The move is now over, V is up in Asheville these days, taking Ralph up there on weekends. I don't really mind that at all.. .first, because it means I get to see her on Friday evening and late Sunday afternoon while she transports Ralph.. and this week it was a help, as I'd taken my car in to get fixed.
At long last, we were sure it was the EGR valve that was the problem with my car. The mechanic took it off back in December to see if that might be the problem (after months of me telling the front desk that the valve fit the symptoms and please test it). I have not had a single issue with the car since then.
The EGR valve is a tough thing to track down apparently, but I had done a lot of research online and asked on a site about car repair what it might be, listing out all the symptoms...the master mechanic there also said test the EGR valve, and I kept asking for this to be done but apparently the message was never given to the mechanic working on my car. I guess they assume that since it came from a woman who doesn't work on cars that it could have no validity... but I spent many years helping my dad, who did know about fixing cars, with his car repair work so I do have a clue. And looking online everything I found backed up the idea that the EGR valve was the culprit in this case. Anyway, it's done now... with minimal cost to me since they could never get the car to act up when they had it and as far as they knew it had no problem, so nothing was done on it other than the mechanic driving it to and from work for a while back when V was visiting her dad in November.
In any case, the car is now fixed and so far is still running well.. better than ever actually, since it was running a little rough while the valve was disconnected and the gas mileage was not quite as good. For a 1996 Camry with 115,000 miles on it, it now sounds like new. I've never yet given up a Toyota without 200,000 miles being on it.. not yet anyway.
So, to get back to the original subject, V helped me pick up the car on Friday, and later today she will return Ralph.
This coming Friday is V's birthday. She decided that she was going to take a couple of days off, then take the train with her boyfriend and go up to Washington DC to visit with her good friend J... J was a math major who went on to get a master's in math, and now works for a government organization at some large salary as a mathematician. She and her husband live in Washington. plus friends of V's dad also live there, so V has been there several times taking Amtrak trains to get there. I will likely celebrate her birthday with her either some time during the week or the following weekend... at which time she will take Ralph up to Asheville to stay.
So how do I feel about that? Actually, not bad... With Ralph gone I will have the opportunity to get Tessa's (younger dog) leg taken care of, and not have to worry about the dogs competing with each other. It will give Tessa the rest she needs to recuperate, and she's so much more relaxed when Ralph is not around. Added to this, Tessa does not push the envelope on things when Ralph isn't here, she is much more calm and much better about following what I want her to do. It will give me some good training time with her before her operation, and give her recuperation time afterwards.
As for V.. I'm a lot better about her moving this time around, thus far. As anyone who lives on their own knows, it's not much fin cooking for one and those of us who live alone tend not to eat as well as we should. But this time I'm doing okay with that, making food on Saturday that will last me all week so I don't have to cook much but still eat well. I'm eating lots more salads (good thing!) and because V isn't around to make things, a lot less sugar. This is very positive for me.
Starting this week I am going to be going back to my sister, who's a personal trainer, and working with her to get me moving and back into better shape than I've been for a while.
So far I've not missed V all that much.. but then she's was working full time for a while anyway, so I didn't see her much in the week, and she's thus far been around on weekends, even if it's just stopping in briefly. In the meantime I have begun cleaning up the house some now that all her stuff is out of the way. Her room is the first project. I plan on repainting it since I never liked the color she chose that much (it was supposed to be a pale peach, but came out looking a lot more orange), but have not yet decided what color I should choose next. It may well become my exercise room, since there is nothing in there right now. As soon as I can afford it, I will put a hi-riser (aka day bed) in there so she can visit now and then, but that won't take up that much space. I just need her to complete cleaning out the closet in there so I can add shelves to the ends of it, then it should be good for a lot of storage.
Once her old room is repainted and fully clean again, I can start on other places in the house that need redoing. I've been here almost 12 years now and never really been able to do all that I wanted to do, now I can begin thinking about it. I need to spend a little time perusing the local fabric store, which carries a wide selection of decorating and upholstery fabrics, to see what I want to do about curtains...
