I've been busy!
The last couple of days have certainly been busy ones. The most important thing was getting all of the income statements for Iron Pony and Wildhorse Bowling into the accounting software so that I could calculate the PST due. I completed the bowling alley's part last night, but I had some concerns with the numbers it was giving me. I slept on it, but I awoke at 4:45am when my brain refused to shut up and let me get any more sleep. I got up, showered, and ran the numbers again until I found where the issues were. Part of the problem was that we had done the previous years' taxes manually, so the computer didn't have them recorded yet and was trying to cram three years worth of PST into one statement! Once I got that straightened out, the rest of it flowed nicely. Everything has been calculated, everything has been paid, and there's still a few (very few) dollars left in the accounts. I just hope we get more customers before the electric-bill comes due at the end of the month!
Iron Pony got a lot of business in the last couple of months. According to the computer, there was more than $1600 worth of work done in the last quarter, and I just sent Sears a bill for over $1k on Monday. I'm still waiting to hear back from the appraisers about the new shop, but I'm really hoping to get moved in there soon! My biggest slowdown in the winter is that it's just too cold to take on more work, but the heated shop will eliviate that problem.
The snow has been continuing to build up, and I got stuck three times on Monday! The Explorer is supposed to be a 4x4, but that option hasn't worked since I bought it. Without the front wheels engaging, it's pretty easy to get stuck, and stuck hard! It could be something as simple as a loose wire, but until I get the new shop, there's just no room in the current shop to take it in there to have a look at it. Plus, right now, there's so much snow in the way that I couldn't get it over to the shop if I wanted to! The driveway was getting to be a real problem as well, and with my own snow-blower on the blink (ironic, ain't it?), there was nothing to do but shovel it out manually! The driveway is a couple hundred feet long, and about 15' wide, so it's a pretty large area to clear. I spent a few hours on Tuesday shovelling it from the highway towards the house, piling up the snow on the side to make walls, and even larger piles at the end to make markers so that we can see where the driveway is from the highway. I only got about half-way to the house when I finally had to call it quits for the day. The next day |(Weds) I handed the Kidling the snow-shovel, and told him to get to it.
I was expecting that I'd have to re-do whatever little bit of work he'd do, but he surprised me! He was out there for about two hours while I was plugging data into the computer, and I only got to see his handiwork when we went to feed the horses. I was expecting to see very little difference, but he had actually cleared the driveway at least as well as I had done, building up the burms on either side, and actually getting to the area just behind where the cars were parked. I had to admit (and I did!) that I was very surprised and impressed! I wish he would put this kind of effort into everything else he does! He's still grounded for the recent episode, but at least he's finally working his way out of the hole he dug for himself. Speaking of the Kidling... The school goon threw a shoe at him last week, and literally smashed his glasses off! The school's response is to not allow him to have recess breaks. What about us? It's going to cost over $200 to replace those glasses, and trying to get the money from the kid's deadbeat ex-con dad is a waste of effort. I tried to mend them, but Crazy-Glue won't work on them. Trixstir is going to take them back to the Optometrist to see if they can repair them. I do have an insurance policy on the Kidling that's supposed to cover this sort of thing, but of course there's going to be a deductible, and lots of red-tape to go through. I want to see if we can't mend them first before going for the insurance. Frankly, the goon that smashed them needs more than just "no recess" for a while. Suspending him from school (he terrorizes other kids too, not just the Kidling) isn't an option, because for him it's more of a reward than a punishment. :/ Every school has to have at least one kid like that, I guess - I'm sure we can all remember kids like that growing up.
I was finally able to order that storage rack from Staples! Just the the helluvit, I tried again yesterday to see if they finally had some in stock. The sale had ended, but a new sale was on, and now the thing was on for $50 off instead of $35! I clicked on it, and the response came back that it was sold out! The sale was only a couple hours old, how could they be sold out already?! Then I remembered the Email I had sent them, and I wondered if they had bothered to reply. I checked my Email (I only get to check it very rarely these days - just no time!) and they had responded! Apparently, the reason that the site keeps saying that the item is out of stock, is because it exceeds the weight limit for the "free shipping" to our area, so instead of just saying so, they say that it's out of stock instead! What kind of idiot designed that system?!?! If they had told me that in the first place, I would have had it shipped to a store to pick it up! On the advice from the response, I called their 1-800 number to talk to a live person.
It took about half an hour to get all the information down properly, since even the guy I was talking to was having trouble convincing the computer to ship it to the store! It seems that the Staples store in Swift Current isn't considered big or important enough, so they won't ship to that store. It would have to go to Regina or Saskatoon. I had it shipping to Calgary instead (which is actually where their shipping hub is, which means that they would have had to drive right past the Swift Current store to ship it to Regina!) and made arrangements for Mom to pick it up. I wonder how many other sales they've lost because their website can't (or won't) tell the difference between an item being out of stock, and not being able to ship to a particular destination?
So that's been the last few days. I'm in the kitchen typing this on a laptop, as it's so darn cold downstairs that my feet were freezing. There's a strong wind blowing from the South, and it's blowing its icy fingers through all the cracks and crannies in the house. I'd really like to get the upgrades done (roof, siding, doors, windows) but it's going to be a while before I have that kind of cash to spare. Once again, I'm praying that Iron Pony proves to be as sucessful in reality as it plots out on paper! If it does, I could be back in the black in just a few short years. Otherwise, well, I'd rather not dwell on that just now...