SHEs Organized

Hello everybody!
LadyM, good success with bathroom construction. We are always extra cautious when there are children around.

Molly's Nana, do you often help your dparents? That's very nice of you!

It is the end of the month and the end of the quarter so I am busy with the bookkeeping. I am about half way through. Have a new-ish system because last year I messed things up twice and had to put in corrected forms. It took 5 months to get checks back from that. Of course, the gov't can be slow with us, but we better never be slow with them! I guess Booksaver and I are working together today!

Woke really early, as I do often...and got up. But DH was into a bunch of computer stuff, downloading some updates and I just got really nervous about what he was trying to do, so I just came back to bed and shut the door. If I get all nervous and upset so early in the morning I often have a very bad day. I did go back to sleep and slept hard for 2 more hours.

I slept in till six today. S2s x I have done my journal and dumped trash gwtt7ng ready for trash day Tues. With the curtians closed tried on clothes while catching up on a net flick show.

Our internet seems fine this a.m. The guy called at 11:50 and dh told him it was fine, so not to come. Hope that doesn't come back to bite him......

Dsisil was released from the hospital last night around 8. I remember the days when if you weren't released by 11 a.m., you were a patient for another day. Times keep a changin'.

Hi everyone! Here is the good thing for the morning: I got to sleep in later. The bad thing: because I had to drive in rather than take the train. The worse thing: because I may have to return the rental car tonight. The super-serious-really-spectacularly-bad thing: I am driving a rental because my car caught fire Saturday. This afternoon, I will need to get in touch with the mechanic to find out why (prime suspect = air compressor).

The most important home things I need to get done (not necessarily all tonight):

• Write letter to Enterprise praising the agents that helped me with my rental
• Plumbing
• Webwork/research for church

I have not had a chance to make my week plan and organize it. I am sure there will be lots more for me to do. At payroll I have some easy tasks that carried over from last week - training videos (but training on something interesting). I have a couple of meetings scheduled, including one this afternoon. While that sounds like a do-nothing week, the meeting this afternoon will probably fill my task list.

Glad your dsisil got out, Lilac! Remember dmom's episode -- didn't get out till 4:00 pm? * whew *

Hope Mr. Helia feels better soon. Lots of travelers dealing with sickness here.
Also hope dd feels better soon, too, helia! Ugh -- dentist when you feel great is bad enough!

Well... the pool table man finally called back. Good grief... it is probably going to run us close to $1000 to manage this -- just taking the table apart at ds's house, moving here, storing here till our garage is renovated, and then having them come back and reassemble the table. And that $1000 doesn't even touch the cost of renovating the garage.
Harmony -- it is a stand alone -- unattached to the house -- two-car garage. It has two garage doors and a regular door, stairs to the second floor, and windows on each end on the second floor. The studs still show, etc. downstairs. We need it closed in and insulated, flooring put in, etc...
* sheesh *

BUT. The fact remains, the table simply has to be moved from ds's house. If we decide it is not worth the added expense to set it up here, at least it will be in pieces and maybe we can sell it to someone for some kind of price, once it is in pieces and a little easier to move.

Anyway... to get to the rest of my day.
Last night I was really down on myself plus worried about a million things, but now it's Monday and I have my ususal beginning of the week zeal.
I have already done my 5-min exercise, dressed to shoes, s/s all toilets, ate breakfast, and talked to the pool table man.
Need to call the movers, do Bible reading, and do walk away the pounds.

One thing from last night -- did y'all see my question about outdoor patio furniture cushions? If I just leave them out all the time, they will get rained on and yucky, I'm afraid, but it gets really tiresome, running out to put them in the carport everytime a cloud appears in the sky.
How do y'all manage outdoor cushions?

Editing to say I did walk * 2 miles outdoors, go me * and talked to the Lord about all this * stuff * spinning around in my head...
and then talked to dmom, who is frustrating me beyond belief.

