talk to him about a raise. We'll see how that goes.

So some good stuff finally shifting for us. Hopefully we can keep up the momentum!

 

[sumi]

That is awesome news from the lender! Now let's hope the "good" continues and you can get a raise as well And that the Jeep will sell SOON!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Yay for good stuff a especially financial good stuff! Can you use any of the extra to start working on getting Storm moved?