62 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 3-27-18”

  1. Wait, it is only the afternoon and I just got on to tell you that I am safely home. I haven’t even read yesterday’s posts. I got sick in the night so didn’t get much sleep. Time for a nap.

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  3. How can I be third when it’s only 3 o’lock in the morning here? Stopping by to complain, then I’ll read until I get this song out of my head and can fall asleep again. 🙂

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  4. All you ladies just roll over and take another nap. Too early for you. A bit early for me too, but Elvera needed to get up. So here I am.
    She is back in bed, which is b best for now.

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  5. So to be first here, one must either stay up really late, get up extra early, or live on the other side of the world, none of which I do. ~Sigh~

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  7. Sorry folks.

    Elizabeth is on Easter Break, and Cheryl took the week off. So we’ve been staying up late and sleeping in. So I’m posting the new day’s threads just after the new day starts at 12:00AM EST. 🙂

    I will be “off schedule” for the rest of the week. Plan accordingly. 🙂

    Liked by 5 people

  8. Is anyone else who did their taxes shocked at how fast the IRS is getting out refunds this year?

    I used H&R Block free-file on a Saturday, and my refund was in the bank 6 days later. 🙂

    I’m impressed. 🙂

    Liked by 4 people

  11. Back to work for me, but a short week as I had yesterday off and will also have Friday off. Salvation Army didn’t come for their pickup yesterday, if they don’t come today I’ll have to re-connect with them. I’m tempted to throw in some more books and couple small bookcases, just to get rid of more. I may do that tonight if they don’t pick the stuff up, then see if I can amend my receipt list.

    I haven’t gotten my taxes back yet from my guy, but should get them shortly, he’s usually pretty quick and he e-files so hoping the return will show up in the next couple weeks.

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  13. I had scrambled brains for breakfast. That’s what we get this time of the year in the tax office. Two cups of coffee and scrambled brains.

    Love the header. Phone is ringing…

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  14. Donna, I have been following your tribulations about fixing up. But I don’t have an idea of what you will have when you finish.
    Kim seems to be onto it, but it seems to me that it would have been better and cheaper to buy a new house.
    OTOH, when we moved, I had to get rid of lots of stuff that I didn’t know we had.
    We had at least a dozen Bill Gather CD’s that I didn’t know we had. I wondered how they got into the house without me knowing about it.

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  15. Not NEAR enough $ to buy a new house, Chas 🙂 I will have a functioning, nicer looking 1923 house when this is over. And with less ‘stuff.’ I usually clear things out during moves but since I haven’t moved in 20 years now, and still had all the stuff from my mom’s house clean out packed in the garage, there was a whole lot to go through. I was cleaning out the garage a year ago this week, I believe. Or maybe it was in April sometime, I think the sewer line was still being replaced this week going into Easter.

    Anyway, like with all houses everywhere of any age, the repairs started small but turned big as other problems were discovered. Once you’re into it, you’re into it. No way out but through it.

    Just saw Kim posted a link to John Pavolitz, a liberal Christian blogger. I have a negative, visceral reaction to that guy who strikes me as angry and rude and basically seems to be a jerk (and not very Christian in his attitude or demeanor at all). A liberal Christian friend on FB LOVES him, though, and often posts his very snarky posts. Ugh.

    The post Kim linked to is more of a personal post from the looks of it, but I still can’t bring myself to read that guy.

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  16. Actually, the sewer line was earlier, they were putting in the pavers at this point last year, covering it all up. The bedroom ceiling replacement and back fence were up next.

    Point being, I just had no clear idea what was ahead of me when this all started. And as much money as it was, it was way, WAY cheaper than buying a new house, for goodness sake, in this market in Southern California. I could never afford that and am just not ready to up and move to another state, I guess. Really, the cheaper, more logical route for me was to stay and fix and then be in a position to be able to shelter in place once the job dries up, I get laid off, or I simply can’t take the job anymore (which may be approaching very quickly).

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  17. Of course, you could have bought a house in Winchester or Nezperce and had a lovely job with the Herald.

    We went through that when we were going to just add on a single room and fix the non existent foundation…..

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  19. I didn’t sort nearly thoroughly enough in my last two moves. Moving from Chicago, I was working full-time to the end–I worked till noon on packing day–and I simply ran out of time. Moving from Nashville, I was working freelance, keeping in touch with a man in Indiana, planning a wedding, preparing my house for sale, and packing to move. I sorted through books and gave away about 30 linear feet of books, and I sorted through my files a little bit, and I gave away dishes and kitchen stuff that I didn’t need because he had them too, but mostly if I owned it, I packed it. And some of it stayed in boxes long after we married, getting sorted only gradually. Last summer and fall I went through everything (even what I had already sorted) and threw away (or burned, the country method of recycling) a lot. If I were more ruthless, I’m sure I could have thrown away yet more–but I got through every bit of it, and threw away a lot, and determined I would “keep up with it” from here on out, so I felt good about all of that.

