An Exciting Weekend
Friday, I went to begrudgingly pay the bills... it was Jordan's first pay period (half his new "normal" pay)... and I was horribly excited to have received the rest of our tax return!
So, I was able to take care of a lot of bills I'd been worried about-- we paid off the car insurance, paid the stupid quarterly HOA fee, made another big payment on the refrigerator-- which we should have paid off in 2-months-- WHEW! We went to CostCo and stocked up on necessities like TP, cat litter, laundry detergent, etc (because I stock up on those things-- they're like gold!) Then we bought a ladder and a ceiling fan for the master bedroom, which Jordan installed last night. It was the first night I'd had restful sleep since the weather started to heat back up, since we hadn't been turning on the air conditioning.
The plan for today was to go get a new tire for Jordan's motorbike, buy a shovel and a pistachio tree for the dirt that is our weed-filled back yard. Yes, I'm working on pulling the weeds... which reminds me of my retarded HOA-- let me go on that tangent for a little bit here.
I've been pulling weeds every weekend for the past 3-weeks. Last week, we sprayed pre-emergent in the front yard. Wednesday, we got a letter from the HOA about weeds in our yard. This makes me think that they just do a mass-mailer... because what stupid person would send us a weed notice when there are maybe 5 deceased, TINY weeds in our front yard?! While our neighbors have enough weeds to say they have a lawn in the front yard! Anyway, I'm not doing a thing about that stupid weed notice. They can kiss it. In the meantime, I've been working at pulling weeds in the back yard for the past 2-weeks. I've filled up 4 grocery bags of weeds... and I'm only about half done with the little 40x18-foot space. They're all tiny weeds and they all came up about the same time. We don't want to spray back there either because we're planning on landscaping soon.... Sooo... it's taking a bit of time to keep the yard weed free. Anyway... working on the weed-thing... so, like I said, the HOA can suck it. Besides, if they want to get in a pissing contest over the weeds, I could complain about the Bermuda Grass in the right-of-way area that's encroaching on the 2-foot area behind back-of-curb that I'm supposed to weed or the weedy wash. Their lack of weed treatment is encroaching on my land! Bwahahaha! (I probably won't bother with the whole dealie-o)
Back on track... the tire. I followed Jordan to the motorbike store. His motorbike quite literally DIED pulling into the lot. It was sputtering and backfiring all the way to the motorbike store. He asked about replacing the front tire-- $100-ish-- and was going to see about getting it serviced to fix the apparent electrical difficulties. But, they weren't going to be able to install the tire 'till Tuesday and they couldn't look at his bike 'till April 15th for service anyway. So... Jordan would be motorcycle-less 'till Mid-April anyway.
The thought of having to pay for service on the bike plus parts... and not knowing the cost 'till Mid-April was not appealing to me. So I say to Jordan-- you know, we could just trade in your Suzuki Savage. We have the money (the delicious tax return... and Jordan's new job, which pays waaaaay more than he was making before)... I told him to think about it... and, we both knew it was pretty good timing to buy a bike for him... and he'd been looking at this one 2009 custom Kawasaki Vulcan with orange and silver pin-striping for a while... We still owed about $1000 on the Savage so... what would happen if we traded it in...? Well, we found someone to help us... and... eventually bought the motorbike.
Afterwards, we went to buy my pistachio tree... but the nursery was closed. I was bummed about that... but Jordan was still pretty jazzed so we drove over to show his 'rents the "new tire". Jordan called his dad to tell him we wanted to show him the new tire we bought for the bike. He told us later that he was trying to figure out how to get jazzed over a "new tire"... but when he saw it came attached to a new motorbike, his enthusiasm really picked up. It was pretty funny-- Hey! That's not just a new tire!