* skippable rant *
SHE is frustrated w/ds, who is frustrated with HER.
Dmom wants this glass curio cabinet from dmil's house, approx. 7'x3'? wood frame, but glass on 3 sides w/mirror on the fourth side.
DS and DH just do NOT want to try to move it to her house. DS says it is extremely heavy, and they are both afraid it will break in transport.
They want professional movers. One gave me price of $99 an hour. Waiting on others to call.
Dmom also wants a china cabinet and mattress and box springs moved to my dgmother's house. This is all within approx. a ten-mile radius, three houses, 4 items to be moved.
Dmom says this is just "stupid beyond words" to pay these people $99 an hour when she has a flatbed trailer of her own. I said, but... when are you going to get dcousins/dfriend/etc to do this for you, and what if they do break it, etc. etc. Finally told her dh said HE would pay the movers if she wouldn't. * sheesh *
I hate for her to ask dcousins to do it when dh & ds don't want to... and it is just "stupid beyond words" to me that she is taking so long to do this.
OTOH, she is frustrated b/c her floors have not been completed yet, and she is using the man we use -- but we did NOT encourage her to use him, btw -- and she would really like to have the floors DONE before the furniture is moved. * sheesh *

Lucylee, your garage sounds really nice. Are you going to put that pool table upstairs? I guess you do pull your vehicles into the garage... if the table is going upstairs, do make sure your floor will take that weight. In deciding if you should spend that much money on the table, how much will it get used?

The outdoor cushions is something I always wondered about too. I would get bins to store them in..they have some really big deck bins I've seen people have them to store all their pool paraphernalia in. I see them building all these outdoor rooms on HG TV and D IY, and I always wonder about that...supposedly they are ok in the weather, but I wonder. Also, how old are these ones and where did your DMiL store them?

I have the kind of outdoor furniture which does not have extra cushions, just a piece of outdoor material attached to the frame. I do hose them off and they are just as nice as when we got them 15 yrs ago. I think hiring the moving is the best idea. What if your DH or your DS or Cousins would hurt themselves moving this heavy stuff? How much would that cost in lost work and medical?

I have one more thing to do at my desk but I am burned out and going to stop. It took a bunch of time this quarter because I had to print off all new forms...and we had a bunch of payroll this time.

Lucylee: I remember being thrilled I got anything for my pool table! As for outdoor cushions, I had plastic covers (from walmart) over them. The only tricky part is that I'd sometimes get them wet when the water would run off the cover as I removed it. I still liked that look better than 'naked' furniture.

It is after dinner here. I'm tired but running two loads of laundry before bed. Got the last two open machines (two others opened up moments later but this late I hate any delays. Hope dryers are open when I go back to empty the machines.

The day wasn't a total success. We were on a Voluntourism tour (you go volunteer for a charity) but it was just an explanation of the charity, no actual work involved. Which was interesting but not what I went to do. Can't complain though, I got to see about 70 km inland (it was a long bus ride) and the tour was free. The scenery was stunning and the guide was excellent. She was singing to us in Zulu and was doing the clicking sounds that are part of the language but not stopping the note she was holding. We have no idea how she does that!

The SOS Children's Village was interesting but there were few children there because it is a school day. The passengers rebelled and insisted on staying until after children were home from school. So we got back to the ship 90 minutes later than planned. Thankfully, I had brought a box of Cheerios with me so had something to eat once we were back on the bus. (I'm not eating things like sandwiches while on tours now.)

The attitude of some of the passengers towards the charity was upsetting. For instance, they have a lawn service which some objected to since there are teenage boys living in the village. Except the boys have very long days and time for mowing isn't available. Not to mention other issues, like still having to own and maintain the equipment for the boys to use. One decided that the homes were far too nice and decided not to give the gifts he had brought since these kids had enough. They have shelter and food (they are fed on $50 per month) and their school fees are covered but there isn't a lot of money going around. And luxuries like a tv (for the house, not for the kid) are not included - the house mother has to figure out ways for the kids to pull together to earn money for things like that. Others refused to give their gifts unless they could see them being received by the children.

Of course, I'm a bit jaded because I heard someone scoff that my gifts (coloured pencils, art pads, and three games that don't need electricity or batteries or English) were in a bag from Target. Apparently it is gauche to shop there (but not to talk about how much you bargained down the woman selling 'crafts' at the port parking lot, sitting out in the sun all day long, being whipped by sand or having her goods drenched by a rain shower. There was no way I cared who got what I donated, I figured the director would be able to direct the items to those with the greatest need. I didn't need a personal thank you or to see a smile.