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  21. NancyJill, son in Colorado was talking about his flowers up and blooming yesterday and bemoaning the snow and their immediate demise. Don’t your flowers that are up this early, survive the snow?

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  22. When we were walking through our new (1980) condo with our agent on one of our tours, we were pointing out what we intend to fix. (It’s a lot, but not Donna-style. We are getting new flooring laid immediately, before move in, stripping wallpaper, painting, replacing the toilets, replacing the bathroom sinks and vanities and medicine cabinets, replacing some doors, replacing the windows–they don’t open, and it isn’t that much more to replace them than to fix them–and eventually replacing some ceiling lights and putting in closet organizers. When we were telling her a lot of it, she looked appalled and said, “You have to stop somewhere!” We told her we are–we are leaving the kitchen cabinets and appliances (except the dishwasher–it doesn’t work) and the tubs, and leaving the house alone structurally. But with all that we are doing to the house, and buying some new furniture, we will still be spending quite a bit less than if we were buying the new condo she showed us the same day (and that neither of us liked). And that one is priced low because it is “dirty” (physically dirty and in need of new flooring and such), so we have the money to personalize it and still end up spending less than we expected to need to spend.

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  23. Trust me. After 14 moves, I’ve learned do it early so you can enjoy it. You guys are making money saving changes, and getting what you want. Hey, look into LED lighting, too. The first thing Mr. Energy did when we moved in was to replace all the light bulbs.

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  24. We have no flowers peeking through at this point. We have a too short growing season in our neck of the forest. I know friends living in the Springs were seeing crocus and daffodil coming up, but not here. When we have had those snows in late May, our emerging flowers have survived. Although my peonies did not fare well last year after being put upon by the late snow…. 😞 as I was cutting through the property yesterday after my walk I noticed the Kinnikinnick has greened up nicely…I do love that ground cover!

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  25. He is in Lakewood. He says it happened last year to him as well, but maybe they just finished blooming under the snow because they are back this year.

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  26. Winchester! My Plan B

    Most of the work here was structural (fixing leaks, foundation, windows, sewer line, fence, cracked plaster ceiling) so just really had to be done. The bathroom remodel (necessitated by a leak) was the most fun and satisfying part. Still want to replace that kitchen floor, but it’ll have to wait after all of this)

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  29. I recently put in warm LED flood lights in kitchen and what a great difference that
    made! Not fond of the ‘cool’ versions but the warm lights are very nice!

    Liked by 1 person

  30. Michelle, I admit I don’t understand the modern trend to “fix it up to sell.” I’d much rather buy a house that HASN’T been fixed up to sell (like the one we are getting, and like my house in Nashville) and fix it up the way I like it, rather than what the seller thought I might like. Why pay money for upgrades the seller chose for some imaginary generic buyer?

    Our agent even told us that she had looked online at our house here, and that we weren’t going to find a house that “cute” in our price range. She was surprised at the one we chose (I think she thought we were going to choose the new one, which was more than 25% more before we even got to any upgrades, and which would still be a lot more–and out of budget–when we finish the things we are doing). She compared the house we are buying unfavorably to the one we are selling, and we told her that we are the ones who made the house we are selling so nice! That seemed to make her think “Oh yeah! I guess they can do that with this one too.” My husband is an artist and a researcher, and so we buy stuff that looks good and stuff that will last.

    But the condo we are buying has a much prettier outside than this house does, it has a better floor plan for us (it has a dining room and this one doesn’t, it doesn’t waste as much space on halls, and it has a larger kitchen), and most importantly it is in a better community. (I have enjoyed living in the country in some ways–I like seeing nature out my window–but I really hate not knowing my neighbors and being too far from church for any real “community” there. We will be much closer to our new church–just five minutes away–and the condo has sidewalks all around it, so we will walk and meet neighbors who walk, and attend game nights and meet neighbors that way. We will also be close to several state parks and state forests–closer than we are to the one we have here–and so that is a good trade for not being in the country anymore.) We will be a little farther from his family, but that same little bit closer to mine. (We will still be closer to the girls and his family than to my siblings, and that’s OK. Being “closer” to my siblings is what counts.) We will also be closer to Nashville, close enough that I will be able to drive down myself to see people, if I want, or he and I can go together. And we will be closer to favorite vacation spots. We will be in warmer weather and less snow–an important part of the move for both of us. Mostly we were looking for a place that will work well for our senior years (neither of us wants to move again, especially him), and so we needed a place without stairs (we don’t have stairs here, and were determined not to add them there), without this acre of land to care for, and convenient to shopping in case we are ever limited in our driving. We also wanted sidewalks so we can take walks, though some of our “wants” couldn’t reasonably be “must haves.” We are getting nearly all our wants, though, and that makes it extra special!

