Over the Mountains and Far Away

I was going to post last night, but I was just too tired. I took Dear Child and Dog and went to the house on Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, Hubby has been too busy to come, so we went by ourselves again.

I really didn't mean for 5 weeks to go by without making the trip but every weekend there has been some reason why we couldn't go. Since 3 out of the next 4 weekends are religious holidays when I can't drive or do anything (and when I want to be able to go to shul) I was determined to go this time.

DC had a wonderful time playing with her friend. On Sunday, starting at about 9 am, I mowed the back, front and both side yards (with the push mower), pulled weeds in about half the front garden and around my grapevine, did 2 loads of laundry, loaded up the sukkah into the van and then drove home Sunday evening.

Gee, I wonder why I was tired....

We didn't even drive into town. The furthest we got from home was on Shabbos afternoon, when we went for a long walk with Dog. I'd like to go back either the weekend after Rosh Hashana (although that's tricky because Sunday night is the beginning of Yom Kippur and I'd have to be back in time for Kol Nidre services) or the weekend after Sukkot. Heck, I'd even consider going out the night of Sunday, October 11th and return the following night (since the 12th is Canadian Thanksgiving). Later than mid-October, and we'll be running into the possibility of snow in the mountain passes.

In fact, I think that unless I go just before Yom Kippur, I have to buy 2 new snow tires first. I don't believe I blogged about it but we spent almost $700 on the car 2 weeks ago (including 2 new all season tires for the rear) and have to spend maybe $600 on it this week. So, I'm just dying to buy some snow tires but you have to have both snow tires on the vehicle and carry chains from the beginning of October until something like the end of April in order to go through Manning Park.

What happened to our previous snow tires? The same thing that happened to our last pair of all weather tires on the rear. The tread just gets worn right off in about 4 months. Clearly, there must be some kind of alignment problem (the back end of the car seems to shimmy a little) and yes, we need to get bushings done, hence the $600 this week. That should at least help although it's been pointed out to me that there may be some kind of rear suspension issue too. I hope not, but we'll see.

The only bright spot in all this is that Hubby finally got the commission from a big job and we paid cash for car repairs this time! So much better than borrowing from family, putting it on the card or other things we've had to do in the past.

Anyway, I want to go back at least once more before the snow flies to do more yard work and put together that IKEA bookshelf I took there when we went out on the August Long Weekend. I'd love to spend Sukkot there the way we usually do, but that's just not happening this year.

Last winter we didn't go there for about 5 months. That was awful. I mean, the drive is no picnic when the snow is bad but I miss the house and I'd like to go at least somewhat more regularly this year. Even every 6 weeks would be okay.

All of a sudden I'm falling asleep at the keyboard, so maybe I'd better quit for the night.

To Dos and Ta Das

Here is my To Do List for today, with what I accomplished marked off on it.

Go to IKEA
Buy pink and white bins for Dear Child’s room DONE
Ask about white cover to fit sofa bed NO
Look at quilt covers DONE
Look at kitchen cabinets NO
Go through big toy box and weed out DONE
Go through non-fragile boxes in DC’s room, eliminate, consolidate & put in DC’s closet IN PROG
Do laundry, get it all off DC’s bed IN PROG
Buy new frying pan DONE
Take clothes for donation DONE
Take books for donation NO
Take other household items for donation NO

This week I've been concentrating on my Dear Child's room. I went to IKEA because there was no way I could organize her room without some more bins. Every time I look her Barbie dolls and Webkinz have multiplied again. I can barely find her bed under all the stuffed animals (okay and laundry too, because the laundry equipment is on the other side of the door in her room that leads to the other half of the house). Clean, unfolded laundry tends to end up at the foot of her bed.

I did 2 loads of laundry and still need to do more, especially white laundry. I also went through 3 boxes in her room and got rid of 2. No, I didn't get rid of everything in 2 boxes. I repacked the biggest box, took things out I need to use, threw away some junk, recycled a phone book, etc. And some things are still lying around, waiting for a more appropriate box to go into.

I got rid of a huge box from the restoration company that was mostly junk in the form of baby toys (rattles, anyone?), stuffed animals she never played with and sadly deflated balls and balloons. Cleverly, I did this while she was at a play date because (like her mother) DC refuses to part with the smallest scrap of paper, gift from strangers holding yard sales, etc. This was all stuff she hadn't seen or played with in at least 2 and a half years and I kept toys that actually held meaning (like the crocheted Beatrix Potter character) or that I knew she'd really play with (like a Ken to go with all those Barbies). But it wasn't in her room. No, it was in the living room.

