Weekly Update & Mortgage Challenge

EXCUSE THE MESS! But seriously if I waited for the couch to be cleaned, we would have been there all day long. The pipe is for hydroponics. Holes are all cut out. We got a load of 2x4's delivered today, someone was going to burn them can ya believe it? We plan on heading up and getting more. Hubby will start on an A-Frame to hold these pipes. Almost time to get started!

This little Turkey, he is in first grade, but half way through second grade math. He is scary on how stinking smart he is. Well he is now done with school until we start up again.

So hubby and I fought last night. I found a wee bit of money in the budget and this faucet needed fixing. It was streaming water, you could hear our septic pump running all the time. It was a matter of time before the pump burnt out and then how much would that costs? Lots more then we have. 

So last night well running numbers I mentioned that its time to fix the faucet. Hubby was like I thought you were going to call a plumber? Hum no, why would I call someone for something so simple? I fixed it last year, I can take it off and put on a new one? Then he got on you tube and watched a few videos, and really we found out it could be a simple nut or washer issue. 

So this morning we went out and found our faucet looks nothing like any of the faucets we saw on you tube. We did this and this and that and still streaming water. So hubby frustrated with me, sawed it off, and went to the hardware store and bought a new one. Came home and within one minute had it all totally fixed. Water has stopped streaming. We waited 5 minutes to turn on the well, and then another 5 minutes to turn on the house water. And still it's dry. We just left it like this to be sure it won't leak. A leak in the inside wall is NOT good. 

So for 20 dollars instead of 300 plus we have a fixed faucet. Now there is a place for plumbers, don't get me wrong. Like last year when the dog hit the back faucet and it was ripped off the house and took pipes with it. We called a plumber because the pipes in the house needed to be fixed and I was busy under the house cleaning up the flood. Spent 360 dollars we didn't have. But when you have plumbers on You Tube saying folks it's easy peasy fix it yourself and save the money! 

On the Mortgage front, moving slow. From 118,766. to 118,634.

One Word & Weekly Update

HYDROPONICS!

So we are going to try hydroponics. We will do some test tubes this summer. Trying to figure out how to grow strawberries, lettuce, and I'm thinking basil? We also have some scrap wood coming to make an A-Frame. An A-Frame will hold about 6 tubes on each side. I'm hoping to build one A-Frame this summer, add in the tubes and see where all this goes. Well building this, I'll have about three tubes set aside and some lettuce in a tub. And just play with things.

So a few things I have learned all ready. I have only seen men on you-tube talking about hydroponics. And one should not drink and make you-tube videos. Just saying! And you can get sea sick watching a you-tube video.

Mr. Lincoln bloomed last week. Well then we had a storm from heck with hail and dumping rain and this bloom gave up and died. Luckily I got a photo the day before? It was lovely.

Lordy another busy week. Mostly out in the garden, way too much to do and not enough time. 

Today was my birthday and guess who forgot? I got to spend the day in the pouring rain planting my in laws flowers. You know when you are wet and sticky and just yuck. Yeah, that was me today. 

Well on the Mortgage front things are dropping. Sitting at 118,766. It's slowly dropping, but can't complain. I know one day we will get there. Gosh I hope!

Weekly Update & Mortgage Challenge

Thought I would show off some photos from the garden.

This is the new hens and chicks bed. They were here before, but not enough depth for roots. So I pulled them all out. Removed the plastic, dug out a few inches, put down the plastic. Filled with new dirt and replanted.

This is the newest rose, well ok can't say that. But I haven't showed off this one yet. This is Blue Skies it's a purple.

Blue Girl is blooming.

One bed of tomatoes are planted. I have dill in the middle.

My garden is starting to turn green.

This is actually my newest rose. Pot of Gold. It will be planted in the back. 

