mousme | Entries tagged with finances

I think I’m just going to have to accept that updates are going to be sporadic for a while. I’m finding my home setup not especially conducive to sitting at the computer to write updates, because it either means putting my entire bed up, which is inconvenient, or else sitting on the edge of the bed to type, which is not super comfortable and puts pressure on my lower back. So I mostly get the opportunity to update when things are quiet at work, and things have not been quiet for a couple of weeks now. It wasn’t even quiet enough the last two nights to give me a chance to update. Oh well.

Anyway, this is a very long update, so I will put it behind a cut.

1- State of the Phnee

( Update under the cut! )

Current Mood: stressed

1- State of the Phnee

It’s been a rather sleep-deprived weekend, entirely of my own doing. I was up late on Friday night for the usual writer’s meeting for Project Nimrod/the Soopar Seekrit Prodjikt I’ve been collaborating on since last September (ish), and then I couldn’t get to sleep right away so I only got about three hours of sleep before I had to get up for work. Then yesterday was the first session of the new D&D Eberron campaign, and once again I was up until about 1am and had to get up at 4am to go to work. *cries in very tired*

It was worth it, though. D&D is amazing, and it’s nice to have a creative outlet for writing again, even if I’m only doing it sporadically.

I have been procrastinating on my Quakerly duties this week. I have to draft the State of Society Report and come up with a draft of the queries for the Claremont Dialogue on hybrid Meetings. I am feeling decidedly uninspired, and I need to learn to write even when I’m not feeling it, because responsibilities and deadlines don’t wait for inspiration.

I’ve also booked train tickets to visit my parents this coming week, which will hopefully go well. My parents and I typically get along really well (ever since I stopped living at home), but after a few days we usually all end up remembering why we don’t live under the same roof anymore. It should be fine, and I do genuinely enjoy spending (limited) amounts of time with them. We will probably have more conversations about the future, because they’re both getting older and dealing with more limitations. In an ideal world I’d build them a fully accessible bungalow on my property, but I don’t have the money for that and they are understandably incredibly reticent to get a loan against their condo in order to finance that sort of endeavour. So in the meantime I am encouraging them to figure out how to maintain their independence as time marches inexorably forward, because I live just a tiny bit too far away to be of real use on a daily basis.

2- State of the smallholding

The polar vortex is in full swing. It’s been -26 Celsius for the past two days, and my poor GSVCO (which long time readers will remember is the name of my 15-year-old Yaris) is struggling a bit in the cold but has been rallying valiantly the whole time. I have been in touch with Steve the Wonder Mechanic because she needs a bit of TLC, but he hasn’t yet got back to me about when he’ll be able to see her. This work was supposed to happen right before Christmas, but he had a scheduling conflict, so things have been pushed back quite a bit since then.

We’re going through a worrying amount of propane to heat the house. When I first signed up in October the nice lady I spoke to said that based on the previous owners’ usage, I could expect to pay about $1,500 a year for heating. However, we’re at the end of January and we’ve already had three deliveries totaling $1,100, so I am starting to doubt those numbers. We’re not even cranking the heat—I’ve been keeping the thermostat at 17 Celsius which, while not cold per se, is still on the cooler side of things. We’ve been averaging one delivery per month, at about $400 a pop, and given that I got accustomed to paying about $100 heating with natural gas, is a bit of a shock to the system, especially since summers are expensive now due to the horrifying cost of air conditioning. I’m not a huge fan of A/C, but it’s non-negotiable for KK, so A/C it is. *sigh*

Part of me is wondering if it’s an insulation problem (at least in part). I’ve basically run out of money at this point, but I’m going to add “fix the basement insulation” to “build a wheelchair ramp” on the list of things I need to do to make the place more accessible and hopefully less expensive in the long run. Somewhere in the next few years I’m going to need to do something about the septic system too, but that is considerably more expensive than the smaller projects (anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000 depending on the work, which I very much do not have).

*lies on the floor*

Why is home ownership so freaking expensive? Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to have the place, but I thought I was getting a pretty “turnkey” house, and it turns out that there is still a shit ton of expensive work to be done. Woe.

3- State of the news

*grimaces*

So, uh, this all seems… horrible, to quote Bruce Banner.

Minneapolis is up in arms, and rightly so. ICE has murdered another protestor (and yes, I’m using that word on purpose). Alex Pretti was an ICU nurse out there protesting and filming/observing ICE’s atrocities. He tried to help a fellow protestor who’d been hit with (I think) pepper spray, and when he did that ICE agents swarmed him and executed him on the spot. They’re now trying to spin it, saying he had a weapon (he did by some accounts have a gun for which he had a permit, which he had NOT drawn), calling him a terrorist, accusing him of trying to assassinate ICE agents and whatever other lies they can come up with in the moment. There’s a strong counter-narrative emerging, singing Pretti’s praises and documenting all the good things he’s done in his life, but honestly even if he spent most of his spare time kicking puppies and taking candy from babies, he still would not have deserved to be executed in the street simply for exercising his right to protest.

In less horrifying but still depressing news, Trump is once again threatening tariffs against Canada because we had the temerity to sign a trade deal with China (which Trump was all on board with last week, as I recall, but whatever, we are not expecting coherence out of him). He’s got his panties in a twist about Carney’s speech at Davos, very clearly, and has now started spouting off about “Governor Carney” and the “51st State” the way he did in November of 2024, and you’d be safe it’s getting the same reaction as it did the first time he tried this shit.

Speaking of home ownership being expensive, my township has approved a 5.46 percent increase in municipal property taxes, a 2% increase for water and sewage (not applicable to me since I have my own well and septic) and garbage taxes are going from $165 to $180. It’s not unmanageable for me, at least while I’m still employed, but I can imagine it’s going to be a struggle for the lower income people in my area.

All right, that’s it for me. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: busy

1-State of the Phnee

My new-to-me app gave me a “leg day” workout, and now my legs hurt. Who could have predicted this? I discovered that one of the muscles I engaged today is one of the same muscles I use when pressing the brakes and gas pedals on my car. Owie. Bodies are so, so silly.

