Last weekend was beautiful with temperatures hitting 60 and lots of sunshine. So of course this week was dreary, windy, and depressing. Yay! In any case, last Friday we went to Willie Beamon’s for an early dinner since we both managed to sneak out a bit early from work and were able to get there before it got too busy. Not too smoky and not too crowded. The food is as good as ever and they’ve started to add a piece of candy on your plate. I found that kind of strange, but whatever. Maybe someone’s kid got way too much Halloween candy and they’re trying to get rid of it.
After dinner we headed to Menards. It pains me to say this, but I went to Menards every day last weekend. Every. Day. Anyway, on this first trip we picked up new faucets for the bathrooms. Yes, I know, why didn’t we just do this when the kitchen faucet was replaced the weekend before? Who knows. We’re stupid. In any case, we got similar models for the two bathrooms which Adam and his dad installed Saturday morning.
After a search for compression nuts that led to Oshkosh (and which we ended up NOT NEEDING – and returning them was my reason for going to Menards on Saturday) we got home to hungry kitties and some TV.
Saturday morning I did some shopping while Adam and his dad worked on the aforementioned plumbing project. I finally got new shoes and so far they’re ok. We’ll see if my feet adjust to them enough for me to not want to throw them away. I also got a pair of sandals for work for the summer since the ones I got last year have no heel and I was constantly in fear of tripping and breaking my ankle. I had to stop wearing them after a month or so because I was so worried I’d walk down the aisle in a wedding dress and a walking cast. Heh. With Rogan’s BOGO 50% deal I spent about the same as I would have at DSW or Famous Footwear so I can’t complain too much. Well, I can, but I won’t.
Sunday morning we watched No Country for Old Men. I suppose it’s a good movie, but it’s really not my kind of thing. Too much blood, violence, and scary parts. I’m such a wuss. Just ask Adam how many times I jumped. We then headed to Menards (again!) to order our windows and get a new mailbox. And the rest of the lawn fertilizer. So when we got home we ate lunch and set to work putting up the new mailbox. It wasn’t too complicated I suppose. I didn’t really do much. I raked up leaves, pulled up some of the rotted wood, and stood next to the pole holding the level and looking pretty. Anyway, it’s up and looks pretty good.
It’s definitely huge. The rest of the afternoon and evening were pretty uneventful. We went to bed pretty early. As in Adam was snoring during "Family Guy". Oh well.
We took down the rest of the plastic on the windows and put the screens back in the bay window in the living room. Hopefully the cats can restrain themselves from climbing up them this year. We opened windows on Sunday and I believe we even had the heat off for most of the weekend. The cats made the most of the open window sills.
I turned it back on on Monday since it was only 58 in the house. The temperature was still dropping outside and while I know that cats have fur and everything, I still don’t want to torture them too much. Adam put the first step of fertilizer out last Sunday morning and seems to have had perfect timing. He got it out before it got too windy and it rained overnight. Woo. Now we wait for the grass to get greener and leaves to start showing. There is something sprouting over on the side of the house by the garage and our neighbor said she thinks they’re tulips. I thought we tore everything up, but I guess it’s like in Jurassic Park – life finds a way. I also had to stop for a duck this past week on my way to work. It was a female, just moseying across the street. Aah, signs of spring. Wonderful.
I finally got into April on Thursday. It was a rough month/quarter-end. And I’m not even really sure why. My stuff all went pretty smoothly and I was sitting around, waiting for almost two days to get word that things were final so I could do my final reports and finish up some quarterlies. I don’t know what happened during that two days but at least this time we weren’t all looking for an inventory error when it turned out to be a sales error. (Ahem. Long story. Don’t ask.) I finished my final quarterly report this morning (I still do some consolidation stuff for corporate) so now I can fully concentrate on getting my April stuff started. And working on Shelbyville’s tax book (Yes, that’s Shelbyville, TN, and no, I’ve never worked for them. Don’t ask me why I’m doing their tax book. Even I haven’t figured that out yet.) Which was due March 31st. Yeah. Good stuff.