All of this is a means to an end. In a few years my plan is to sell this house and look for something that will be easier for me to keep up, and with a bit of luck something that will cost less so I will have a much lower mortgage. I've been looking into other areas, and may just move over to Tennessee, which, while it has a higher sales tax, has a much lower tax burden than NC--there's no income tax in Tennessee, and the property taxes are low as well. I did some looking, and found that NC has moved up to #24 (from 40) in terms of tax burden, while TN runs #48. That adds up over time.
Since I don't need to worry about schools, I can pretty much move anywhere I want, and thus I am considering this kind of move. Once V is taken care of, and I'm pretty sure that this boyfriend is "the one" for her, then I can give thought to things like this. No matter what, I will continue to do up the house and whether I sell or not, I'll at least have the chance to enjoy my home with its updates, not update just in time to sell. I don't want to move too far from my daughters, but I also need to look out for me and what I can afford. Their lives and incomes are just getting started. While I don't see myself ever being able to retire, I also know that I won't be able to keep up with a high workload and will have to lighten up some on the amount of work I can do, and this will limit my income to some degree. Any break I can get financially will help.
Anyway, enough ruminations for a Sunday... time to get some things done.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Last night I spent a while watching V get things into her car, ready for her move.
I view her moving with mixed emotions... on the one hand, I will really miss her because I know I won't see her all that often once she's moved. She's normally been here 2-3 days a week depending on what's she's doing--two days she was working out with my sister who's a personal trainer, the other was a "group meeting" day with some of her friends from high school. She always stayed overnight on those days.
The other days she stays at her boyfriend's place (ever since she had a boyfriend) as he lives in Asheville, and since she works in Asheville it's a much easier commute for her from there and makes a lot of sense. Her having an apartment is a positive thing, particularly since it's her own place and she can do with it as she wants (mess and all!), though I know the place she's chosen would not suit me. I feel claustrophobic when I'm in it, it's really very small and a basement apartment to boot, but she's very happy about having her own place so this is unimportant to her at this time. I think it may get to her later, but we'll see, but she only has to live there a year and can then move on if she wants, so it's not like it's anything too permanent.
She will also be taking Ralph, my older dog, with her since he's always been "hers" (he was bought for her originally), though not all at once. She'll be doing that gradually, having him stay just weekends for a couple of weeks, then increasing weekend time to weekdays in order to help acclimate him. I think Ralph's going to have a tough time with it since he's always lived with me, and I know I will really miss him, too. I must say though, it will be easier all around when Tessa (younger dog) has her leg operation.
But once V's got Ralph up there I will probably only see her every couple of weeks at best. She doesn't like talking on the phone much, plus she has her boyfriend and now talks to him about everything rather than me, so I hear very little now about what's going on in her life these days. This is all as it should be--her moving out and becoming truly adult--but I know how much I will miss her. And with a boyfriend now, I expect the tendency will be for me to see her much less than I did when she was at college. No reason for her to come here other than the obligatory "mom" visit--her boyfriend only sees his mother once a month, I suspect I will be relegated to a similar time span.
Last time she moved out, when she was living up at college, I had a great tendency to be really depressed living alone... of course I'm now through the big M so that may help the moods somewhat :-) but I know I'm going to be feeling it for a while. A large part of that is working from home... I don't see anyone else from day to day, she was pretty much the only person I saw other than clerks at the grocery store and once in a while the people at the bank. Not a big social life. But I'm working on changing that--hence the ceramics lessons and starting to do some working out with my youngest sister (which also has better health as a side benefit), just so I get out of the house on a regular basis.