It seems that the people least likely to understand that to give charity isn't to make the giver feel better but to help the receiver were the ones on the tour. Their attitude ruined the day for me.

As well, the few children who did come home from school earlier than usual (teenagers because it is exam period) were expected to perform for us. Which they obviously weren't comfortable doing.

The most redeeming part of the tour was unplanned. The table magician was with us and he did a few tricks with the kids. They had never seen closeup magic before and their reaction was priceless. When I thanked him after on the bus (after all, we had pressed him to perform just as the youth had been pressed) he replied that he loved doing it and he was probably the luckiest of us on the tour.

How could the tour been better? Perhaps with a map of the world and us marking where we lived so they could see where people had come from, just to visit them. That might give them a better sense of global village and global family. Perhaps by having the youth serve us the tea and cakes so that they could talk with us one on one, instead of addressing a group.

We saw the actual Children's Village which is a group of 15 homes, each with up to 7 children and a 'mom.' These are orphans but not ones with HIV/AIDS as they are not set up to deal with those in health crisis. The children come between birth and age 8 (any older than that and they'll be scarred too much for a family setting to help) although family groups are kept together. The children don't leave until they have a job and a home on their own, they stay part of the Village until then. (That's another whine I heard, "Since when is a 19 year old a child?" so I pointed out the flaw with the US foster system that tosses kids out without support at age 18.) There are 115 children there now, with capacity but not funding for 160.

We also visited a second program, in a 'township', supporting 339 children in the community. We saw the community garden, the 'fast food' mobile food truck that serves meals and saw the queue to see the health worker at the clinic. These orphaned children have homes deemed acceptable to raise them but provides support. This group includes those with HIV/AIDS.

The clueless in our group, circulated amongst the children awaiting medical treatment handing out candy to them. That made me ill.

At this point, I'm pleased there are only three more days to spend with these people. Which isn't the best way to spend the end of one's holiday.

We got back to the ship and I had an apple with peanut butter while icing my knees, then afternoon tea to help compensate for no lunch. Dinner was turkey and was very good but I skipped dessert since I had cakes at tea-time.

The entertainment tonight was Liar's Club and was entertaining.

Laundry should be done soon (I flipped the loads while writing this) and we'll get to bed at a reasonable hour.

K in c I just got a mental pic of you putting frosting on your knees when you wrote icing! LOL! Having net issues here so if I vanish that is why.

Oh -- Harmony -- I forgot to say -- no -- we don't use this garage for cars. We needed it, I guess, when ds was home, but it has always been more of a storage building only. We have a 2-car carport attached to the house, so that is where we park our two vehicles. We have a pushmower and just assorted outdoor stuff -- shovel, hoe, rake... golf clubs... picnic table... junk -- that's all we have in the lower level of the storage garage.
I am concerned about the weight of the pool table upstairs, but the man from the pool table store assured me it would be fine, said they put them in second floors all the time. I might measure the rafters that support this second floor and let your dh offer an opinion.

Of course, we question will the bottom floor be okay if we remove the center support? Dmom suggested we could move it and have supports on each end. I'm wondering also about bracing the ceiling/floor somehow -- arches, you know?

Dmom on phone now... headed to Wmart... will look at furniture covers, maybe.

Good news from the mechanic - my car is ready and waiting for me, all safe and non-flaming. Also, sans AC, but for $30, I am happy with safe to drive. The AC will be from $900 to $1400 to fix. The value of the car is ~$1700. The Dodge Journey I am renting goes for $20k, but even that would add significant drain on my finances. Not sure what to do. This whole adventure (rental + assessment of car) will run somewhere between $100 and $125, thus I will still be debt free (except the mortgage) and still have enough money to last until next payday (Friday) without having to raid my savings account. But I may want that AC when I drive to and around Denver with DD13 this summer. The cats might like it on weekends, but I can put ice packs in the crates with them. My morning commute won't be too bad, but evening won't be pleasant. I know because my previous car lost its AC too.

What to do? What to do?