Anyway, outside of the circus called “work” things have been pretty laid back. Handbells is back to normal, having not had a cancelled practice in over a month now! We play next Sunday morning and then once more on Mother’s Day. Adam and I were supposed to go to a Timber Rattlers game on Tuesday since he won free tickets and parking through work but it was sleeting/raining/snowing (aah!)
so we passed on that experience and stayed home instead. Wednesday Adam fired up the grill and cooked up some brats. Last night we watched another Oscar movie – The Bourne Ultimatum. I’m looking back now and it seems I forgot to mention we watched Eastern Promises sometime last week as well. Both movies weren’t really my thing. Too much pointless violence and stupid action sequences. What bugged me the most about The Bourne Ultimatum was the fact that it looked like the camera guy had Parkinson’s. Seriously shaky. Eastern Promises sounded good on the blurb on the package but was a lot less interesting than I anticipated. It did have that whole naked fighting scene everyone was talking about though. Meh. I’m doing pretty well on the Oscar list so far – 12 of 34 done.
Tonight depends on the weather. It’s been raining nonstop since yesterday afternoon. Our sump pump went on for the first time since we’ve been here last night and was on nonstop all night. This morning at like 5:30 Adam was down in the basement checking it out since it seemed to go on every two minutes. Turns out the sump pump installed was too small for the pit we have. It would most likely have burned itself out if he hadn’t gotten a new (bigger) one and replaced it this morning.
Luckily he had vacation today anyway but I’m not sure that’s what he expected to do with his free time. He also got some flexible hosing and extended the pipe out to the road so we weren’t just pumping the same water out over and over.
Everyone in the neighborhood has flooded yards and parts of Cty A are water-covered as well.
And it’s still raining. And it’s supposed to rain for the next week straight. Argh. So far, so good in the leaky basement department though. The leak over in the back corner that was patched last summer is just fine and there’s only one other small leak by the furnace that drains right into the floor drain like it should. It doesn’t bother anything but we still plan to take care of it this weekend.
Anyway, if it continues raining we’ll probably stay home and watch tv or a movie. If it lightens up a little we’ll get our grocery shopping in early. Tomorrow I have some other shopping to take care of (cat food! Woo!) and then we plan to go see Smart People at the theater.
And now on to something completely different…
Despite the tanking of the market, my 401(k) recently exceeded the $15,000 mark. Woo. It’s still pretty depressing that my ROR for the year is -8.3%. Ugh. Thankfully the company did decently last year so the profit sharing contribution for 2007 was around 4%. Otherwise my balance would almost be less than my ’07 year-end amount. That’s painful. Come on stock market. Fund my retirement!
In other monetary news, we got the rebalancing of our escrow accounts a few weeks ago. They didn’t increase by quite as much as I expected so that’s nice. I’ve already adjusted my direct deposit amounts so it will be ready for the first higher payment on May 1st. I also called Associated and bumped up the additional principal payment to get to an even total amount. We got all our insurance renewal notices recently and our auto went down a total of something like $20 (for 6 months.) Gnarly. Homeowner’s stayed the same. I think. I’m not sure since it changed when my marital status changed and I just got a pro-rated refund.
With the elimination of my $330 a month car payment (have I mentioned “woo”?) hopefully we’ll be able to take care of some of the seasonal stuff that’s been popping up and will continue over the next few months. Like the lawn stuff. And the pricier than anticipated windows. Between Adam’s anticipated upcoming quarterly bonus (he tells me he should max out again) and that federal refund hopefully we’ll be able to take care of the windows along with some of the remaining credit card balances.
Speaking of which, in the last week I’ve gotten notices from two of my cards telling me my credit lines have been increased. I also received a coupon from my Chase Rewards card for $10 off at Lowe’s and a coupon from the Citi card we used for the Lowe’s balance transfer for $10 off at Sears. Strange.
This concludes your "In the Life of Martha" monster blog post. Hopefully I can get around to posting in more regular, manageable post sizes in the future. :)
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