First day of summer for most kids in sunny San Antonio. And that included my boy. Next week, he'll be going to Clara's daycare for the week before he's off to El Paso. It's the two days he's home by himself that I'm worried about. I keep having this feeling that I'm going to get home and the house a complete wreck, or will have burned down, or there will be a hole in a wall somewhere because he thought it might be fun to hit it with a hammer. He tends to do things completely at random and generally ends in some degree of destruction.
I got home (still standing), and walked in the door to a minefield of things all over the floor. And it wasn't just the entryway - every square foot of space on the entire lower floor of the house was littered with used dishes, articles of clothing, shoes, food wrappers and toys. I went upstairs to my room to change and decompress. The stairs were littered with clothing and toys and the loft made me physically cringe: it was clear where Colin had spent most of his time...
I got upset and D noticed it, but I really didn't want to say anything because she always takes it the wrong way. She takes it personally. It's not personal, I just want my house clean. It just makes me really Emo when my house is trashed. -_-\ There is no way I can keep up with everything that gets trashed, and my requests for help are typically taken with indignation from my wife or indifference from my son. I'm exhausted at the end of the day, there is no way I can keep up and I don't get much in the way of help, so after a bit I just give up and sit at my computer amid the mess that is my home.
Which is what I resigned myself to tonight. I hopped online and decided to find out what was going on ingame. Apparently there has been another rash of account hijackings. Just FYI, if my account ever gets hijacked, I'm quitting and finding a new distraction. I like this game and all, but I don't think I could bear to do what I've done all over again. Eiael asked if Keri and I were planning on going to Limbus, because he was trying to organize an ISNM and needed some people. Hey, I'm always up for gil. We did the fight 6 times and the big money item dropped 3 times, despite wiping once. So hopefully I'll get a little more gil to my name.
Friday and the weekend is coming up, but I don't know if I'm going to get much relaxation out of it. The house is a wreck, the yard needs some serious work and there are still things from the trip laying around that haven't been put away. Sometimes it just feels like it's one step forward and three steps back, and it's really starting to get to me...
Friday, June 6, 2008
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Adventures in Car Shopping: Part 3
Well, we made today the day. After work, DeAnn got the kids fed and ready to head out as soon as I got home, and then we all went up to the dealership. DeAnn had been under the impression that if we could get the dealership to take our car without charging us money, we'd be lucky, but as it turned out we got a good $700 on the trade-in. On top of that, we put down another $750 and positioned our payments to land on the middle of the month, dodging all the beginning of the month bills and landing on my mid-month paycheck. All this put our monthly payments right where we wanted them and allowed us to get a decent warranty (Car is covered pretty much until it reached 100k miles).
So I drove home in my convertible for the first time in years. ^_^ I feel good about the purchase. D and I have been on a roll lately financially. We've paid off about half our credit cards, and are throwing the extra from them at the next highest interest-rated one. All the double-digit ones are down. We're getting to the point where we can start giving to the church again and not having to make up for it somewhere else with credit. Another few months at this rate and we'll likely have another card paid down. We're in a completely different season than the one we were in when we started, and I'm so thankful for being so richly blessed.
Sorry for the whirlwind nature of this post, but that really is the best way to describe the past few days. They all just seemed to blend together and really were only punctuated with a brief nightly nap. It's been a whirlwind of a week, and its only half over. Hopefully tomorrow I can rest and relax a little.
So I drove home in my convertible for the first time in years. ^_^ I feel good about the purchase. D and I have been on a roll lately financially. We've paid off about half our credit cards, and are throwing the extra from them at the next highest interest-rated one. All the double-digit ones are down. We're getting to the point where we can start giving to the church again and not having to make up for it somewhere else with credit. Another few months at this rate and we'll likely have another card paid down. We're in a completely different season than the one we were in when we started, and I'm so thankful for being so richly blessed.
Sorry for the whirlwind nature of this post, but that really is the best way to describe the past few days. They all just seemed to blend together and really were only punctuated with a brief nightly nap. It's been a whirlwind of a week, and its only half over. Hopefully tomorrow I can rest and relax a little.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Adventures in Car Shopping: Part 2
I drove the convertible to work today to get a better feeling for the car. One of the first things I noticed was that the ride, even with the never-ending road construction on 410, was incredibly smooth. I did notice a bit of an issue when shifting from 3rd to 4th. It's not incredibly rough, just noticeable when trying to ramp up to highway speeds. I think I only noticed it because my LeBaron convertible did the same thing. Might be a Chrysler thing. Also, I couldn't find the disc-changer that the website said was in there. The control buttons are on the radio deck, but the changer hardware is missing.