I am working on integrating more protein into my diet, which is especially important after bariatric surgery (mostly so my muscles don’t atrophy and so my hair won’t all fall out), and I’ve been experimenting with tuna, because I love canned tuna. I know there are concerns with mercury, but I’m not eating it in quantities that are of concern since I’m neither pregnant, breastfeeding, nor a child. I’m perfectly happy to make a little homemade tuna salad, and my go-to recipe just involves diced celery, a little mayonnaise, and dill. Still, I figured there must be some pre-made tuna kits out there, so why not give some of those a try for days when I’m in a bit of a hurry? So yesterday I tried out the Ocean’s SnacKit, and was very pleasantly surprised (it comes with six rice crackers and a little wooden spoon!). Today I tried a Clover Leaf tuna salad with quinoa and olive oil, but it wasn’t nearly as good. I think the olive oil made it feel greasy in my mouth, and it was edible but not texturally pleasing. I have a couple of different Clover Leaf tuna salads to try, but I may end up sticking with the SnacKits for now. I should look up other tuna salad recipes to try out on days when I have time to make them at home. If anyone reading has a favourite tuna salad recipe, please tell me so I can give it a go!

Speaking of surgery, I need to go get blood tests done soon, because I have a follow-up appointment next week with the nurse practitioner. I will probably go on Saturday, because I have a Ministry & Counsel meeting at 9:00 tomorrow morning and I am not confident that the blood tests will be done in time for me to get to work if I go afterward. Cornwall is about a 35-minute drive from my house, which would put me there at 11am (give or take), and I have to leave for work from my house at 2pm in order to give myself a good buffer to be on time, taking weather and traffic into account. So while I don’t think it would take three hours to get a blood test done, I also can’t guarantee that tomorrow won’t be somehow really busy, so I’d rather go Saturday when I can be confident that I won’t be rushed.

In “let’s shorten Phnee’s lifespan” news, I got an email yesterday from the bank that provided my mortgage saying my insurance company notified them that my home insurance had been cancelled. Now, we DID have a payment not go through in November because KK didn’t put any money toward expenses in the joint account for reasons that I still don’t fully understand and which she’s never explained save to apologize rather halfheartedly but also didn’t tell me about until several payments bounced. I had to pay a lot of NSF fees in November, let me tell you. So, the insurance company threatened me with cancellation, but I was able to rectify that situation and I thought all was well. Turns out no, they sent the SAME letter to my mortgage people, but they only sent confirmation that it wasn’t cancelled to me. I called them today, and the nice girl I spoke to sounded somewhat embarrassed and apologetic and said it’s “just how they work.” So, yeah, that shaved about 10 years off my life, I’m pretty sure. At least I got it sorted out pretty quickly.

2-State of the smallholding

I don’t have much to report on the home front today. I’ve been working evenings all week and have done very little around the home. The quail are doing okay in spite of that one death earlier this week. At this rate, though, I may be on the lookout for more auctions in April to add a few more birds to my flock to diversify the bloodlines. I really hope the rest of them live through the winter and I’m doing the very best I can to keep them alive, but the learning curve has been rough on the poor birdies.

Apart from that, my plans for the weekend remain the same. Get some bloodwork done (blech), try to figure out the snowblower and why it’s not working, try to get the outdoor GFCI outlet reset (I still don’t know what KK did to trip it, nor why it’s refusing to reset, but I’m going to try flipping all the breakers and seeing if that fixes it, otherwise I’ll have to call the electrician about it), and then spend the rest of the time doing some tidying and organizing. Somewhere in there I will also very determinedly continue to get some exercise in, whether it be taking a walk or doing some strength/balance training.

3-State of the news

There’s been a fair bit of fallout after yesterday’s shooting in Minneapolis. As I said before, this was a Nice White Lady that was shot, so all the news outlets are still talking about it. ICE agents also shot two (not fatally, thank goodness) people in Portland, Oregon, and killed a 41-year-old black man a week ago. Minnesota governor Tim Walz, whom most of us remember better as Kamala Harris’ running mate for VP in last year’s presidential election, has apparently authorized the National Guard to start staging in the wake of the shooting. Several other Minnesotan politicians have spoken out strongly against ICE, and there’s a lot of online chatter about whether Minnesota and/or other states will actively resist the federal government. If that happens, we may well be looking at a civil war, or at the very least localized violence. It’s easy to forget that the United States is enormous, so fighting in Minnesota wouldn’t necessarily have a direct physical impact on other places in the country. There would be ripple effects, of course, but it’s the same as when BC and Alberta get wildfires while Québec starts to flood in Canada. Same country, very different regional impacts.

The Trump administration is also continuing its slash-and-burn approach to international diplomacy. The US is leaving 66 global organizations and has said a firm “fuck you” to anything to do with addressing the reality of climate change. *headdesk* The withdrawal from international climate negotiations is probably going to face legal challenges, but the entire administration’s motto appears to be “I DO WHAT I WANT!” so I guess we’ll see if the courts can make it stick. It’ll take years of proceedings to untangle it all anyway, by which point we may all have cooked to death regardless.

In news that will surprise absolutely no one who was paying attention, the Calgary water main break continues to be a shitshow. Calgarians have been urged to conserve water, and they have responded with “SHAN’T!” by the looks of it. Apparently, they’ve known about the weaknesses in the system since at least 2017, but every city council kicked the can down the road until they couldn’t anymore. There’s been a similar situation happening in Montreal, but it hasn’t been as dire there in terms of impacts to the population. From what I’ve heard from my parents there have been some water main breaks, but nothing on the scale of what’s happening in Calgary.

Doug Ford wants to build what sounds to me like another white elephant (correct me if I’m wrong, anyone who’s still reading this) in the form of an underwater electricity line for Toronto through Lake Ontario. Like, I get that Toronto is demanding more and more electricity, but this seems… well. Like I said, white elephant. There’s no better way to do this? It’s not nearly as bad as some of his other projects, but his track record isn’t exactly great.

I really need to find a less depressing way to conclude my posts. XD

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

My very hardworking desktop computer has decided it no longer likes me after nearly 9 years of loyal service. It's too old to upgrade to Windows 11 and today every application on it keeps crashing, including my web browsers, which does not bode well for the future. It looks like I may have to bite the bullet and spend money on a new desktop, and since several places still have extended Boxing Day sales, it seems like now would be the more logical time to proceed.

*sigh*

Why does everything have to cost so much money?

Current Mood: annoyed

I got a fair bit of stuff done today.

I got up at a very reasonable 6:30am, showered, and took my car to Canadian Tire for (another) alignment. The whole process took less than an hour, so I just waited at a nearby Tim Horton's and had breakfast with a lemon poppy seed muffin which startled me by having some sort of cream cheese filling that I was not expecting. It tasted just fine, but it was weirdly jarring nonetheless. This just tells me that my capacity for dealing with unexpected change is now in the negative numbers.

