So, we've been working through a complete budget overhaul, trying to figure out why the account was still being overdrawn, and forming a plan to pay down our (considerable) consumer debt. We finally figured out why the budget wasn't working, and I can't believe it took us so long. Long story short, My Sweetie's truck payments were logged in the ( Read more... )

Tonight is Mom and Mother-in-Law's combined Birthday Dinner. We're a little late this year, because the house wasn't clean in time. It's almost ready, at this point, but My Sweetie has conceived an ambitious project for today: We cannot find the leaf that goes in our kitchen table to make it big enough to seat six, and although we borrowed my Mom's ( Read more... )

So, I've been working on emptying the back bedroom into the living room so we can hopefully do the flooring. It has come to my attention that this is not a project that can be feasibly done and the house returned to some semblance of order before WE are meant to host Harry Potter Club, NEXT SATURDAY ( Read more... )

The emptying of the back bedroom continues apace. In the last few days I've shredded two bankers boxes worth of old bills and bank statements, some of them from as long ago as 2006. Some of them were never opened. This is why I'm mostly in charge of the household's finances now ( Read more... )

The main floor of my house is already considerably less tidy and uncluttered than it was on Sunday. Last week, we had a ditching crew sent by the City turn up on our doorstep. Apparently the City has finally decided it's time to line the sewer lines in our neighbourhood. Considering that we have a small stand of thirsty birch trees in our front ( Read more... )

I may have blogged about this about this time last year. I probably blogged about this about this time last year. My Mom and My Sweetie's Mom share a Birthday, and that Birthday just happens to be Valentine's Day. For the second year in a row, we decided to invite both of them, and my Dad of course, and also my Brother-in-law this year, over for a ( Read more... )

I know I keep saying this, but the repairs/renovations are ALMOST done. They need to put one more coat of paint on the laundry room ceiling and put crown moldings (and my laundry room cabinet!) up, and then it will be DONE. Of course, I have no idea when this will actually be happening. It was supposed to be today, but seeing as it's already 11:00 ( Read more... )

 Drywall in the basement is up, taped, mudded, and primed; it just needs to be painted. The kitchen floor has been replaced. It's beautiful! It was a bit of a project to clear the CONTENTS of the kitchen out so that the floor COULD be replaced, but with the invaluable help of pfc_rat we reorganized, culled, and condensed until (wonder of wonders) only ( Read more... )

Okay, so I've been having little "I hate my house! SO! MUCH!" moments for the last little while. Along with the ongoing renovations (which we thought were in line to be finished by this Friday, but now they won't be because we found additional damage to the flooring in the basement that hasn't even been assessed yet!) we've also been dealing with ( Read more... )

Things have been busy. I actually prewrote this post while I had down-time at work last week, but I haven't gotten around to actually posting it yet. After a year and a half of averaging 2 days a week, I worked every day last week except for Monday. While I'm not complaining, after all work = money, I have to say I'm not used to it. In fact, my ( Read more... )