Home Repairs

 General  Comments Off on Home Repairs
Jun 222012
 

So my shed door is broken. It’s very difficult to get into my shed.

All my yard tools are in the shed. My lawn mower, my hedge clippers, my weed killer, et cetera. Not to mention the bikes.

So I called a local handyman to see if he could fix the shed. He came out and had a look at it. He asked if there were any other improvement projects that needed doing, because they have a minimum service charge and it hardly seemed worth it for such a small job. He described his estimate of what would be done, and said it should be fairly easy for myself and the boys to do it. Then he said he’d e-mail me an estimate on the job and left.

Never heard back from him. I suspect he feels my little shed door is too small a job to bother with.

Sure, the boys and I probably could fix the door. But between my full-time job, my certification classes, and general home upkeep responsibilities, I kind of feel like my allotted obligation hours are full. I don’t want to cut into my “now I can do something I actually like” time with a project that is probably going to be annoying and tedious and take longer than planned, as they tend to do.

So I called another handyman service company. He came out today, had a look, said he didn’t have enough time to fix it today but he can come back Wednesday. He gave me an estimate, I said let’s do it, and we’re good to go.

I mentioned to The Director that the first handyman was probably shooting himself in the foot by dismissing our little job. Over the next few years we’ll probably be calling on a handyman to fix a lot of the neglected issues around the house, especially once we get my car paid off next spring. So if we like the guy who does the shed, he’s likely to get bigger jobs in the future.

 Posted by at 1:36 pm

Money Comes In, Money Goes Out

 General  Comments Off on Money Comes In, Money Goes Out
Jun 182012
 

Plus: We’re in the process of refinancing our mortgage. Taking advantage of the current low interest rates being offered, we can now roll both our mortgages into one and still pay several hundred dollars less each month.

Minus: The Artist needs his wisdom teeth removed. All four of ’em. We have no dental insurance.

Two steps forward, one step back…

Work-wise, things are slow. No taxes are due, so people are being… leisurely about getting their information to us. We’ve also lost a few clients, which further reduces our available work. The boss has asked us not to work more than 35 hours per week until fall, when things should start getting busy again.

At least, as we scrounge for work to do, I can feel reasonably secure in my job. My supervisor is the only other full-fledged accountant on staff, so she’s in a pretty good position to influence the matter—and she’s outright told me that if we have to let someone go because there’s not enough work, she doesn’t want it to be me. We have our little system going now, it’s working well for us, and she likes it that way.

Still, I’m keeping my eyes open. I like my workplace, I love the people I work with, but the work itself is a little limiting. I’d like to either get a job as a full-charge bookkeeper—working with the whole picture instead of just a little piece of it—or else something in a bigger company with room for advancement. This job is a good starting point but there’s really nowhere I can go from here.

I’m figuring I’ll probably be here another year, to get some solid experience on the resume, and then start looking seriously for something else.

It doesn’t seem prudent to mention this plan to my co-workers.

 Posted by at 7:15 pm

Maybe I’m Not Such A Bad Mother

 Breeder's Corner, General  Comments Off on Maybe I’m Not Such A Bad Mother
Jun 032012
 

I’ve been farting around on the intertubez this afternoon, which can often lead one down unpredictable link-paths. An hour after you start reading articles on tidying up all the cables behind your desk, you find yourself deep into a psychological study of narcissistic mothers. How did I find myself here? Even my browsing history doesn’t explain the connection, because I tend to keep a lot of tabs open at once.

But wow. Just, wow.

I sometimes feel like I should have been a better parent. I’m not a very nurturing person. I should have been more patient. Sometimes I would yell at the kids when I was really angry at their father, or myself, or some random asshole I encountered during my day.

But compared to the mothers in that article, I’m the best damn mom in the world. They can’t be aware of what they’re doing, can they? I mean, if they were actually aware, they’d try to change their behavior, right?

Right?

Faith in humanity = waning. Going to look at pictures of kittens.

Bear