Once the car was organized, I drove to Cornwall (the nearest large town, although it might technically count as a city? Hang on, I will go look that up. *two minutes later* It's a city. Okay. Moving on.) to go to Home Depot and finally bite the bullet on getting a riding lawn mower. I did a bit of research into the various options, and even though they cost a bit more money, I settled on a John Deere. All the reviews of the more inexpensive models boiled down to the same thing: "It's not worth it, just get a John Deere and have done." Mostly all the other models seem to have poor warranties, lack servicing options, have parts that are hard or impossible to get, or just continuously break down. So I got a John Deere, and it will be delivered on Thursday.

I had a rather circular conversation with the nice young lady serving me at Home Depot. She was a tiny, wispy thing, probably of Indian origin based on her accent and the bracelets adorning her wrists (although I couldn't swear to it), and the poor thing spoke barely above a whisper and had the maddening habit of looking anywhere but at me when she spoke. This may have been cultural or just a personality quirk, but either way, it was not ideal. Long-time readers will remember that I am rather hard of hearing, and so people who speak quietly and/or face away from me when they speak are my kryptonite.

Conversely, she seemed to have a lot of trouble understanding me as well. I asked about financing options, to see if I could avoid having to shell out another $5k right on the spot (everything is so expensive, goddamn), and she agreed and brought me over to customer service.

Her: "You want to finance or use credit card?"

Me: "I'd like to see if I qualify for financing so I don't have to put it on my credit card, please."

Her: "So you use your own credit card?"

Me: "No, I'd like to get financing."

Her: "You want a credit card?"

Me: "Well, Home Depot gives you one with financing, right?"

Her: "Yes."

Me: "Great. Let's do that!"

Her: "Okay, so you go over to the cash and you pay with your credit card now."

Me: "So... you can't do the financing?"

Her: *blank look*

We were saved by another employee named Ariel (I don't know the name of the first woman because she didn't have a name tag), who was able to walk us through the process, thank goodness. It took a while, but now I can pay off the mower over the next 12 months instead of all in one go, with no interest unless I exceed those 12 months.

I had to pop back to Canadian Tire after that because they had neglected to give me the readout for the alignment, and luckily they still had it in their system (apparently the machine doesn't keep it beyond the one reading, but they hadn't had another client in for an alignment yet, or at least that's how I understood it). I sent the readout to Steve the Wonder Mechanic, and he is of the opinion that the dealership simply never did an alignment on my car back in the day. What they did with my car when they kept it for a full 36 hours and charged me $150 for the privilege is beyond me at this point. I am going to have to rally some spoons from somewhere in order to fight them on this and get reimbursed for the work and for the brand new winter tires that they wrecked due to their negligence.

Anyway, I finally made it home five-ish hours after I'd left, put in a load of laundry (everyone clap, please!) and set about continuing to unpack my bedroom. As of right now I am STILL not done (goddamn), but I am down to "only" my books and office supplies (I think, there might still be a surprise lurking in one of those boxes), so I am optimistic I can get that done in the next few days. Ideally I'd like to finish that tomorrow evening when I get home, because I have to go to Ottawa back to my old house.

This is because, in Oh-My-God-There-Is-Still-Moving-Drama news, my old landlords have informed me that, even though I still technically live in the old place, they are going to start showing it to prospective tenants right away. Since it's currently a goddamned disaster in there, I am going to head out tomorrow as early as possible to try to at least tidy up all the garbage and crap that got left behind after the move, and fill up the car with some of the stuff I still want to bring to the new house. That was part of the plan for these coming two weeks anyway, but I had kind of assumed that I'd have more time to get the house pulled together before my landlords swooped in to get prospective new tenants who will likely be paying a LOT more rent than me. I don't like having to work on their timeline, but here we are, I guess. Here's hoping that I can get the house pulled together enough that they aren't going to try to gouge extra money out of me just because they can.

*lies on the floor*

My drama is so very low stakes compared to what's going on in the world, but it's very stressful on a personal level, I promise you. :P

Speaking of stressful, the poor quail had what one might call a Heckin' Escapade yesterday. KK took the dogs out before I got home from my night shift for their usual morning romp. What we didn't know is that Freeloader, the rooster whose life continues to be spared while we get settled in, had taken advantage of the door to his hutch not being latched properly (that one's on me) and gone walkabout (flapabout?). Apparently he hadn't gone far and was just bopping happily around in the grass, foraging away. At least he was, until the Brittanies got hold of him.

Fun fact about Brittanies, they are hunting dogs, specifically a versatile breed, meaning they both point AND retrieve, and because they are retrievers, they have what's called a "soft mouth," meaning that they will hold game birds in their mouths without biting down on them (because hunters don't want to have their birds chewed up by their dogs). Pixie grabbed Freeloader first and took off with him. KK forced her to drop him, only to have Peggy snatch him up immediately afterward. Poor Freeloader got exchanged from dog to dog a couple of times until KK was finally able to confiscate him and put him back in his hutch, where he hunkered down, the picture of wet, slobbery misery, but completely uninjured because the dogs were very gentle with him, comparatively speaking.

Honestly I fully expected him to die of shock, but he has hung in there until tonight, although he is a deeply unhappy and traumatized camper. I haven't heard him crow once since I got home, and he's usually extremely vocal. He has been eating and drinking, though, so I think there's no permanent harm done. And, well, he is going to get the metaphorical axe at some point, once I get my shit together.

Oh, and in the midst of all of this, the weight management clinic called today, and I am scheduled for the Pre-Surgery 2 class next Tuesday, and an in-person appointment with the surgeon on the following Thursday. That means that they are very likely ready to schedule me for surgery ASAP, which of course is something of a problem given that KK is having surgery in just over two weeks' time. OOPS. I'm sure that if I explain the situation they will be sure to schedule me further out, but my goodness, what ridiculous timing. I also have to go get more bloodwork done (so. much. bloodwork.) at the hospital, which means getting up at the asscrack of dawn so that I don't have to spend the entire day waiting in the hospital, because if you get there after 6:30am you have a guaranteed wait of at least two hours, if not three or four, and I for one do not want to spend half the day just waiting in a hospital for a blood draw. Blech. I have a lot of stuff to get done, after all.

I am torn between going tomorrow morning super early since I have to go to the house afterward anyway, or going on Friday. I think I might go tomorrow because that way it will light a fire under my ass and force me to do things. The only "problem" with that is that tomorrow is KK's in-office day, which means the dogs will be home alone for most of the day. But if I go stupidly early and get a lot of cleaning done before, say, noon, I might be able to get home by 2pm, which would get me here in time to dose Rika with her epilepsy meds AND be on time for my therapy appointment at 2:30 (did I mention I have a lot going on lately?). But in order to go tomorrow morning I will need to leave here at 5:30am to get to the hospital at 6:30, and, just, ugh. But it's for the greater good, I guess. Blargh.

