Wednesday Challenges & Goals

[Elizabeth]

Well, I am finished with a flowchart. It covers 105 pages and has 72 off page references!!! YIKES!!! On to the next one.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Appraisals in this province are done by a provincial agency. Then the city sets the 'mill rate' and you multiply that by the assessment to figure out the property taxes. The provincial agency bases the assessment on what comparable houses in your neighbourhood sold for, averaged over 5 years. Except in the case of my house, I have 20 year old carpet, vinyl floors, arborite counters, and the original bathroom and kitchen fixtures. Other houses here have granite counters, tile floors and fancy fixtures. So, obviously, they are worth more. So the comparables aren't very comparable.

As well, in this neighbourhood, each house is unique and only about 4 a year sell. Right now in the whole village there are only 5 houses for sale - two in this neighbourhood and 3 in the new subdivision. Average price in the new subdivision is over $500K but here it is $350K because the houses are all over 25 years old (about the life span of a septic system in our clay soil, so one must figure that into the price.)

Dinner was a success - it was dh's mom's stew but done in the crock pot to save me an hour of tending it closely in the frying pan. I didn't get milk when I was out today so I then ran over to the general store and paid a $1 extra but saved a $1 in gas and 20 minutes of time over going to the cheap milk store. I'll go into the city tomorrow and do groceries. We need a lot.

[Elizabeth]

I am headed home now to my massive to do list. Ok, it's not that massive, but the items on it will take a while. See you tomorrow!

[OKay]

Ahhhhhhh......sitting down to relax for a few minutes. I have been going non-stop since this morning.

DH offered to take the 3 DGChildren + girlfriend to church and give me some time alone. I felt guilty about 3.5 seconds before accepting his offer.

After finishing the first 4 hours of my scheduled tasks this morning, LO and I went to the library for group book reading & craft time. Came home and prepared lunch/ate quickly before heading back out the door. We met a friend at Sam's to buy supplies for church and also meat for friday's funeral. DH is one of the 4 church people who can write checks on the church account so he needed to be there to pay for it. Friday's funeral is for the family of our church hostess, so several of us are stepping in and filling in her duties to organize/provide the family meal before the funeral. We will be feeding around 100 family members so it isn't huge, but it does take some planning to pull together....especially since she usually takes care of the behind the scenes tasks.

In separate trip to Sam's I bought a huge load of stuff for our home. Then went to WM and finished up all the items on my list. Thankfully we were in the pickup so there was plenty of space to pile it in the back. :0

We took the 6 of us out to eat at a local steak house to support their effort spotlighting the children shelter. They are donating 10% of tonights gross.

A couple days ago I had a silly idea to buy cap guns (cheap toy ones...only cost 75 cents each) for the boys. i thought the older boys would be too old for them. Wrongo! LO didn't think much of them however the big boys had a blast with them! I cracked up watching them run from tree to tree acting as if they were shooting paint ball guns or something! At one point, I went outside and asked them...."you do know they just make noise and really don't shoot anything don't you? Yes, Nana. We know but it is just fun to act as if they do". Even after all these years....I just don't understand boys!! Those toy guns kept them occupied for over an hour and they were exhausted when they came in. I told them they were getting toy guns/caps for their birthday and Christmas gift from now on.

[Lilac]

Kathryn, they use the mill levy here also. They also use the comparables to come up with the appraised price. The problem is as you stated, some houses have upgrades and some don't. In our case we have the wonderful shop/garage that is in a class of it's own, so they have basically ignored it when appraising that house. When I went in to appeal the appraised price of our new place, the lady who I was working with commented how unfair the county appraisals really are because they can not go inside and base it on the interior also. It ended up that the county had mismeasured this house, way back. We are just the 3rd owners, so it was just now caught and that is only because I had taken our appraisal for the home sale. When she started studying it, she found the discrepancy. We are still waiting to see if they will lower the county appraised price based on the new numbers for sq. footage.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Not a fully productive evening.

Talked with my music friend and ended up getting mad at her. A special music Sunday was set in each church, for this upcoming Sunday, before we left. We have always understood that members from each choir would help out and expected to be singing. Well, apparently not everyone expected that and the decision to make it joint wasn't made until this week. After all the choir practices are over. There are three anthems being sung at her service so dh and I decided not to go. I told her so and she didn't say anything one way or the other but I know that she's pleased since she has told others that the only time she messes up is when she has to play with dh and I present. On the other hand, her choir wanted us there and so she has just undermined her choir which is not going to go over well.