On the plus side, I will be able to accomplish a lot more in my work without all the disruptions when V comes here at night.. whenever V comes in the door she is constantly interrupting me, no matter what I may be doing, to ask about dinner and other things on her mind. It's like a whirlwind comes in the door and has to have attention right then, and oftentimes this throws my train of thought out the window. I will be grateful, at least for a while, not to have this disruption at a time when I still feel awake enough to be able to get something accomplished workwise. This is because I have to work on my own business after 3:30 when I finish working for my associate.. I'm getting tired by that point already, keeping focus at night for the hours I need to put in is not easy, but at least before 7-8 pm I'm still not too tired to get a lot done and get it done right. With V coming in 5:30 or so, I lose that time and have to work when I'm really beat... so this will get easier.
Another plus: V's been very moody around me for a long time now and I won't have to deal with that much any more. She's not that way around the boyfriend--she's very happy when she's with him--it's just around me. L saw it when she was here, V snapping at me when I asked her about work or anything going on with her, as if I were interrogating her.
Clearly V's ready to go and eager to be on her way... the absence will make it a lot easier for her to appreciate me again. She really appreciated me after spending 6 months in Spain and 6 in Mexico for study abroad, I'm hoping that being out on her own in her own place will restore that some of that appreciation again and we can again have the relationship that we ought to have. Nothing like having to do it on your own that makes you appreciate having your parents around. A lot has fallen to me because I've been the parent who's been there. She finds it much easier to deal with her dad because he's never really been there for her since she was 13 and we moved to NC, plus they only talk rarely since he's usually on the road somewhere, so when they're together she treats him in a much nicer way--no water under the bridge as it were.
I am not saying any of this to her, not at this time and maybe never. This is a little more therapeutic, helping me deal with the "empty nest" as it were, and getting back on track with my own life. Clearly I have some work to do in this area, but at least now I can really focus on it and not be concerned about anyone else's but my own needs. That's a big change.
I view her moving with mixed emotions... on the one hand, I will really miss her because I know I won't see her all that often once she's moved. She's normally been here 2-3 days a week depending on what's she's doing--two days she was working out with my sister who's a personal trainer, the other was a "group meeting" day with some of her friends from high school. She always stayed overnight on those days.
The other days she stays at her boyfriend's place (ever since she had a boyfriend) as he lives in Asheville, and since she works in Asheville it's a much easier commute for her from there and makes a lot of sense. Her having an apartment is a positive thing, particularly since it's her own place and she can do with it as she wants (mess and all!), though I know the place she's chosen would not suit me. I feel claustrophobic when I'm in it, it's really very small and a basement apartment to boot, but she's very happy about having her own place so this is unimportant to her at this time. I think it may get to her later, but we'll see, but she only has to live there a year and can then move on if she wants, so it's not like it's anything too permanent.
She will also be taking Ralph, my older dog, with her since he's always been "hers" (he was bought for her originally), though not all at once. She'll be doing that gradually, having him stay just weekends for a couple of weeks, then increasing weekend time to weekdays in order to help acclimate him. I think Ralph's going to have a tough time with it since he's always lived with me, and I know I will really miss him, too. I must say though, it will be easier all around when Tessa (younger dog) has her leg operation.
But once V's got Ralph up there I will probably only see her every couple of weeks at best. She doesn't like talking on the phone much, plus she has her boyfriend and now talks to him about everything rather than me, so I hear very little now about what's going on in her life these days. This is all as it should be--her moving out and becoming truly adult--but I know how much I will miss her. And with a boyfriend now, I expect the tendency will be for me to see her much less than I did when she was at college. No reason for her to come here other than the obligatory "mom" visit--her boyfriend only sees his mother once a month, I suspect I will be relegated to a similar time span.
Last time she moved out, when she was living up at college, I had a great tendency to be really depressed living alone... of course I'm now through the big M so that may help the moods somewhat :-) but I know I'm going to be feeling it for a while. A large part of that is working from home... I don't see anyone else from day to day, she was pretty much the only person I saw other than clerks at the grocery store and once in a while the people at the bank. Not a big social life. But I'm working on changing that--hence the ceramics lessons and starting to do some working out with my youngest sister (which also has better health as a side benefit), just so I get out of the house on a regular basis.