And now, it's time for bed, especially if I need to be up in time to leave at 5:30. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: busy

I don't have a long post in me today. The home visit with American Brittany Rescue went really well, and if Odin gets along well with the other dogs I will have the green light to bring him home, which is great.

That was the only good part of the day, because I received a notice in the mail that H&R Block made a mistake (?) with my taxes, to the tune of nearly $13,000 (I owe about $3.5K to H&R Block because they advanced me my supposed tax refund, and $9.5k to CRA). I don't know where I am supposed to find any of this money. I have never in my life owed this much money on taxes, and I am honestly at a loss as to how this happened. I need to dig out my tax paperwork and have someone at H&R Block walk me through step by step how this happened, and why the fuck their mistake is now suddenly my problem.

I honestly feels like, because I got a house and this is a nice thing, the universe has felt the need to balance this out by doing nothing but shit on me for the past two months or so. Like, can I get a fucking break, please? My parents were hospitalized, I got Covid, I had to work extra hours, there were problems with the mortgage and the closing and the insurance for the new place, KK got sick the day of the move and we had to postpone (which means I had to spend money on the cancellation, another month's rent and utilities mostly at my own expense because KK has no spare money), both cats needed $3k worth of dental surgery, I need to buy a CPAP next week (more money) my car needs repairs that are getting done this weekend (more money), and now this (the epitome of more fucking money).

Honestly, it's enough to make me want to throw myself off the closest high bridge. At least my life insurance might pay off some of the debt.

Current Mood: depressed

WE MADE IT.

The sellers got us the necessary paperwork so that I am not legally responsible for their financial shenanigans. Wafik was not in the office today, but I was able to get hold of Peggy, the person who got my mortgage approved a couple of months ago, and after a nerve-wracking five hours I was finally able to go to the downtown branch of the credit union and get the bank draft I needed.

I then drove like a bat out of hell to Alexandria in an attempt to get the thing to my lawyer. She told me she needed it by 2:30pm or 3:00pm at the very latest, and unfortunately I was not able to bend the laws of space and time to get there on time, but I did get there at 3:15, which is honestly a fucking miracle.

Then my lawyer pulled a miracle out of her ass and managed to register everything at 4:59pm (you can't register anything past 5pm) and joked that I was the record-holder for that.

So I now own a house! Or, rather, I now am responsible for a mortgage that allows me to live in a house! YAY! There is a lockbox on the door, apparently, where I can get the house keys, so we will be checking that on Thursday when we start bringing stuff to the house ahead of the movers. I want to bring a lot of my gardening equipment (the loose stuff that's hard to pack), all of our plants, and a bunch of the loose stuff that's in the basement.

KK finally started packing over the weekend, and I am trying super hard not to micromanage her, but it is so hard to resist. For all that she is super organized about a ton of things in life, she is absolute dogshit at packing. She actually packed up most of the packing supplies! Like, WHY. We aren't even close to done, why would you pack up all but one Sharpie and one boxcutter? Bonkers. Her method of packing is also super haphazard, AND she hasn't been properly labelling the boxes. Yes, she's identifying which room they go in, but she hasn't been listing the contents on the outside like a normal person. Right now she has something like five boxes labelled "desk stuff." Not only that, but she is using up so much money's worth of packing supplies (paper and bubble wrap and the like) that we ran out after she packed fewer than four boxes of dishes from her china cabinet. I was honestly flummoxed when she said we'd run out this morning. I expected her to use some of it before I came home, but ALL of it? Good fucking Lord. *screams in frustration*

At least she has agreed to buy more packing supplies for us tomorrow and picked up more bubble wrap and paper today (she also went through half of that, which is mind-boggling to me), because so far I have paid for everything in this move: the supplies, the movers, and the professional organizer, not to mention the house itself and the lawyer's fees. So it's nice that she's finally contributing a bit. She has plans to pitch in for moving costs using her tax return, which she still hasn't submitted for last year's taxes (she is also terrible at filing her taxes on time), but that won't happen until at least next week, so I'm not counting on that.

In short, I am trying to stay out of her way while she packs, and am concentrating on other areas of the house. I lost a lot of packing time to all of the legal and financial shenanigans over the past few days, but I have very generous friends coming tomorrow to help, so I am going to ask them to help KK pack up the kitchen, and I am going to give explicit instructions on how to label the boxes so that I know what's in them when we move. Then while they're working on the main floor I will tackle my bedroom and the "cat room.," which is mostly books and my office supplies. If I work very hard I might be able to get the "cat room" completely done and put a significant dent in my bedroom. I really hope so, because otherwise I basically only have Wednesday to get everything else packed up, because Thursday we'll be loading up the U-Haul truck I rented to bring the aforementioned stuff to the property, and Friday is moving day, so 99% of the packing needs to be done before Friday morning hits.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention that, while I was gone today, Pixie busted out of her collar in the back yard and took off after a rabbit. KK messaged me to let me know it happened, and of course I was still 30 minutes away and could do fuck-all about it. Luckily KK was able to find her pretty quickly and entice her into the car once she'd run herself ragged. That shaved another few years off my life too, stupid dog. It would have been just our luck for her to be hit by a car and killed mere days before she gets a whole four acres to romp around. Christ.

I am going to stop here. I was so stressed out last night that I didn't fall asleep until nearly 1:00am, and as a result I am completely fried today. So I'm going to try to be asleep before 11:00pm. That's not super early by my standards anyway, but it's nearly 10:00pm now, so I can't expect miracles.

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: stressed

The house buying nightmares continue.

I have my financial ducks almost in a row. Almost. And now, the ducks are scattering again.

I spoke to my mortgage/credit union guy (Wafik) on Thursday. He was very understanding while I panicked at him, and he promised that if I could get all the money transferred to my new checking account by Monday, he would personally oversee getting the transfer expedited/waiving the usual hold on funds, and ensure I get the bank draft I need to give the lawyer on Monday.

So I moved heaven and earth to get everything done, and I did. I got the last of the money transferred on Friday evening, and received the usual warnings about the time it could take to get it all done. In light of this, I decided to send Wafik an email today (originally I was going to wait until tomorrow but then I worried I'd forget or send it too late or something) as a follow-up about our conversation and to confirm that all was well. And that's how I discovered he has an out of office message saying he'll be back on Wednesday.

Notice how Wednesday is not Monday? Yeah, me too.

So I have been quietly having a panic attack at my desk all morning. I am not prone to panic attacks, but I am pretty sure the chest pain and palpitations are exactly that, because there's no other good reason for it (and it started the minute I got the out of office message, so it's not a coincidence). I am accustomed to a constant low-level buzz of anxiety, but it doesn't usually manifest in this kind of physical symptoms. I cannot say I am enjoying the experience.