I kept asking her why she didn't invite us to choir practice and she said it was because everyone thought we weren't home. I told her, "You talked to me on Thursday, practice was Friday - why didn't you invite us then? Or for the Monday practice when we were at your church on Sunday?" She said she didn't know that it was a joint choir thing at that point. So I had to say, "you decided it wasn't joint at that point because you knew we wouldn't come over and sing if we have never seen the music and you didn't invite us."

This is going to get really messy. Her choir wanted us there and told her so. And we may see them at our practice this Friday because they've been invited to sing at our church as well as their church. Don't know how this will play out.

At lunch today, my musician told me about the mess and my friend wants to quit and blame dh and I because we make her nervous. My musician told me not to worry, she wouldn't let anyone think it was our fault. Neither dh nor I think that is necessary. She messes up all the time and cancels on Sunday morning at the last minute quite often. Even when we are away for weeks on end, that sort of behaviour happens and there's no way we can be influencing her from the other side of the world.

[Harmony]

Well I hope you get that all ironed out at church, Kathryn. Sounds like a big can of worms to me.

This was certainly a busy day. Family got here after 1:30 and we had lunch. Wonderful time with everyone. We didn't go anywhere since it was so late when they arrived. But DH came home early and we had a long game of kick-ball and then dinner which turned out wonderful.

Bonfire tonight was interesting... of all the days for it to start sprinkling, today wasn't the day...but it did and we had to come in to wait out the lightning. We were able to go back out for a while but the storm rolled back in and even knocked out the lights for a few seconds. We managed to roast a few marshmallows before calling it a night.

So everyone is finally settled, what a nice feeling that is. Family time is the best!

[lucylee]

(((Kathryn)))

Sounds like a fun night, Harmony!

Sounds like fun for the boys, too, OKay! (I remember wanting -- and getting -- a cap gun once. I didn't have anyone to play with, though, so it quickly lost its appeal.)

I know y'all understand that my posting has just been hit or miss lately, and cuop has been difficult.

I probably should have worked today -- just checked school email & I'm really puzzled -- sounds like they were unexpectedly dismissed early for some reason. I have no idea what on earth is going on.
Plus, found out I will have to be swapping rooms w/another teacher tomorrow so they can give all tests (state graduation exams) on the same hall. I always HATE this. It also requires disconnecting all printers, etc. It's a big pain in the... neck. However, I am NOT going to complain, b/c I am sooo VERY VERY happy that I am not involved in testing, otherwise.

I did go to the funeral home & florist w/dh & dbil. DS & our preacher also went to the funeral home. Boy, was that a shock for someone who has never been involved in funeral planning. Wow. I mean, we knew basically to expect somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000. DH said he had heard the average cost of a funeral was $20,000, so he was somewhat pleasantly surprised that our final cost came in under $12,000. Plus digging of grave, and headstone. But oh my goodness, it just seems like some things were sooo overpriced. I think $300 to transport body to church??? Really??? Seriously. This is a drive of maybe 2 miles??? * sheesh *

Later, dh & I both took naps, I reconciled the checkbook statement, vacuumed/dusted & cleaned guest bath & guest bedroom, and we ate @ dmil's and then went to visit my ddad in the hospital. He is still battling this mystery infection and he does not feel very well at all... but at least he is in a good hospital & has several specialists looking at his case.

I have a haircut appt tomorrow, and later tomorrow evening we will go set up picture display for service Friday.
Also need to get the car washed and finish cleaning the house.
Certainly hope Lilac & Nancy keep their rain for a few days... dh is worried that it will rain Friday.

I need to go to bed. Thanks again for all the support, and for all your encouragement, and most of all, your prayers. We are doing pretty well, all things considered, and it has to be because friends are lifting us up in prayer and He is giving us strength for the day.

Evidence that I am holding up okay: While vacuuming the guest bathroom, with its curling, shrinking wallpaper, I caught myself singing a Tammy Wynette/George Jones song: "No, we're not the jet set, we're the old Chevrolet set... but ain't we got love..."
(My thinking is, if dcousins were looking for the jet set, they could make hotel reservations. )