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  31. Are the exterior bricks varied in color (looked like it from one of the pics)? That’s a cool look and brick is so classic anyway

    Fixing vs not fixing to sell, probably varies depending on circumstances for every seller/buyer

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  36. Well, I think our method of “fixing to sell” is fixing the house the way we like it and taking care of it, so that it is still in good shape when we sell it. People may not like our decisions in every room, but they are free to buy a different house, buy it and live with it, or buy it and change it.

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  38. It isn’t that Montana is getting richer, it is that the rich are moving to Montana because of taxes.
    What they don’t realize that their lifestyle demands more public service and that is going to raise taxes.
    To the detriment of native Montanans.
    We have that to a lesser extent in NC.
    Northerners moving south and making it like the north.

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  39. Keeping in mind that my income is substantially less than the state per capita personal income of 40,000 dollars mentioned and I cannot hire a teenager to work for twenty dollars an hour and the wealth is not exactly taking off but I would not choose to live any where else.

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  44. I have, on my spam filter, an offer of $250k insurance at $12.55/month. I would be an idiot to turn it down.
    Or, some trick It doesn’t add up.
    Either they are idiots or scoundrels.
    I deleted it.
    .

    Liked by 1 person

  46. I’d be a little bit above the Idaho per capita, but not be much. But housing sure is a whole lot cheaper there. Gas, meanwhile, is going up here — I paid $70 to fill the Jeep up the other day, can’t remember it costing that much in a few years. Extra taxes have been added on, of course, plus we’re now switched over to our cleaner “summer formula” which is more expensive.

    Congrats, Jo. Poor Mr. P, waiting …

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  47. No name yet and I am still trying to facetime, so I have only seen the couple of family pics that came from messenger. Plus the very adorable video of Archie kissing her. I am waiting around home to hope to get in contact…..

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  48. I filled my station wagon up this week. Cost 133 kina, just under 40 dollars. It is also the first time I have filled up since I returned on January 10th! I don’t do much driving, just up and down and around these hills.

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  49. I’d be rich in Idaho, huh?

    Actually, most of us are relatively rich compared to the world. Always good to remember that. I’m so grateful for a house over my head, a car that runs and plenty of extras in life.

    Liked by 2 people

  50. Stood in line for an hour yesterday and finally got my driver’s license. Good for three years, that is withing three months of when I plan on retiring so I probably won’t do it again.
    I told the ladies that I was a lapun meri with tenpela bubus.

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  52. NancyJill – A Facebook friend of mine who also lives in Colorado posted “Oh winter in Colorado, why must you wait until spring to show up?” 😀

    Liked by 1 person

  54. Ok Jo with your last comment I am going to assume that is a good thing what you told the ladies! 😂 ( I don’t know why but that word bubus causes me to think of a sore big toe!)

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  55. Oh Kizzie we having been waiting so long for the snows to appear…these last two storms have given us much needed moisture and I am hoping April will bring so much more….the wildflowers need the moisture to make their appearance anyway! 🌺 I do understand the frustration of a dry winter and when Spring “arrives” the cold and snow does as well….fickle weather!

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  57. It’s just sitting here, waiting. I will type a lot so the computer does not say I am talking too fast. But then somebody will take it. So I will just press whatever it is I press to make this post.

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  58. We got about 8 inches of heavy wet snow while we were in Calgary visiting my folks. It also caused all the snow to slide off the roof of the shop into a 3 foot high, 4 foot wide pile of frozen hard snow in front of the garage door. I just spent an hour chopping at it with a garden shovel while husband ploughed away the loosened chunks. Whew! I’m beat.
    It’s also snowing again today – but it’s much colder, so the snow is lighter and fluffier.

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  59. We are still at work and no one has mentioned going home. I have a touch of a sore throat. It may be from all the thick pine pollen accumulating everywhere. I am a tad bit tired by now! Time to check out the Prayer thread.

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  60. Kim, where can I go online to find a wonderful, cute, babygirl gift. Not heirloom, but something that will show how much I love her and her family.

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  61. They have no little girl clothes, she came ten days early and was a surprise. They have lots of neutral things, but nothing girly.

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