There is absolutely fuck-all I can do about this situation today, because it is Sunday, and nothing is open. My deadline is tomorrow, and if Wafik is not in the office to do the thing he promised he'd do, then I am fucked six ways to next Sunday. So the only thing I can do for the next 19 hours or so is panic quietly. Tomorrow I plan to call him first thing in the morning, and if he doesn't pick up his phone, my backup plan is to call my original mortgage advisor (I don't think that's her actual title, but I don't know it so this will suffice) Peggy and very politely weep at her until she finds someone local to help me. See, Peggy, unlike Wafik, is NOT local, but lives somewhere around Barrie, ON, so it means that even if she wanted to help me, she cannot physically place a bank draft in my hands.

*rips out hair*

*internal screaming*

I honestly thought that the financial part of the nightmare was over and that I just had to deal with the sellers' shenanigans, for which my lawyer has a plan. But now the person who committed to helping me has just swanned off without even the courtesy of letting me know, so fuck me, I guess. I have already spent so much money on this move on packing supplies and on the packing help, the house is halfway packed up, and I have abandoned my plot in the community garden so that if we don't move, I can't grow vegetables this summer and all the plants I ordered are going to die. Not to mention the crushing disappointment of losing out on a dream property literally five days before we're meant to move in.

FUCK.

Current Mood: stressed

Well, the good-ish news is that I think I've got a good chance of getting all my financial ducks in a row by Monday. A whole bunch of people have pulled together at various financial institutions to help me make this happen, and so while it's not guaranteed/a done deal, I have done everything within my power to make it a reality. I am reasonably confident it will work out.

So, yay for that!

Unfortunately, that's where the good news ends. I went to see my real estate lawyer to sign all the paperwork for the closing on Monday, and got some more bad news.

It turns out that the sellers are leveraged up to their eyeballs. They have two mortgages on the property, neither of which have been paid at all, and they conveniently did not disclose that the central A/C unit they supposedly own is not actually paid for, and the property has a lien on it as a result. None of this is a problem per se, because the sale agreement stipulates that I am not responsible for any liens on the property. However, they and/or their lawyer have not provided all the proper legal documentation that stipulates that they are taking responsibility for the lien and all of the debt. Without those documents, I can't sign the closing on the house because I'd run the chance of taking on the liability, which I do not want at all, no thank you.

The sellers have until Monday (the official closing date) to produce said documentation. If they don't, we're in a bit of trouble. My lawyer has said we can close on Tuesday at the latest. Otherwise, she will petition for occupancy if they don't cough up the paperwork, meaning KK and I can move in on Friday as planned, but we will not own the house until such time as all the paperwork is in order. If we don't get occupancy, in theory the sellers would be on the hook for any expenses we incur while we don't move (like needing to live in a hotel, putting our stuff in storage, etc.), but my lawyer rightfully pointed out that, given the sellers' financial status, "you can't get water from a stone."

Blargh.

It feels like the universe is trying to shave several decades out of my life from sheer anxiety. Weirdly, I am less stressed out about this than I was about the financial bullshit that happened yesterday. Finances are a big red panic button issue for me, but legal documentation doesn't appear to fall into the same category. I won't know until Monday if the sellers have produced all the necessary documentation, so I guess I get to worry about it all weekend. Hurray.

Okay. Time to go feed and water the quail, and then head to bed, since I'm working all weekend. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: anxious

I'm not even going to attempt a full post today, because I am tired but mostly frustrated. Here is a list, in some semblance of order.

1- Brittany the professional organizer only stayed half a day due to not feeling well. Not a huge problem, and I'm not going to force someone to work when they're sick. It turned out to have a silver lining, too, as you will see.

2- The real estate lawyer finally contacted me, and told me my appointment to get everything signed, sealed, and delivered is tomorrow afternoon.

3- The lawyer casually informed me that I'd need a bank draft ready by tomorrow (less than 24 hours' notice). If she'd answered any of my emails last week or earlier this week I might have had a snowball's chance in hell of getting the money out of my various accounts, but as it stands, 24 is not nearly enough time.

4- I forfeited my afternoon chasing after all my bank stuff, and have only sort of managed to get it sorted. It took hours and an in-person visit to one of the branches, and I most likely still won't be able to get everything by tomorrow. It's like the lawyer who specializes in real estate has no idea how banks work.

5- I spent the remaining time on the phone with insurance companies, because my current insurer wanted to charge me nearly $800 a month for my home insurance, which is WILD. It's more than a mortgage payment! Just bonkers.

6- My mortgage person called and needs more documents signed.

7- My internet provider called to let me know that, contrary to what they told us, they do NOT service the area we're moving to, so I won't have internet service starting next Friday.

I am wiped out. I have no idea if the lawyers will accept the situation as it is, and if they don't I may end up with no house, after spending a lot of time and energy and getting emotionally invested, and I just don't know how to feel about it all right now. I am tired and frustrated and filled with anxiety because there is nothing I can do beyond what I've already done and hope for the best.

So that was today. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: numb

I have spent all of this shift halfway convinced that it's my third night shift instead of my second. I think it's the fact that I've already been working for nine days straight that makes it feel like it's later in the week than it actually is. I still have five more nights to go, including the 12-hour weekend shifts. I am not really looking forward to any of it, but it is what it is.

I managed to get about six hours of sleep and probably would have slept longer had I not had to get up early for my therapy appointment. I have made the grievous error of agreeing to multiple meetings and appointments this week. I keep trying to not schedule stuff during my evening and night shifts, and I keep failing abysmally. It's just never a good idea, but sometimes there just isn't another choice. Alas.

So later today I have a meeting with tow members of Ministry & Counsel about a small worship group one of them wants to start centered around chronic illness, and on Friday I am going to my new credit union to sign my life away in order to qualify for a reduced interest rate on my new mortgage. Okay, I exaggerate slightly for effect, but essentially I have to switch over to a checking account with the credit union and have my pay direct deposited there in order to qualify.

I've sent out feelers to my coworkers to see if anyone will trade my weekend day shifts in 10 days with me. Getting the weekend off to be able to focus on packing would be a godsend, but I'm not going to hold my breath. People are pretty accommodating at my workplace, but we're getting into summer vacation time and people are a busier with kids and commitments and stuff. Fingers crossed, anyway.