I also took Eldest Daughter to Wal-Mart for something she wanted and managed to get a replacement for my frying pan, which met a burnt and sticky end the other week when Hubby left the heat on under it after dinner was done. And I dropped off 2 bags of outgrown kiddy clothes and toys in good shape in one of those big metal bins. I meant to go back with some of the books I'm getting rid of because they have a book bin beside the clothing one but it started to snow again so I didn't. It looks like you have to feed the bin one book at a time and I have a big box. I'd rather do it on a decent day. And I'm still not sure where to take the miscellaneous household items. Is there a place to drop things off at Value Village?

Yes, I said it was snowing. This is just ridiculous. All the spring flowers are out and I saw pussy willows on the trees a few days ago. It isn't supposed to snow here, period. And certainly not during Spring Break. Luckily, it was very wet snow and has totally disappeared already. Of course, it may start again in the middle of the night but I sincerely hope not.

Anyway, what does any of this have to do with my financial situation? Well, I must admit, I put the stuff from IKEA (about $45 worth) on my IKEA card. It has a horrible interest rate (28%) but I haven't been carrying a balance and I do hope to pay off the card in a timely manner. I'm afraid Pesach is usually a time when there's a fair bit of juggling in order to pay for everything but at least I get 3 paycheques next month.

Hating the Snow

The snow has messed up pretty well everything. Our dinner worked out fairly well, although one set of family friends weren't able to make it through the snow. But it snowed far too much through the mountain passes for me to be able to go to the house. I did phone my neighbours though, and found that everything seems to be in one piece.

Then my Eldest Daughter and son-in-law took the girls and went up north to his folks for a few days. While we were eating Shabbat dinner last night we heard a huge crash. I went upstairs to check and found that the fibreglass and 2x4 cover over the deck had collapsed due to the weight of the snow. It's a huge mess and it bent the metal railing around the deck all out of shape, as well as doing some damage to the wall where it was attached.

As soon as Shabbat was over tonight I called and the kids are coming back home tomorrow, a couple of days early. Hubby shoveled over a foot of really wet snow off the shed that's attached to the house, just behind where the deck is. It has an almost flat roof and we were afraid it might collapse too, especially now that it's getting warmer and has been raining, saturating the snow to the max. In fact, some buildings have collapsed due to the snow so it's a totally valid fear.

Tomorrow we'll try to take apart the ruin of the cover, at least enough that we can get around on the deck and try to dump some of the snow off the deck and bring in a couple of items of furniture that were out there. I guess once the kids get home they'll call their insurance and start a claim. Sigh.

The side streets and lanes are a combination of slush, snow and ice and are practically impassable. Lots of people are getting stuck and some folks are just leaving their cars where they are! How dumb are they? It may not be fun, but if you get totally stuck the answer is to call a tow truck. You don't just leave your car in the lane and wait for it to melt some more!

I'm still thinking about goals for 2009. I've already managed to balance our budget, but I was looking at how long it will take us to eliminate our credit card debt at our current rate. Basically it will take us between 4 and 5 years, assuming that we keep the payments at this level and don't drop them as the minimum payment drops. That's not acceptable. We have to get out of debt faster. I would really like to be out of debt by the end of 2009 but I'm not sure if that's realistic. I won't be getting a raise this year and I actually worked fewer hours this year than last year. I can only hope that I'll be able to work more hours in 2009 so I can earn a little more money that way.

Almost Year End

I can't believe how fast the last little bit of 2008 is flying by. My final payday of the year is on Wednesday, which is also the day we're having the family over. The plan was to go to the house on the 25th and come back on the Sunday (giving us 4 days there). I'm not sure what's happening right now. My Hubby has some other obligations on a couple of those days and the weather has been incredibly bad, with whiteout conditions off and on along the freeway out in the Fraser Valley. There's also a lot of snow in the passes on the Hope-Princeton.

Possibly I'll go on the Greyhound, whether for 4 days or just for one or two. I'm still very concerned about how the place is holding up through the exceptionally cold winter we've been having. But how much will I be able to do if I go by myself and without a car? There's also very little chance of my getting the plumber in over the statutory holiday to check my pipes or clear our little blockage. I guess he might come if my pipes were actually frozen but I don't want that to be the case. It would be very serious and very costly.

Of course, a big part of the reason for going was also to look at this piece of land I'm interested in. I still don't know if it's possible to take our equity out of my daughter's house at this point in time so I don't know if the whole thing is feasable.

The other thing I should do over the next few days is to set some goals for 2009. I have some ideas floating around at the moment but I can't say I'm ready to list them. Once I've worked on them for a bit I'll post them.

Snow Update and Hanukkah

Well, we got the 25 centimetres of snow (10") they promised. The power is still on, the snow is still coming down (although it's supposed to stop sometime tonight) and the roads are a mess. The trucks are still having trouble keeping the main routes plowed and sanded or salted. Nothing has been done in the residential side streets. They might get to those tomorrow.