Not tons going on this week. Which is actually good. My one child (Tucker) who has been pushing every button I have, melted me the other day. Daddy and Ethan have been spending a lot of time birding, and have some birding dates coming up. Well Daddy asked Tucker if he wanted to do anything. He said he wanted mommy time to make a teddy bear for Ethan's birthday. Yeah, I melted. But then I directed him to maybe, Ethan wants a bird house instead???? So we are looking into that. Although that child is growing and ARRRR he is testing me every time we turn around. 

So on the Mortgage front. We are under 119,000. Ever so exciting. We are at 118,898.00. It helps in the stress department we are under 119. Need to go and do the math and see when we will be under 118.

Weekly Update & Mortgage Challenge

Garden photos to come. Sadly it's raining AGAIN.

Tell ya the cat who hates everyone. Sure gets around. This is the closes she has gotten to Buddy.

Here Kirby and Tinkerbell so inter-mixed. She sure takes care of Tinker. Tinker is close to passing over. Really just a matter of time. Probably be harder on Kirby then me. 

Any who, been a very tough week here. Work messed up hubby's check. I can't tell ya how many times I tell hubby to do something yourself don't trust someone. Well he trusted his manager who said he would take care of the vacation pay. HA manager said he thought the computer would just take care of it. Like really? And well does he care? nope. So we are only getting 4 days of pay this week which just covers the bills. It's so hard to take money out of savings, because we may not see that missing day? Then savings is down and we are hitting savings hard right now. I need the bleeding to stop. 

The truck came back a LOT more then we were expecting. Add in we need new tires. Garage guy said you have a bad tire. Sure enough pulling into the driveway it went flat. It has the spare on it for now, so we can save for new tires. 

So it's been a bumming week. I can't afford to get my mother a gift, but if I don't, I kid ya not she will call daily and whine. it's honestly a pure hell I don't want. But she won't listen if I say I can't afford it. She won't care that we didn't get our full pay check. She just wants her gift it's all about crap for her. Not to mention she hasn't called in weeks on end. IDK it's hard, because there is no loving relationship with her. You can't have one with someone who use to beat you and treat you like her personal slave?

And I'm bummed that I won't get a mothers day gift, told hubby to thank his manager for ruining my day? And it's not like I wanted much of anything, I don't need anything. Just wanted to go to the garden store and mosey around. Instead I will be gutting a play area and cleaning it up and out for the kids. 

On the Mortgage front, we are at 119,030. Next week we will be below 119. Even through we took a hit on the pay check, we are not stopping the payment for the house. It's way too important. And really we would have just tried to tough it out money wise. But I found out today we are out of cat food and I forgot we are out of flour. I'll be as cheap as I can, but....Just hope for things to be back to normal next week. And well some sun would be nice!

Weekly Update and Mortgage Challenge

My week started with us chasing horses down the street. I kid ya not! So sitting on the couch, doing emails and you hear the dogs bark. Not just any bark, something is wrong bark. So I ask Tuck to look out the window as I start to get up. Thinking someone pulled into the drive. He yells Horses! By now I'm getting on my boots, he yells horses going down the road. So Ethan and I rush out to try and catch up. Can't for the life of us get ahead of them. Luckily a car pulls up on the top of the road. So the one horse sees the car and turns into the last yard on the street and eats grass. So Ethan and I go around and block any way to the road. It was Ethan, me and the car all lined up. 

The neighbor was able to then walk up and get one horse. That scares the other and Tucker got him into the next yard. Then we paused, as not to scare the horse. Then the neighbor started to walk the horse he got home, was able to slowly grab the other horse and start to walk home. Ethan, Tucker and I walk behind, in case they bolt, they can't get past us. 

So the story is they horses were tied to the trampoline will the owners were working on fences in the horse area. One horse then realized he could move the trampoline, they walked it across the yard, taking out a mail box. Finally broke loose and went on down the road. Just Thank God that car stopped and that person stayed in the car. How many people would have gotten out and that scares the horse? Just gently and calm is what we need. No one got hurt and they got home safe.

This is a common photo in this house. 

24 hours after the running of the horses, I could not move. My back went out, my legs hurt, I was dead in the water. But kept pushing through as things need to be done. It's not Friday and I'm still hurting. But pushing through.