Okay. Time to wrap this up. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: awake

I'm still exhausted. Today was the last day of working with the professional organizer. It went well and I have no regrets, but I still have a lot of work left to do to clear out and give away some of what we decluttered. The kitchen is in much better shape than before: I moved a shelving unit into the small space that serves as KK's office and leads into the living room and replaced it with a smaller shelving unit that was already in the kitchen and a small cart on wheels, so now the kitchen feels far more open, and there is in fact a bit more room to work with. The living room does look as though seven or eight tornadoes have gone through it, however, as it's full of all of the piles for donation and discarding. Oops. Oh well. Omelet, eggs, etc.

My mortgage financing is conditionally approved, although I have to jump through fourteen thousand flaming hoops to prove that the money I have in my bank account is actually mine, and there has to be a "desktop appraisal" of the property in case the amount I offered for it is higher than what the mortgage lender thinks it's worth. Uuuugh, why are finances so complicated and stressful?

I have scheduled a house inspection on Sunday morning with an inspector I haven't worked with before. My usual guy, Mike Courtemanche, was unavailable to work with me because this is the busiest time of year. The new guy comes recommended by my real estate agent as well, so I'm sure he'll be good too.

Tomorrow I'm heading to the Alfred bird auction (although I won't get getting quail now that there's a strong possibility I'll be moving in just two months), where I shall hang out with my newish friend Val (we've been friends for about five years now) and later I shall head further out in order to spend some time with Dylan and Sarah on their farm. I have some plans to bring disinfectable footwear with me so that I don't accidentally track bird flu onto their farm just in case any of the auction birds have it, or some other horrible avian disease that will affect their poultry.

I have fallen asleep three times at my keyboard trying to finish this, so it's time to call it a night. I have to leave around 6:30 to get to the auction on time, so a full night of sleep is definitely in order.

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: sleepy

Three early nights in a row. I should probably mark my calendar. I spent an hour or so in the afternoon literally falling asleep at my desk at work, even though I was working the AVSEC desk (Aviation Security) and was super busy most of the day. The moment I stopped typing or answering the phone, my body kept trying to force me to nap. I don't know what my malfunction is recently, but since I have to go into the office for two more days this week, I need to not be falling asleep at my desk, so I am making a point of going to bed as early as possible.

It's kind of unfortunate, because I'm having to keep my posts short in order to get to bed at a reasonable time, and I actually have a lot more to say! But these days I don't write as quickly as I used to, so taking the time I need to actually write everything down would mean going to bed well past the hour I intend to. I'm off on Friday, though, and have nowhere to go other than a doctor's appointment, so I may attempt a much longer post then to catch up on everything I want to say.

In the meantime, KK finally got the cheque for the money she won from a radio contest in January, which means she was able to pay me back for covering the January rent. I still need to sit down and crunch the numbers for our combined household expenses, because the joint account has been running pretty low lately, and I think we each need to up our contribution in order to stay afloat, which is going to be tricky since neither one of us are exactly swimming in money lately. I also need to print out all of my T4s and other tax documents for next week's appointment with the accountant at H&R Block.

Okay, time for sleep. I promise there will be a more substantive update at some point this week. I'm not sure exactly when, but soon. See you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: tired

KK signed us both up for a two-day retirement planning course that's offered for free to public servants in Canada, and today was the first day. The first day is all about the math: how long you have to work to get a "full" pension and how old you have to be, and what a "full" pension actually means. Honestly, it was pretty depressing, and just confirmed my long-held suspicion that I am going to have to work until I drop dead at my desk like that employee at Wells Fargo last year who died and wasn't even missed for a couple of days and spent the weekend dead at her desk before she was discovered by cleaners on the Monday.

I'll be eligible for my "full" pension by today's normal retirement age of 65 (I might even be eligible a year earlier), but the reduction in salary compared to my current earnings, combined with what I assume will be a skyrocketing cost of living means I will likely never be able to afford to live without working. I'm not currently making enough money to pay our bills AND put aside enough money for retirement. I've put away a modest amount of savings, but they likely wouldn't see me through more than a couple of years as a "top-up" to my pension.

Of course, climate change might kills us all in the next decade, rendering this entirely moot. :P

The course was also stultifyingly dull. Your gal is not a fan of maths, and there were so many numbers. So many. The good news is that KK may get to retire and may even get to enjoy her retirement for a bit before the heat death ot the universe.

After the full day of the retirement course I barely had time to pull together a handful of ingredients to get dinner started before it was time for another meeting. A couple of months ago I was approached by someone from my union who asked if I wanted to be part of the Health and Safety Committee, and I accepted. Today was a bit of a blur because I'm pretty new to the public service and I was still trying to wrap my head around all the procedural stuff surrounding committees and motions and resolutions and the like. Still, it was quite interesting, and I'm looking forward to learning more.

Current Mood: tired

I managed to get to Costco this morning as planned, and was pleasantly surprised to see that not only had they opened early (God, why would you ever subject your employees to that?), but the store was not crammed full of people. I did get routinely hemmed in by two older people somewhere North of retirement age but not by much who seemed to be following me around the store, each with their own cart. At one point I wondered if this was a really weird mob hit against me, because no matter which direction I took, a few moments later they'd catch up to me and park their carts on either side of wherever I was standing, effectively preventing me from moving. I got away from them at checkout by faking going to the regular check-out and then doubling back toward the self check-out instead, like the most prosaic spy movie ever.

I chatted briefly with the lady supervising the self check-out, because she's the wife of my former boss at the RCMP the year I was acting manager, and once that was done I dragged my now very tired self home. I unloaded the groceries, put away the recycling bin and the green bin that were still at the curb because I didn't put them away the night before, and had a little catch-up with KK, who had called in sick to work due to a lingering migraine.

I only ended up getting to sleep by 11:00, and after that I got woken up first by our real estate agent telling us our offer wasn't accepted, so alas, no friend-shaped house for us. There were apparently something like six offers made on the house, which isn't surprising. It was extremely friend-shaped, and multiple people obviously thought so. I slept poorly after that, only to get awoken two hours before my alarm by my father calling me on Skype of all things. Anyway, it turns out my parents were horrified that the friend-shaped house was so far from the city (my parents are very much city mice) and thought it was "an unreasonable option" for me and KK.

For the record, I think it's adorable that my parents think they actually get a say in where KK and I decide to live. They mean well, of course, but I think they occasionally forget that I'm fully a middle-aged person now. I know that reads a lot like "I'm an ADULT and I can make my OWN DECISIONS, MOM!" but that's kind of how it is. I have lived on my own longer than I lived with my parents for a few years now and don't particularly feel the need to get their stamp of approval about my decisions. Do I talk to them about important stuff in my life? Of course! But they're not super in touch with today's reality, so I don't generally ask for advice on what to do about things like job or house hunting.

