Signs of Life

Yes, I am still here.  I'm just very, very busy.  And tired.  And bored or frustrated with certain aspects of my life.

I got through all the Jewish Holidays.  I went off to the US to the wedding I talked about before and had a fabulous time.  And I've been exercising pretty well twice a week.

On the other hand, our car was totalled recently.  We weren't in it; a family member was cut off on the freeway.  The family member is okay but we've spent the past while arguing with ICBC over the value of the car.  They did come up from their initial, offensive, offer but we're probably still out about $2,000 over what we'd have to spend to replace the car.

And more things have gone wrong with the house.  If anybody tells you old houses are money pits, believe them!  A leak in the main bathroom upstairs led to a gigantic hole in our kitchen ceiling and another, smaller one.  Our upper cabinets are mostly down (with the contents in boxes) and the bakers rack I keep a lot of our other kitchen stuff on is sitting in the living room.  Basically, the living room is unusable.  We pass through it to the kitchen, bath and our daughter's room.

The floor in the bathroom and through most of the kitchen is laid and part of it is grouted.  We should get our new toilet put in within anywhere from a day to a week, depending on how busy our son-in-law is and how fast he gets around to both it and to putting the vanity back in the bathroom (with the new top on it).  The thought that we might finally have a fully functioning bathroom is exciting but seems slightly unreal.  It will be wonderful not to have to go upstairs to use the facilities there in the middle of the night, however.  I'm really looking forward to that!

Once they finish the work in the bathroom upstairs comes the messy part.  The new drywall will have to be taped, mudded and sanded until a thick layer of white powder covers pretty much everything in the house (including, no doubt, my lungs).  After that the new upper cupboards and new range hood can go up.  If that happens before Pesach I'll be thrillled.

And then there's money.  I'm so messed up there.  My credit card is maxed.  Actually, it was over limit until a few days ago.  Now it's exactly at the limit and I have to make another payment before they add the interest or that will put me over again.  I skipped a couple of transfers to my TFSA, although I still have over $1,000 in there.  And I have a huge cell bill from my trip to the US.  I tried to use it as little as possible but still incurred over $80 in long distance or roaming charges.  A bunch of those calls were incoming ones from my hubby or daughter, so I couldn't exactly refuse to pick up!

What next?  Well, I'm pretty well broke until Wednesday and I'll probably be broke again almost immediately afterwards, once I pay the various bills that absolutely, positively have to be paid.  But we'll technically have money sometime this week, because we'll get the cheque from ICBC.  We still have to decide what we're going to do about a new car.  We have to decide new, near new or very used.  We're still debating over what kind of car to get (since we have to replace it, the only sensible thing to do is to buy one this time that will fit all four kids in their car or booster seats, plus at least 2 adults).  And we have to decide if we're going to do it now or wait until my hubby receives money from his late mother's estate (probably a few months away).