The salesman had an emergency come up, so he said to just drive it another day and we'd get it in tomorrow. Which was fine with me. It gave us some more time to talk about what we can afford. We don't want to take out a 5yr loan for a used car at that price, that's just silly. And we can only really afford another $250 or so a month. So we need to get about $1500 down (Chevy trade-in included) to swing a 3-4 year loan at the going interest rate of 7%. As much as I like the car, I'm not going to sink the bank on it. If the numbers aren't there, then the time just isn't right. I'll take it as a sign that another car is waiting.
The rest of the evening we just goofed off. A funny video got DeAnn in the mood to game, so we hit up the linkshell. They were doing a sea hunt, so we ran out there for a couple hours and goofed around.
Tomorrow will be what today was supposed to be. I got work, then a meeting with the salesman for the new car. DeAnn will get the kids fed and be right behind me. If the numbers work out, I might have a new car tomorrow. ^_^
The salesman had an emergency come up, so he said to just drive it another day and we'd get it in tomorrow. Which was fine with me. It gave us some more time to talk about what we can afford. We don't want to take out a 5yr loan for a used car at that price, that's just silly. And we can only really afford another $250 or so a month. So we need to get about $1500 down (Chevy trade-in included) to swing a 3-4 year loan at the going interest rate of 7%. As much as I like the car, I'm not going to sink the bank on it. If the numbers aren't there, then the time just isn't right. I'll take it as a sign that another car is waiting.
The rest of the evening we just goofed off. A funny video got DeAnn in the mood to game, so we hit up the linkshell. They were doing a sea hunt, so we ran out there for a couple hours and goofed around.
Tomorrow will be what today was supposed to be. I got work, then a meeting with the salesman for the new car. DeAnn will get the kids fed and be right behind me. If the numbers work out, I might have a new car tomorrow. ^_^
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Adventures in Car Shopping: Part 1
What can I say, it was a Monday. I love IT work, but sometimes I wonder how people find their way back to work after being off for two days.
I got a call back from the dealership that had the Sebring. It was still available for test-driving, so I set up a time for tonight. They were only open until 8, so the latest I could set was 7pm. I knew that was going to make for a rough dinner time, but there wasn't much I could do about it. Once we all gathered at home, we set out to the dealership, which was waaay out in Boerne. Stopped by a Sonic for a quick dinner. Meh. We have a Sonic just down the street from us, and we were right across the street from Rudy's, but noo~ooo. The natives wanted Sonic. :P
The test drive went fine, it's a very clean car and had a very smooth ride for not being an SUV. Went with the top down, of course. Didn't really get to open it up or anything: the drive consisted of driving one way down an access road, turning around in a parking lot, and driving back. The salesman offered to let me test it out for the day tomorrow, to which I agreed. I got a little better feeling for it on the way home.
We decided to clean the Chevy out after putting the kids to bed. It needed to be cleaned out anyway, and now that we're looking to trade it in, it's a good time. The car was all sorts of messed up. Old food, napkins, financial papers, disco ball and clothing all tangled together in a heap that consumed the cabin of the car. After we finally sorted through all that mess, we vacuumed and gave it a good power washing.
I'm taking the Sebring to work tomorrow to get a better feel for it. The price is outstanding - far less than we paid for the Vue. If everything else falls into place, and there's nothing astoundingly wrong with the commute tomorrow, this could be a pretty short search.
I got a call back from the dealership that had the Sebring. It was still available for test-driving, so I set up a time for tonight. They were only open until 8, so the latest I could set was 7pm. I knew that was going to make for a rough dinner time, but there wasn't much I could do about it. Once we all gathered at home, we set out to the dealership, which was waaay out in Boerne. Stopped by a Sonic for a quick dinner. Meh. We have a Sonic just down the street from us, and we were right across the street from Rudy's, but noo~ooo. The natives wanted Sonic. :P
The test drive went fine, it's a very clean car and had a very smooth ride for not being an SUV. Went with the top down, of course. Didn't really get to open it up or anything: the drive consisted of driving one way down an access road, turning around in a parking lot, and driving back. The salesman offered to let me test it out for the day tomorrow, to which I agreed. I got a little better feeling for it on the way home.
We decided to clean the Chevy out after putting the kids to bed. It needed to be cleaned out anyway, and now that we're looking to trade it in, it's a good time. The car was all sorts of messed up. Old food, napkins, financial papers, disco ball and clothing all tangled together in a heap that consumed the cabin of the car. After we finally sorted through all that mess, we vacuumed and gave it a good power washing.