Anyway, we chatted about house stuff and finances, and then my mother off-handedly mentioned that she'd forgotten her kettle on the stove and from what I understood melted it into slag. Oops. So my father took her out earlier and bought her a new kettle, and I had a little internal freakout because neither one of them seems particularly worried that she nearly burned down their entire condo. I strongly recommended that she start setting a timer on the stove whenever she turns it on, because she seemed convinced that she could somehow willpower her way into being less forgetful. AUGH.

Having aging parents is HARD, y'all. My mother is turning 88 this year, and I'm having some little emotional pangs about watching her very slowly lose tiny bits of herself. She doesn't have dementia or anything like that, but she's getting a little more forgetful, a little more easily confused or overwhelmed by stuff that even five years ago wouldn't have fazed her. My father is still really sharp, but he's starting to dislike driving after dark because he doesn't see as well as he used to. It's all little things, but it sometimes feels like my parents are just blurring along their edges now, slowly fading out of focus as time goes on.

I need to schedule another visit with them soon, probably for my mother's birthday at the beginning of March.

Current Mood: nostalgic

I'd forgotten I posted in January. I thought the last time was sometime last summer, and oddly it makes me feel a little better that I didn't abandon this space as long as I thought I had.

As always, a lot has happened since I last posted. Well, a lot, and also surprisingly little, when you think about it. It feels like a lot to me, but to the outside viewer I assume it looks like not much at all. It's all a matter of perception.

The big news is that I did, indeed, get the puppy I'd been planning on. Her name is Peggy, and she is the best Brittany Spaniel ever. She is exactly 12 weeks old as of today (born March 1st). Here is a picture of her under the cut:
( Peggy! )
University is still chugging along. I am averaging As overall (two A+s, one A, one A-, though that last one I am blaming squarely on the group work), and at the suggestion of one of the university staff I've applied to be allowed to switch over directly to the Masters' program earlier than I had originally intended to do. No word on that application yet, but I'm not worrying about it. Either they accept or they don't, the only thing that will really change is what degree I end up with when the dust settles. Either way I will receive the education I want and be able to go about my business. I am really, really enjoying taking this degree. That and the new puppy are the main things keeping my morale up these days, because work is a fucking shit show that shows no signs of improving. That's a rant for a different day, I think.

I kind of dropped the ball on several of my goals for this year, but I'm still trying. It's been a hell of a thing, trying to keep all my plates spinning, and right now it feels like I am surrounded by broken crockery. I had some unexpected expenses (the car required a trip to the car vet for a new exhaust system, and the actual animal vet bills cost more than anticipated), and my bank account is in the red for the first time in over four years. I'm not broke, or anything, but my available funds are, uh, negligible. With that in mind I've signed up for YNAB (You Need A Budget), which I'm still trying to wrap my head around. It's not super intuitive, but it takes a different approach to budgeting than the traditional one that I've been following, and since tradition has not served me, I figure this is worth a shot. I've been socking money away to pay for the house I want to (hopefully) purchase next year, but if I have no actual available funds to, you know, live on, then the point is moot. I am being melodramatic, of course. Things will balance out a bit over the next two months, but between the vet, the car, school bills (God, tuition is expensive!) and just existing in general, my bank account is deeply unhappy these days. *sigh*

In slightly better news, I've been slowly chipping away at making my current house more livable. I realized after I'd moved in a hurry away from Cruella de Frootloops (many thanks to

blackmare for the nickname!) that I actually really don't like my current place. It's both too big and too small, in that the spaces I use the most often (the kitchen and dining room) are tiny, and everywhere else in the house is way too big. Everything in my kitchen is cramped, I have no pantry, and the cabinets are shallow and poorly designed so that things don't fit well and there is a ton of wasted space. The rest of the space is huge, which makes it a pain in the proverbial ass to clean, and a lot of it is wall to wall beige carpet. BEIGE. Who does that? Who thinks beige is a good idea for carpet? Anyway, between me, the four cats, and two dogs in succession, let's just say the carpets are, uh, not looking great. I will have to have a professional come in and shampoo them to within an inch of their lives before I leave.

So last... Monday? No, Tuesday, I spent a good chunk of the day reorganizing my entire kitchen so I could have better access to the stuff I want to use. It's still tiny and cluttered and difficult to work in, but it's so much better than it was. I actually took quite a bit of time beforehand to visualize what I wanted, and having a clearer vision in mind really helped it come together quickly and efficiently. I am quite proud of myself for that. I also sorted through a bunch of paperwork several weeks ago, but I only got about, I'd say maybe halfway through if I'm being generous, and then I stopped (it was 2 am and I forced myself to go to bed because 2 am is a poor life choice for me) and never got back to it. Partly my not getting back to it is due to having a rambunctious puppy who is not at all house trained yet (alas).

I'm hoping to be able to get back to it in the coming days. I want the room in which all those papers are piled (boxes and boxes worth!) to be emptied and made into a nice, functional space, and I need to put my bedroom and bathroom in some semblance of order. I am going back to Marie Kondo's book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I am still not a fan of the last few chapters of her book, but the overall method does seem to work, so I will overlook her chirpy claims that decluttering will help me get a "slimmer tummy" and get clearer skin so that I can look good for my boyfriend! (Blech.)

[...]

I got interrupted by work, and now I don't at all remember where I was going with this. Oops? The perils of getting older, I guess. ;)

If I manage to remember this time, I will post the rest later, perhaps tonight during my last night shift. Supposing I don't forget again.

Current Mood: tired
Crossposts: https://mousme.livejournal.com/1233676.html

I don't know why I constantly overestimate my level of energy to get things done. I am an eternal optimist, I guess. Anyway, I got a fair bit done this week. I got 95% of my errands done (I forgot a couple of things, because I was silly and didn't make a proper list), I got a tree which I will decorate probably tomorrow evening, I had my therapy appointment and got my blood tests done this morning. All in all, it wasn't too bad.

( Very, VERY boring daily stuff under the cut. )

Current Mood: optimistic
Crossposts: https://mousme.livejournal.com/1233090.html

I'm back to work tonight, after two days of gastro. I started feeling myself again yesterday afternoon, which was a relief, and today I'm pretty much back to normal. So that means heading back to work for my last two night shifts. I am not really looking forward to it, but I suspect that's the perma-anxiety that set in on Monday (after I spoke with my landlady) talking, and not much else. Maybe. I mean, if I won the lottery and never had to go back to work, that'd make me pretty happy too, but still, the malaise is not actually work-related.

