Thursday PWYC

[Twins' Mom]

Awwwww, ((Harriet & family))

[BookSaver]

Library meeting went a little long, but well. Good discussions, and we accomplished a lot.

Ivy ~ I'm glad you were able to see the bird camera. With the bald eagles, both the mama and papa take turns sitting on the eggs and taking care of the chicks. The male and female look so much alike that since this was the first day I'd looked at them, I couldn't tell which was which. At one point I saw both together on the nest and assumed the larger bird was the male, but they were turned at angles so I couldn't see if there were any distinctive markings to tell them apart.

It's nice that this camera set-up allows an operator to move the camera by remote and also to zoom in and out. Sometimes it's zoomed in and pointed at just the part of the nest where the parent is sitting. Other times they zoom out so you see how large the nest is, and once in awhile a car will go by on the road in the background so you see the perspective of how high up the nest is.

I was lucky enough to catch the parents switching places in the nest, so I was able to see the chick then. It also looked to me as if one of the eggs has a little hole in it, like maybe another chick will hatch.

I read a news article saying that the raptor group was not sure if any of the eggs were going to hatch this year because the weather has been so brutal. They are counting it a huge victory that there is at least 1 chick, and hope it survives.

Nancy ~ Seeing that your dgds want to knit on their break just makes me happy.

Harmony ~ Ouch! I'm sorry that you are so sore. I hope that it's only like starting a new workout, using different muscles that won't hurt as much the next time you go back to weed again.

(((Harriet))) Oh no, poor Sammie.

Now I'm going to have a little snack, and then sew for awhile.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

((((Poor Sammie)))) (((((Harriet, HRH, dd15 and ds29))))

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Harmony: I might be sore tomorrow after working on the car today. I'm feeling it in my shoulders now. Hope you are feeling better tomorrow.

Frustrating phone call with dd tonight. She's set an unrealistic budget and so is going to wait until the first weekend in May and then swoop into town and find a place that they can "afford". She thinks she can find something $500/month less than what I've been looking at!

The thing is, he'll be netting over $4000 per month. They don't own a car so have no car payment, insurance, or gas expenses. They eat modestly, probably no more than $500 a month. They buy clothes used. They buy furniture used. They have no debts. Yet they can't afford $1400 a month for a nice home? The reason is she wants to have lots of money when she retires like we do. But when we were their age, we spent way more of our income on house payments (we didn't rent after she was born.)

We could afford $100K for our first home, paid $105K and managed to make it work. We only had $5K to put down and my dad gave us the second mortgage at first mortgage rates (back then it was 10%.) This house was slightly better since we sold the first house for $132K and had more of a down payment. My dad asked to take the mortgage later on and we let him until we had paid things down enough that we could manage with a line of credit rather than a mortgage. Of course, we worked hard to pay the house off fast, and then didn't spend the money we had been spending on housing, we simply saved from that point on. We also had car loans during that time (and two cars to keep on the road.) We didn't start paying cash for cars until after the house was paid off.

Dd doesn't remember all that, she just remembers the savings we did once we had paid off the house. So she feels saving 25% of your income is a reasonable thing to do. It was for us then, because we didn't have to pay a mortgage but when we first started out, I was lucky if we saved 3% a year.

I can't get this through her head. She is so stubborn and won't believe what anyone is telling her. I can hear her dh in the background and his frustration. My guess is that because she has no control over getting pregnant, she's become obsessed with having control over money instead.

[Cowinkie]

Harriet...

Twins took the words right out of my mouth... Hugs

[Dove]

Praying for your sweet Sammie, dHarriet. (((Harriet & family)))

[Ivy]

(((((Harriet & Dfamily))))) & Sweet Sammie, too. ♥

Booksaver, the Bird Cam is fun to watch.

Harmony & Kathryn, Hoping you're not as sore tomorrow.

I showered to slippers after watching "Parenthood." GR8 episode!

Goodnight, Everyone & sweet dreams, too!