Jordan and I left his 'rents place to go to Lowe's and buy another ceiling fan-- but by the time we dropped the bike off at our house and went to Lowe's, we didn't have much time to look at fans. Jordan and I picked out some extendy shower heads-- the kind with the cords-- because I'd been DYING to have one as they make cleaning showers easier... and, let's face it, they also make showering together easier. We bought one for each shower. (Jordan had them BOTH installed in 10-minutes! He's so handy!) WE also bought one more ceiling fan... but couldn't decide on the fans for the smaller rooms and we couldn't decide whether we wanted to put the larger fan in the loft or not... and Lowe's was closing by then... so we left with the shovel, 2 shower heads, and the one fan.
By then, it was late and I was super grumpy. Jordan wanted to go to "the last night of karaoke" with his buddies... which basically meant he wanted to show off his motorbike. Though, he did say he'd stay home for me. I didn't have the heart to steal that thunder. He was a doll and did some housework before leaving.
I'm a little bummed about the tree... but I'll get over it. I'm also bummed because we were planning on seeing that "How to Train a Dragon" movie tonight... but by the time we got home for real, it was too late and I was too cranky-pants. Ah, well.
I DO need to finish my whole 3D-Yard model... of my backyard design. Though, we do have other projects can be working on completing-- the garage, more closet storage... I need to sew curtains... and I'd like to do something about the bay window to the back yard. SooOoO... there are other fish to fry before we do the back yard. WE figured out tonight that the block I like will cost about $800 for 2 pallets of block. Ugh... and then back-fill soil... and then plants... I might have to settle for less-than what I wanted to do to the yard. We'll see. Maybe I'll do it in stages... start with the tree. Then, do the wall... then landscape it piece-meal. We have lots of time.
Anyway, I was excited that we weren't poor kids anymore. I'm still excited... but I'm less excited because the motorbike took a big bite into my "playtime" budget. At least in buying the motorbike, Jordan can't hound me about a TV... and he won't hound me about fixing his computer... because we spent that money on a bike. Don't worry... as soon as the 'fridge is paid off, we can start in on that other stuff... whew! I think the thing I have the most difficulty with is the wait. Always waiting to do things... I can't seem to make enough money to cover everything. Ah, well. If I worked more hours, I'd never have time to do anything.
So exciting.
So, I was able to take care of a lot of bills I'd been worried about-- we paid off the car insurance, paid the stupid quarterly HOA fee, made another big payment on the refrigerator-- which we should have paid off in 2-months-- WHEW! We went to CostCo and stocked up on necessities like TP, cat litter, laundry detergent, etc (because I stock up on those things-- they're like gold!) Then we bought a ladder and a ceiling fan for the master bedroom, which Jordan installed last night. It was the first night I'd had restful sleep since the weather started to heat back up, since we hadn't been turning on the air conditioning.
The plan for today was to go get a new tire for Jordan's motorbike, buy a shovel and a pistachio tree for the dirt that is our weed-filled back yard. Yes, I'm working on pulling the weeds... which reminds me of my retarded HOA-- let me go on that tangent for a little bit here.
I've been pulling weeds every weekend for the past 3-weeks. Last week, we sprayed pre-emergent in the front yard. Wednesday, we got a letter from the HOA about weeds in our yard. This makes me think that they just do a mass-mailer... because what stupid person would send us a weed notice when there are maybe 5 deceased, TINY weeds in our front yard?! While our neighbors have enough weeds to say they have a lawn in the front yard! Anyway, I'm not doing a thing about that stupid weed notice. They can kiss it. In the meantime, I've been working at pulling weeds in the back yard for the past 2-weeks. I've filled up 4 grocery bags of weeds... and I'm only about half done with the little 40x18-foot space. They're all tiny weeds and they all came up about the same time. We don't want to spray back there either because we're planning on landscaping soon.... Sooo... it's taking a bit of time to keep the yard weed free. Anyway... working on the weed-thing... so, like I said, the HOA can suck it. Besides, if they want to get in a pissing contest over the weeds, I could complain about the Bermuda Grass in the right-of-way area that's encroaching on the 2-foot area behind back-of-curb that I'm supposed to weed or the weedy wash. Their lack of weed treatment is encroaching on my land! Bwahahaha! (I probably won't bother with the whole dealie-o)
Back on track... the tire. I followed Jordan to the motorbike store. His motorbike quite literally DIED pulling into the lot. It was sputtering and backfiring all the way to the motorbike store. He asked about replacing the front tire-- $100-ish-- and was going to see about getting it serviced to fix the apparent electrical difficulties. But, they weren't going to be able to install the tire 'till Tuesday and they couldn't look at his bike 'till April 15th for service anyway. So... Jordan would be motorcycle-less 'till Mid-April anyway.