I saw the mortgage broker today, and while the news wasn't bad per se, it also wasn't quite what I had hoped for. Basically, no matter which way I slice it, I am not quite ready to buy a house. The broker estimates I could probably swing it in six months, which is encouraging news, but given that most landlords want to sign a 12-month lease, it means I won't be in a position to buy until next summer. So it's back to renting for now, and socking money away until I'm in a position to move permanently into a house of my own.

I finally found a cleaning service (to honour the verbal agreement I have with my landlady), and the girl who came today is excellent, which is a relief. The service that my landlady hired charged almost twice as much as she does and didn't even bother vacuuming under the furniture. So, anyway, it will be nice to have some help around the house. I have mentioned that I am an indifferent housekeeper, so this ought to keep some of the pet hair under control, at the very least. The house is super clean, although I'd been keeping it quite clean myself (albeit not this clean). If I move close enough, I'm hoping I can take her with me. I'll figure out the budget part somehow. Back in Montreal when I was paying half of what I do now in rent (so before I got my own house), I had a cleaning service as well, and I'd forgotten how much easier it makes things overall.

My next steps over the following weeks will be to hopefully get into the shed, now that there's less snow, pull out my boxes, and start packing. I also need to sort out my "office" and the very large bedroom closet that's sort of become a catch-all for stuff. If people are going to be coming by to look at the place, then the hidden spots need to be just as tidy as the not-hidden spots. I know that when I look at places I poke into all the cupboards and closets, so I can expect other people to do that too.

I'm waiting to hear back from my paralegal. She's been in touch with my landlady's lawyer, who appears to be entirely out of the loop concerning her intentions. So once she hears back from the lawyer, she will get in touch with me and update me on things. I'm trying to hope for the best, but given how passive-aggressive and bitchy she was with me on Monday, I am bracing for the worst.

Current Mood: anxious
Crossposts: http://mousme.livejournal.com/1227005.html

I don't think I could possibly catch up on everything that's happened since I last posted here, so I won't even try. That being said, there's stuff coming up that I may want to blog about in more depth, so making a bit of an effort now is in order.

First off, hi LJ Land! I haven't been posting, but I do read everything you write. <3

Anyway, have a bullet-point version of the past few months:

I adopted three new cats in February. It was meant to be two, but then fearsclave was forced to rehome his kitties due to health concerns, and so I got his Maggie as well. Alas, one of the other two cats I got is not integrating into the household, so he will be vacating the premises and going to live with good friends of mine. So far all the cats mostly get along, with some spats and negotiating of territory still happening. Things are settling down slowly but surely.

I am still volunteering in the soup kitchen at Shepherd's (I won't use the full name, because I don't want their media relations people reading all my posts), and have also started volunteering one day a week at their community garden plot, helping to grow and harvest vegetables for the soup kitchen. I still love it, although the work is often physically very demanding.

I went on a trip to Barcelona with my parents in March, which was far too short but truly wonderful. I posted lots of pictures on Facebook, so anyone following me there probably saw them.

The work restructuring continues apace. It is, as I suspected, a PITA, and has resulted in a lot more work being given to much fewer people. Those people are also the ones who are paid the least, not surprisingly. It appears every workplace is the same when it comes to penny pinching: the higher up you are, the less you feel the pinch.

I also managed to escape to PEI for a while this summer, also with my parents. I've joked with them that we've seen more of each other since I moved to Ottawa than in the past five years I lived in Montreal combined. That's not quite true, but they have been making extra efforts to come out and see me (and vice versa!) since I moved.

The past two years of commuting to and from work in Ottawa, as well as trying to run two households on one income, paying for private daycare, and then renovating the house in order to sell it, all took a pretty serious financial toll on me. The short, ugly version is that I accumulated a fair bit of debt in order to do that. So I've been tightening my belt (the two trips notwithstanding, although in both cases my parents were generous enough to pay for almost everything) and looking for extra sources of income. I'm currently trying my hand at being a mystery shopper. It doesn't bring in a fortune, and it's not super great work for someone with anxiety, but I'm hoping it will at least offset some of my monthly bills. Every little bit helps, right? I also need to get my act together and try to sell some of the "extra" furniture that doesn't fit in my new, smaller house.

In happier, not debt-filled news, I have been approved by the Ottawa Children's Aid Society to continue with PRIDE training (Parental Resources for Information, Development, and Education) as well as a home study. The training starts on September 9th, and if all goes well I should be done with everything by the end of October. If I'm approved as a prospective adoptive parents after that, then I get to start the waiting game of being matched up with a child (or maybe children!) in need of a permanent home.

So that's me in a nutshell. I may be using this space to talk about the PRIDE training in September and October, so apologies in advance to everyone who finds that sort of stuff super boring. I promise to put it behind a cut if it gets overly long. :)

I know lots of you have been having a really rough year. I hope you're all keeping as well as possible under the circumstances. *hugs all around*

Current Mood: busy

I don't have anything as exciting as the opera to report about today.

( In which I talk about people not liking what I like. )

Aside from having people actively rain on my parade, I received some promising news at work yesterday. It turns out that another section wants me to come work overtime for them at least once a month. This will put a bit of a crimp in my schedule, but it will pretty much solve many of our financial problems, because a full twelve hour shift at double time is a significant amount of money. It's practically the same amount of money as if I picked up a part-time minimum wage job for 3-4 shifts a week. So at this point I'll just have to take the extra commute/travel time in the name of financial solvency. It's not a done deal yet, I'll only be hearing back for sure on Friday, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I'm also excited at the prospect of doing actual dispatch work again. I like my current job, but it's very technical and very text-based, and I don't get to talk to people very much anymore. It'll be nice to have a headset again and to work with my old dispatching software and deal with more immediate security concerns rather than worry about what level of classification my transmissions need. :)

Tonight I am going out with the lovel

sultrysong. Plans are a little up in the air for now, but I'm hopeful that drinks might be involved.

Current Mood: optimistic

Profile

mousme

Navigation

March 2026

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30	31

Syndicate

Page Summary

Style Credit

Style: Night Sea for Tranquility III by branchandroot

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Apr. 11th, 2026 07:31 am

Corner of Bourbon & Division

Her Words of Wisdom Scratched Into The Door

Entries tagged with finances

March 5th, 2026

January 25th, 2026

January 8th 2026

There will be a more comprehensive update tomorrow

Even my productive days feel unproductive

I got nothing

Habemus Domum!

On today's agenda: only screaming

Meet the new stress, a little different from the old stress

Today is FIRED

It feels later in the week than it is...

I take it back, this will not be a longer post

Early to bed again...

"Oh, you haul sixteen tons and what do you get?"

Sleep is an underrated commodity

Newest of the sporadic updates

The Best-Laid Plans

Back to the grind

Not really catching up...

Slightly less interesting stuff