On the plus side, I will be able to accomplish a lot more in my work without all the disruptions when V comes here at night.. whenever V comes in the door she is constantly interrupting me, no matter what I may be doing, to ask about dinner and other things on her mind. It's like a whirlwind comes in the door and has to have attention right then, and oftentimes this throws my train of thought out the window. I will be grateful, at least for a while, not to have this disruption at a time when I still feel awake enough to be able to get something accomplished workwise. This is because I have to work on my own business after 3:30 when I finish working for my associate.. I'm getting tired by that point already, keeping focus at night for the hours I need to put in is not easy, but at least before 7-8 pm I'm still not too tired to get a lot done and get it done right. With V coming in 5:30 or so, I lose that time and have to work when I'm really beat... so this will get easier.
Another plus: V's been very moody around me for a long time now and I won't have to deal with that much any more. She's not that way around the boyfriend--she's very happy when she's with him--it's just around me. L saw it when she was here, V snapping at me when I asked her about work or anything going on with her, as if I were interrogating her.
Clearly V's ready to go and eager to be on her way... the absence will make it a lot easier for her to appreciate me again. She really appreciated me after spending 6 months in Spain and 6 in Mexico for study abroad, I'm hoping that being out on her own in her own place will restore that some of that appreciation again and we can again have the relationship that we ought to have. Nothing like having to do it on your own that makes you appreciate having your parents around. A lot has fallen to me because I've been the parent who's been there. She finds it much easier to deal with her dad because he's never really been there for her since she was 13 and we moved to NC, plus they only talk rarely since he's usually on the road somewhere, so when they're together she treats him in a much nicer way--no water under the bridge as it were.
I am not saying any of this to her, not at this time and maybe never. This is a little more therapeutic, helping me deal with the "empty nest" as it were, and getting back on track with my own life. Clearly I have some work to do in this area, but at least now I can really focus on it and not be concerned about anyone else's but my own needs. That's a big change.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Sometimes I surprise myself.
Recently I started moving all my old writings into a piece of software called WhizFolders. I've had it for a while now, based on the recommendation of a writer friend of mine. It's designed in such a way as to make it easy to organize thoughts and various ramblings into a more coherent order, to catalog notes and other bits and pieces so that one can make some sense of them. It's a much better piece of software to use for the purpose than a program like MS Word, since it's not set up so much to format content as it is to put one's thoughts into place when writing anything of any length.
Back in the early 90's while I was still on GEnie, General Electric's information network and a competitor to Prodigy and AOL at the time, I used to take part in the Writers Boards. These were a great place for trying out ideas, for writing various prose and/or poetry. Others would either add or would comment or offer constructive criticism. I never came across anyone just running a piece down, although sometimes some pieces would receive praise that was not necessarily in line with the quality of the work. Generally it was a positive place, and I "met" a few published authors there who commented once or twice--Joe Haldeman was one such--with some positive feedback.
While on those boards I wrote extensively in one particular category. I got very involved with writing that one piece, creating post after post until I brought the story to a conclusion, and the final effort ended up being almost of book length. I had not looked at it pretty much since I wrote originally it, but in the transcribing effort I started to read it again, curious to see what I thought of it after all this time.
The beginning of it was a bit rough, mainly due to trying to fit in with the general theme of the category and include some of the other "characters" who had been developed by others. The idea in the category was to have multiple people writing and developing a storyline en masse. But I got into my own ideas pretty quickly and moved away from those other storylines, and the others, seeing what was going on, soon dropped out of their own accord.
Surprisingly, at least to me, the story was pretty well written overall. I was working on developing writing skills at the time and it was definitely showing... with some additional work and editing, it might just be publishable material. That's something I will need to think about as I go through it and read more critically, but the main point here is that the writing skills are there, they just need some refreshing. I did a lot better with it than I thought I had.
What this all comes back to is that I do plan to pick up on my writing again....