The thought of having to pay for service on the bike plus parts... and not knowing the cost 'till Mid-April was not appealing to me. So I say to Jordan-- you know, we could just trade in your Suzuki Savage. We have the money (the delicious tax return... and Jordan's new job, which pays waaaaay more than he was making before)... I told him to think about it... and, we both knew it was pretty good timing to buy a bike for him... and he'd been looking at this one 2009 custom Kawasaki Vulcan with orange and silver pin-striping for a while... We still owed about $1000 on the Savage so... what would happen if we traded it in...? Well, we found someone to help us... and... eventually bought the motorbike.
Afterwards, we went to buy my pistachio tree... but the nursery was closed. I was bummed about that... but Jordan was still pretty jazzed so we drove over to show his 'rents the "new tire". Jordan called his dad to tell him we wanted to show him the new tire we bought for the bike. He told us later that he was trying to figure out how to get jazzed over a "new tire"... but when he saw it came attached to a new motorbike, his enthusiasm really picked up. It was pretty funny-- Hey! That's not just a new tire!
Jordan and I left his 'rents place to go to Lowe's and buy another ceiling fan-- but by the time we dropped the bike off at our house and went to Lowe's, we didn't have much time to look at fans. Jordan and I picked out some extendy shower heads-- the kind with the cords-- because I'd been DYING to have one as they make cleaning showers easier... and, let's face it, they also make showering together easier. We bought one for each shower. (Jordan had them BOTH installed in 10-minutes! He's so handy!) WE also bought one more ceiling fan... but couldn't decide on the fans for the smaller rooms and we couldn't decide whether we wanted to put the larger fan in the loft or not... and Lowe's was closing by then... so we left with the shovel, 2 shower heads, and the one fan.
By then, it was late and I was super grumpy. Jordan wanted to go to "the last night of karaoke" with his buddies... which basically meant he wanted to show off his motorbike. Though, he did say he'd stay home for me. I didn't have the heart to steal that thunder. He was a doll and did some housework before leaving.
I'm a little bummed about the tree... but I'll get over it. I'm also bummed because we were planning on seeing that "How to Train a Dragon" movie tonight... but by the time we got home for real, it was too late and I was too cranky-pants. Ah, well.
I DO need to finish my whole 3D-Yard model... of my backyard design. Though, we do have other projects can be working on completing-- the garage, more closet storage... I need to sew curtains... and I'd like to do something about the bay window to the back yard. SooOoO... there are other fish to fry before we do the back yard. WE figured out tonight that the block I like will cost about $800 for 2 pallets of block. Ugh... and then back-fill soil... and then plants... I might have to settle for less-than what I wanted to do to the yard. We'll see. Maybe I'll do it in stages... start with the tree. Then, do the wall... then landscape it piece-meal. We have lots of time.
Anyway, I was excited that we weren't poor kids anymore. I'm still excited... but I'm less excited because the motorbike took a big bite into my "playtime" budget. At least in buying the motorbike, Jordan can't hound me about a TV... and he won't hound me about fixing his computer... because we spent that money on a bike. Don't worry... as soon as the 'fridge is paid off, we can start in on that other stuff... whew! I think the thing I have the most difficulty with is the wait. Always waiting to do things... I can't seem to make enough money to cover everything. Ah, well. If I worked more hours, I'd never have time to do anything.
So exciting.