I'm taking the Sebring to work tomorrow to get a better feel for it. The price is outstanding - far less than we paid for the Vue. If everything else falls into place, and there's nothing astoundingly wrong with the commute tomorrow, this could be a pretty short search.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Weekend Intelligence: Fishie
New additions to the family (no, not another baby...), deforesting the backyard and completing WHM AF. Just a small sampling of the things we did this weekend. So, in typical weekend intelligence fashion, here are the highlights.I got one of those calls that makes an IT guy cringe: a massive reinstall at 5 minutes to 5:00. I didn't get outta work until a quarter after 6. Well, at least the big neighborhood BBQ for Friday night didn't take off. I grilled up the brats, but no one came. Probably just as well. That doesn't mean that I didn't get to shoot the breeze with one of the neighbors. One of the guys from across the street came over as I was finishing cleaning up the grill and we sat outside and had a few beers. I've been needing to hang out like that for a while. LOL I just need more friends in general. Spent the rest of the evening campaigning and relaxing. The counsel was still not happy by the end of the evening. -.-"
We got up somewhat early on Saturday. I picked up some breakfast tacos from Whataburger and we knocked out some yard work before it got too hot. I pulled a tree of a weed out of the back yard. No joke: the thing had a trunk about the width of my wrist. I got a whole bunch of other things pulled up before my back started going on strike. I just used the weed eater to knock down the rest of the 5ft grass. x.X We also wanted to get the oil changed in the Vue, so after a bit of a nap, we went and got it in line at WalMart. She's needed new toys for the longest time, so we also got her some blocks and a coloring book with washable crayons. Not to leave Colin out, we got him a set of goofy teeth and a heavy duty metal slinky. He likes them, but tends to break the cheap plastic ones in less than a day. Spent most of the afternoon looking at TVs and fish. Clara gets really excited when she sees the fishies, so we got her a betta fish in a small starter fishbowl.
Speaking of fish, I decided to pick up a Texas fishing license this year. You know, I used to go fishing all the time after college. Maybe it went with the whole having friends thing, but it seemed like, when the weather was good, I was fishing or camping almost every other weekend somewhere. Then when I moved to Texas, I just stopped. I got busy, got a job, had kids and just stopped. Last time I was anywhere close to camping was a men's retreat two years ago, and that wasn't really camping. It wasn't even roughing it in style. It was closer to staying at a hotel. I mean, housekeeping came and cleaned the bathrooms, changed the linens and the towels in the cabin twice while we were there. WTF? I want to break out my tent, catch dinner (or at least try to) and chill under the stars again. I figure a license is a good start.
After toys and provisions, oil change and a new fish, we ran home and cooked up some burgers for dinner and started setting up the new fishbowl. Everything needed rinsing and the water sat in dechlorinator for a little bit before adding Mr. Fishie. Colin instantly took his slinky to the stairway landing and made a few attempts at getting it to walk. Upon presenting Clara with the set of crayons, she ran over to the wall and promptly decided it would look much better in scribble green. -.- Luckily they are washable... Now to get the wife to wash the walls. :P Finished out the night with another round of Campaign. FINALLY the counsel let me keep my medal. With one day to spare. We did a few more fights for good measure and called it a night.
I'm glad I got a lot done on Saturday, because I got very little done on Sunday. Some kind of wicked stomach bug ripped though me and I was out for the day. Didn't get much sleep at that, either. Made for a very grumpy Jason. About the only thing I did of note was attend Dynamis - Jeuno. You might notice that WHM 5/5 is scratched off my list. XD I'd seen several of them drop in past runs, but always get outlotted or am not high enough in line for one. This run, 3 of them dropped, and I got the first one. At least now I can store the set.
Might go car shopping tomorrow. We checked into buying a new car all weekend. D's little Chevy Prism (we affectionately call it the go-cart) is starting to go down No Workie Road. Mechanically it's clean and gets great gas mileage and has an AWESOME A/C. But it rattles hardcore when idling and shakes at highway speeds. Not as bad as when the strut mount was going out, but I just don't want to dump much more into this car. I might look into replacing the door handle, just to bump the trade-in value, but I don't know how much I can do to this car and actually see much of any return. We put an inquiry into a rather inexpensive Sebring Convertible, and as luck would have it, it's still available. I'm not going to rush into it, though. I need the right deal if I'm going to take on more debt.
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