Just prior to when I was separated from my ex I had been working on writing short stories and submitting them to various publications with an eye to getting them published. When my marriage went south, all of that got set aside as I tried to deal with the emotional trauma of divorce and the struggle to find employment that paid enough for me to survive financially. During that time of submitting stories, a science fiction story I sent out to Amazing Stories (a publication now sadly defunct) came very close to the mark, making it all the way up to the editor's cut (that's the last cut before being published, for those of you who have never tried to get anything published) and receiving some praise from the editor with encouragement to please submit more work. Without question, had I continued to submit the story it would have been picked up by a fanzine at least. One starts at the top and works down, I got cut off when I was only just beginning to submit. Had I continued writing I would likely have gotten some stories published in the better science fiction magazines by now, but sometimes life throws a curve ball and we put things off in order to deal with it.
Rereading this old piece from days gone by, I felt very encouraged; it reinforces a desire I have long held to get back into writing and produce some work worthy of publication. I don't know when or if I will succeed in getting something published--time have changed and I have a lot of catching up to do--but I enjoy writing and I would like to get back into it again. I just need to develop the ability and skills some more, then see where it leads me.
Back in the early 90's while I was still on GEnie, General Electric's information network and a competitor to Prodigy and AOL at the time, I used to take part in the Writers Boards. These were a great place for trying out ideas, for writing various prose and/or poetry. Others would either add or would comment or offer constructive criticism. I never came across anyone just running a piece down, although sometimes some pieces would receive praise that was not necessarily in line with the quality of the work. Generally it was a positive place, and I "met" a few published authors there who commented once or twice--Joe Haldeman was one such--with some positive feedback.
While on those boards I wrote extensively in one particular category. I got very involved with writing that one piece, creating post after post until I brought the story to a conclusion, and the final effort ended up being almost of book length. I had not looked at it pretty much since I wrote originally it, but in the transcribing effort I started to read it again, curious to see what I thought of it after all this time.
The beginning of it was a bit rough, mainly due to trying to fit in with the general theme of the category and include some of the other "characters" who had been developed by others. The idea in the category was to have multiple people writing and developing a storyline en masse. But I got into my own ideas pretty quickly and moved away from those other storylines, and the others, seeing what was going on, soon dropped out of their own accord.
Surprisingly, at least to me, the story was pretty well written overall. I was working on developing writing skills at the time and it was definitely showing... with some additional work and editing, it might just be publishable material. That's something I will need to think about as I go through it and read more critically, but the main point here is that the writing skills are there, they just need some refreshing. I did a lot better with it than I thought I had.
What this all comes back to is that I do plan to pick up on my writing again....
Just prior to when I was separated from my ex I had been working on writing short stories and submitting them to various publications with an eye to getting them published. When my marriage went south, all of that got set aside as I tried to deal with the emotional trauma of divorce and the struggle to find employment that paid enough for me to survive financially. During that time of submitting stories, a science fiction story I sent out to Amazing Stories (a publication now sadly defunct) came very close to the mark, making it all the way up to the editor's cut (that's the last cut before being published, for those of you who have never tried to get anything published) and receiving some praise from the editor with encouragement to please submit more work. Without question, had I continued to submit the story it would have been picked up by a fanzine at least. One starts at the top and works down, I got cut off when I was only just beginning to submit. Had I continued writing I would likely have gotten some stories published in the better science fiction magazines by now, but sometimes life throws a curve ball and we put things off in order to deal with it.
Rereading this old piece from days gone by, I felt very encouraged; it reinforces a desire I have long held to get back into writing and produce some work worthy of publication. I don't know when or if I will succeed in getting something published--time have changed and I have a lot of catching up to do--but I enjoy writing and I would like to get back into it again. I just need to develop the ability and skills some more, then see where it leads me.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
April Fools, May Fools, June Fools....