The next storm is supposed to hit Tuesday night or Wednesday and continue through Friday. When will this nightmare end?

The good news is that our water pipes seem to be fine. I got our cold water going last night about 1 am. I couldn't sleep and I was worrying about the pipes a bit, so I got up and washed the milchig (dairy) dishes with nice hot water. When I finished the cold still wasn't working. I folded a load of laundry and was going to head to bed when I heard dripping. The cold tap was dripping slightly but was still not running freely. I turned the hot water back on for maybe 20 seconds and the cold water suddenly started running. I had hoped that running the hot water for a while would do the trick (even though family members had told me it wouldn't work) and it did. The 2 lines run side by side through the wall so it was worth a try, right?

Tonight was the first candle of Hanukkah and we managed to find 2 of the hanukkiyot (Hanukkah menorahs) so we were able to light when it got dark. We didn't go downtown to the lighting of the huge menorah at the Art Gallery because it was really, really messy by then. I didn't make latkes tonight (we had regular pancakes at Dear Child's request) because we're going to do that when everybody comes over on Wednesday (when nobody has to work). DC did get 2 presents tonight, in addition to the candy her teacher gave out with instructions that it wasn't to be eaten until Hanukkah. I gave her a pink hoodie for her Webkinz pets and her older sister gave her a L'il Kinz (the Blue Triggerfish).

What if We're Snowed In?

It's a bit unlikely that we'll actually be snowed in, but we could lose our power and the cold water pipe leading to our sink seems to have frozen this afternoon. The pipe runs along the outside wall of the house for at least a short distance and is the only one affected at this point. Right now we have the cold tap turned on a little way and have opened the bottom cupboard doors in an attempt to get more warmth into there.

My son-in-law isn't home. He's been plowing and sanding ever since 7 am. However, he talked to Eldest Daughter on the phone and says there's really nothing else to do at this point. His hope is that the pressure of having the tap open might clear the line and I guess we're just hoping nothing has cracked inside the wall.

It's really kind of odd. I mean, it's only been down to 17 or 19 Celsius (edit: That should be Fahrenheit, of course. 19 Celsius would be a warm spring day.) and our area of the house is always very warm when they have the heat on upstairs. It was also actually colder outside a few nights ago, with no problem. But I don't know. I'm sure son-in-law will have a look at it when he can. He's scheduled to work tomorrow but I don't think union rules allow him to work 15 or so hours and then work again with less than 12 hours off in between. I'm hoping he can look at it in the morning. It's also a bit warmer now and will probably warm up another few degrees because it has clouded over and begun to snow heavily. We're actually forecast to receive 15 to 25 centimetres tonight and tomorrow (up to 10" of snow). This is just not Vancouver weather.

I'm concerned about the house but my neighbour has always been good about checking on it for us and letting me know when there was a problem. I may give them a call tomorrow though. They were saying on tonight's news that the wind chill in some parts of the Okanagan will drop temperatures to around 40 below (which is 40 below no matter which temperature system you're using). That's cold. Really, really cold.

But what if it snowed so much that we were actually snowed in for a couple of days? This is one of the reasons for always having a supply of food on hand, as well as bottled water, lamps or candles, etc. We have a coleman stove but no propane at the moment. My Eldest Daughter and son-in-law have a propane BBQ that they could use (but I can't find the adaptor kit I bought several years ago to use a large tank of propane with our stove). Possibly they still have some of the small propane containers left over from camping this summer. We have 7 or 8 gallons of bottled water, about 2 dozen Shabbat candles (that burn for 2 to 3 hours), only a few tea lights and a couple of big pillar candles that would last for a few days.

As for food, we have some basics. There's brown rice, white beans, whole wheat pasta, a big bag of oatmeal, 3 boxes of dry cereal, a few tins of tuna, apples, sugar, tea and coffee. There are some other things on the shelf too (like a box of brownie mix and another of pie crust mix) and a bunch of stuff in the fridge and freezer like hash browns, french fries, Yves ground "meat" (a soy substitute), cheese, milk, butter, eggs, carrots and so on. So we'd have enough to eat if we were stuck for 2 or 3 days and, if there's actually small propane canisters upstairs, we'd be able to cook quite nicely.

We'd stay in our bedroom for the most part, pile all our blankets and quilts on the beds and dress warmly. We'd only venture out to go to the washroom, to cook and to take Dog for walks. It probably wouldn't be the most fun we've ever had but we'd get through it without huge problems. The big thing I learned from this is that I should buy some propane.

What about you? If your power went out for 2 or 3 days how would you manage? Would you freeze? Would you have water and food? Would you be able to cook? Are your cell phones charged?