It has now been two months since I last blogged... time passes swiftly, and work has been incredibly busy. I still find it hard to be working for my associate, as good a boss as she is, not because of anything to do with her personally, but because of the hours she wanted me to be available to her, which I would rather have done differently--I would be just as happy with a shorter lunchtime, and would rather have started earlier and thus ended earlier when I had more time to work on my own business, which has burgeoned over the last few months. I could really do with someone working for *me*, but finding the right person, even as a contractor, is not so easy. I need to call on my friend D who knows employment law and how to interview and all of that, because that was what she did when we both worked at the staffing company... and she was very good at it.
Well, that aside, a lot of other things have occurred over the past two months. The older daughter, L, came for a visit and was already planning her next vacation here in October. The next time she will arrive with her fiancee, though, whom I've only met once but who is such a nice young man that I know she has made a good choice. Yes, she became engaged during this period...a very momentous event in anyone's life. Both of them seem very happy with the arrangement, and are now starting to work on wedding plans.
V, the younger daughter, just got herself her very first apartment. She is renting it on her own, and officially took possession of it last night. Tonight I went up to see it and helped her take some boxes up.. she had said it was small, but I had no real idea how small. Her apartment is a basement apartment and no bigger than the whole of my master bedroom. Unlike my MBR which is one large room (and my MBR's not huge, one can't have a sitting area in it), this is broken up by all sorts of partitions, with all sorts of access to the building's utilities--the water main shutoff for the entire building, one of those old mansions that's been converted, is located inside her apartment. The ceilings are low, there's barely room for a bed let alone a sitting area for company, and there are various access panels to get into all the utilities.. personally I think the place should never have been approved as an apartment because of all the access panels and the fact that they are going to have to come tromping through her place if they need to turn off the water for any reason. Doesn't seem right.
Personally I feel claustrophobic in her apartment, and I feel V settled too soon on this place just to have a place back in Asheville, but I've not said so and will keep my counsel on it. There have been better places out there for the same price or just $25 more a month, but she just needed to wait until this month to get a chance at those when the college students start giving in notice. Still, this is something she will need to learn. It's only for a year, if she's really unhappy there then she can look for a better place next year. In the meantime she very excited to have her own place. It's long been a dream of hers, so now she's fulfilled it. And she won't really be alone.. she and her boyfriend are always together anyway, so between his place and hers she won't get lonely.
V will also be much closer to work and not have the long commute.. between gas savings and less wear-and-tear on her car, she's probably going to do pretty well to be back in Asheville.
While I will miss V, I won't miss her messy room (she's going to have to keep the apartment cleaned up, hah!) and messy bathroom, those will get cleaned up and finally be presentable. Her boyfriend is a lot neater--he was the one vacuuming there this evening--and I hope that good influence will rub off on her. I've always had a hard time getting her to keep things neatened up. Even as a kid, when she had candy she would drop all the wrappers behind the couch so she wouldn'y have to clean them up. No matter what I said, she's always been messy, so now she will have good reason to clean up her act.
As for me... well, things are definitely improving. Business has been really busy and I'm getting more and more inquiries. The key there seems to have been the listings in the AT&T yellow pages. And I do get lots of referrals as well... but still would have problems keeping up with making enough to get by on. From what I've been able to discover my rates are lower than many, and that is the big problem--II've not raised rates in over 4 years now, and I would say it's time.
While I find it hard to work for my associate I also appreciate the regular money coming in that pays the basic bills, so I am not complaining about the job at all. It's just that I haven't adjusted yet to working for someone else, and do miss the freedom I used to have to be able to go visit with a client during the day and get out of the house a little bit. Still working from home.. so I'm blessed in a number of ways.
Soon enough I will have the payoff from all the work... I am getting money back from the IRS this year rather than paying out, a big payment will be coming from a client once they get their refund (they've already sent off their return, so it won't be too long), I've cleaned up a number of jobs now and am working on more, so things are really looking up. And of course the "stimulus payment" will help as well. In order of priority, here's where the money's going to go:
root canal (tooth has been abscessed for 3 years, this HAS to get done)
fix car (driveable, but has to be done soon so it passes inspection in May)
pay for Tessa's operation ($1500 for this one alone)
new tires (good thing I don't need to drive much 'cause they're getting close to bald)
new storm door on back door (about to fall off, same as front storm door did--I replaced the front one in November)
new roof
pay off credit card (this is going to take a while)
Nothing there for "fun", but it's all stuff that's been piling up and I will finally be in a place to do something about it. When 1-5 are done, I will start being able to do a few things for me, maybe even take a few days vacation and go down to Myrtle Beach for a little R&R--off season of course. :-) Not much, but some sort of reward for all the work. I'm really tired of these long work days. As one of my clients once said, "I'm cutting down to half days...you know.... 12 hours is a half day." I will feel like I've really made it when I can get down to a 12 hour day.
One thing I would like to find a way to fit in as soon as I can was soemthing I tried with L when she was here--we took a lesson with a local artist on throwing pottery on a wheel. Both of us had a really good time with it, and this is the first thing that has interested me enough that I would want to do it as an "extracurricular". It would be something I could do year 'round, does not involve sitting in front of a screen, and I really do enjoy it.
I took ceramics as part of my coursework in college, so I learned a little about throwing pottery way back when and liked it, but at the time I had to take so many courses thanks to changing majors mid-stream (from math to art) that I never really had the time to explore it as I would have liked. Now I can, and maybe get a few nice pieces out of it once I've built up some skill. Going to be a while before I keep anything though--too much practice to do.
Other than that Spring is most definitely here. The cherry is in full bloom, the daffs are starting to die back and leaf buds are starting to grow on the trees. I have the window open even now at 11pm - weather.com says it's still 61 degrees out and I'm stting here in a short-sleeve t-shirt next to the window. While we can still get some cold weather--it was a high of 42 a couple of days ago--in general the weather continues to warm up and I am more and more eager to spend some time outside.
On the plus side, it's nice to have an office with a view and a window that opens. I can enjoy the fresh Spring air and listen to the birds and smell the freshness of new growth. I do love that scent. And now that I don't have to worry about how to meet the bills each month I really can appreciate just how good I have it.
Well, that aside, a lot of other things have occurred over the past two months. The older daughter, L, came for a visit and was already planning her next vacation here in October. The next time she will arrive with her fiancee, though, whom I've only met once but who is such a nice young man that I know she has made a good choice. Yes, she became engaged during this period...a very momentous event in anyone's life. Both of them seem very happy with the arrangement, and are now starting to work on wedding plans.
V, the younger daughter, just got herself her very first apartment. She is renting it on her own, and officially took possession of it last night. Tonight I went up to see it and helped her take some boxes up.. she had said it was small, but I had no real idea how small. Her apartment is a basement apartment and no bigger than the whole of my master bedroom. Unlike my MBR which is one large room (and my MBR's not huge, one can't have a sitting area in it), this is broken up by all sorts of partitions, with all sorts of access to the building's utilities--the water main shutoff for the entire building, one of those old mansions that's been converted, is located inside her apartment. The ceilings are low, there's barely room for a bed let alone a sitting area for company, and there are various access panels to get into all the utilities.. personally I think the place should never have been approved as an apartment because of all the access panels and the fact that they are going to have to come tromping through her place if they need to turn off the water for any reason. Doesn't seem right.
Personally I feel claustrophobic in her apartment, and I feel V settled too soon on this place just to have a place back in Asheville, but I've not said so and will keep my counsel on it. There have been better places out there for the same price or just $25 more a month, but she just needed to wait until this month to get a chance at those when the college students start giving in notice. Still, this is something she will need to learn. It's only for a year, if she's really unhappy there then she can look for a better place next year. In the meantime she very excited to have her own place. It's long been a dream of hers, so now she's fulfilled it. And she won't really be alone.. she and her boyfriend are always together anyway, so between his place and hers she won't get lonely.
V will also be much closer to work and not have the long commute.. between gas savings and less wear-and-tear on her car, she's probably going to do pretty well to be back in Asheville.
While I will miss V, I won't miss her messy room (she's going to have to keep the apartment cleaned up, hah!) and messy bathroom, those will get cleaned up and finally be presentable. Her boyfriend is a lot neater--he was the one vacuuming there this evening--and I hope that good influence will rub off on her. I've always had a hard time getting her to keep things neatened up. Even as a kid, when she had candy she would drop all the wrappers behind the couch so she wouldn'y have to clean them up. No matter what I said, she's always been messy, so now she will have good reason to clean up her act.
As for me... well, things are definitely improving. Business has been really busy and I'm getting more and more inquiries. The key there seems to have been the listings in the AT&T yellow pages. And I do get lots of referrals as well... but still would have problems keeping up with making enough to get by on. From what I've been able to discover my rates are lower than many, and that is the big problem--II've not raised rates in over 4 years now, and I would say it's time.
While I find it hard to work for my associate I also appreciate the regular money coming in that pays the basic bills, so I am not complaining about the job at all. It's just that I haven't adjusted yet to working for someone else, and do miss the freedom I used to have to be able to go visit with a client during the day and get out of the house a little bit. Still working from home.. so I'm blessed in a number of ways.
Soon enough I will have the payoff from all the work... I am getting money back from the IRS this year rather than paying out, a big payment will be coming from a client once they get their refund (they've already sent off their return, so it won't be too long), I've cleaned up a number of jobs now and am working on more, so things are really looking up. And of course the "stimulus payment" will help as well. In order of priority, here's where the money's going to go:
root canal (tooth has been abscessed for 3 years, this HAS to get done)
fix car (driveable, but has to be done soon so it passes inspection in May)
pay for Tessa's operation ($1500 for this one alone)
new tires (good thing I don't need to drive much 'cause they're getting close to bald)
new storm door on back door (about to fall off, same as front storm door did--I replaced the front one in November)
new roof
pay off credit card (this is going to take a while)
Nothing there for "fun", but it's all stuff that's been piling up and I will finally be in a place to do something about it. When 1-5 are done, I will start being able to do a few things for me, maybe even take a few days vacation and go down to Myrtle Beach for a little R&R--off season of course. :-) Not much, but some sort of reward for all the work. I'm really tired of these long work days. As one of my clients once said, "I'm cutting down to half days...you know.... 12 hours is a half day." I will feel like I've really made it when I can get down to a 12 hour day.
One thing I would like to find a way to fit in as soon as I can was soemthing I tried with L when she was here--we took a lesson with a local artist on throwing pottery on a wheel. Both of us had a really good time with it, and this is the first thing that has interested me enough that I would want to do it as an "extracurricular". It would be something I could do year 'round, does not involve sitting in front of a screen, and I really do enjoy it.
I took ceramics as part of my coursework in college, so I learned a little about throwing pottery way back when and liked it, but at the time I had to take so many courses thanks to changing majors mid-stream (from math to art) that I never really had the time to explore it as I would have liked. Now I can, and maybe get a few nice pieces out of it once I've built up some skill. Going to be a while before I keep anything though--too much practice to do.
Other than that Spring is most definitely here. The cherry is in full bloom, the daffs are starting to die back and leaf buds are starting to grow on the trees. I have the window open even now at 11pm - weather.com says it's still 61 degrees out and I'm stting here in a short-sleeve t-shirt next to the window. While we can still get some cold weather--it was a high of 42 a couple of days ago--in general the weather continues to warm up and I am more and more eager to spend some time outside.
On the plus side, it's nice to have an office with a view and a window that opens. I can enjoy the fresh Spring air and listen to the birds and smell the freshness of new growth. I do love that scent. And now that I don't have to worry about how to meet the bills each month I really can appreciate just how good I have it.