So by Thursday I was just having a week and done and burnt. So I called school off and we ran down to Home Depot and just look around at the garden center. Rumor has it they got a new shipment of roses in. Well no roses and I was bummed. BUT I found an orange tree I fell in love with.

And a lemon.

So today after all the errands were done and over with, I had just enough money to go and get a rose. So Welcome Blue Girl. She was on my short list. So she came home with me, with a dollar to spare.

She will be a lovely purple.

So hubby is home for a week. And tell ya we have LOTS to do. Yesterday he mini fenced this area in. No more having dogs in with the apple trees. Today we fixed the mini gate to the play area for the kids. Well hubby was fixing the gate, I weed wacked the very tall grass. After that we dug up the grass, we put down weed blocker, and for the moment we have 5 barrels in with the apple trees. The barrel's will hold our citrus for the time being. The area will be away from the dogs, and be watered good, and out of hair for the year.

As you can see I haven't touched the grass in the play area. A future project. Hard to believe there is weed blocker in the play area? 

So to the Mortgage. I am now trying to pay 132 a week. That will safely get us under 113k if all goes well? So I paid the 132 on Wednesday. I paid the Mortgage payment today. With everything we are at 119,163. In two weeks we will be in the 118's. Very exciting. 

We are also still waiting on the truck. Very scary. We keep saving, I keep hoping we walk away owing nothing. BUT what are the real odds of that?

Welcome Mister Lincoln

Well silly me got on a rose kick. I have been wanting roses for years, YEARS. And with the talk of more land one day, it's hard to keep waiting. Well we lost four lavender bushes (ticked me off!) this past spring and so I had four empty barrels. So after some chatting we decided to get some roses. After a trip to the garden store, and confused as ever. I came home with Mister Lincoln.

As you can see he will be a pretty red.

He is a great size.

And today he was planted in the first spot in the yard. After some research I know what two I want next, so budget depending on those.

Since I was taking photos of Mister Lincoln I took a shot of the garden in front. It's slowly turning green.

Orange trees are doing well. Waiting for their barrels. I'm to the point I don't want to put anything into the ground and since they are young they can sit in a big barrel until we know what we plan on doing with life.

And here is the front yard apple tree. It's loaded. Last year it gave us about 6 or so apples.

Weekly Update & Mortgage Challenge

Well not much going on this week. Why? Because it's RAINING. And it won't stop Raining. So I've been inside. Stressing about money. 

We have this dream of one day, selling the house and moving to some land, some real land no less then ten acres. Living off the land. It's one big reason for the Mortgage Challenge. If we can pay down the mortgage then refi removing the pmi, our payment will drop, nearly in half. Then the money going towards the house. Will go to a savings so our money is spread around. I don't like all my eggs in one basket. So the amount of money in the house and savings we should be able to pay cash for something? There for, no mortgage payment. And so where ever we move, odds are when we start out hubby will only have to look for a part time job, verses 40 plus hours a week. He likes that.

In the future when we know where we will land, and what our land looks like, we will figure out ways to live off the land and how to make money off the land. But that is another day. We've been studying bees this week, very exciting.

Right now it's hard to save 2 dollars, let alone something decent a week. So this week I have opened my etsy store. Lots more on that later, I only have two listings. With the gray skies and rain I can't get decent photos. Math wise "if" I can sell 5 pillowcases a week I believe I can put about 100 away a week. Going towards our future goal. It's not a lot, BUT it's a start. It gives me a way to help. And if I'm helping, then I'm not stressing. 

Stress as we want to do this sooner then later. We want the kids out enjoying land and weather and life. We have been working on de-cluttering and downsizing. We didn't realize we had nearly 100 totes under the house. Totes came from my past, hubby's past. Stuff that I just tote and put under the house. Deal with it later. Well it's later. Every week hubby has been off, we pull out totes and go through them. This past week alone we made 3 trips to goodwill, our trash pile is over flowing and we went from 30 totes on this load to about 8. Hoping when we are done, we will be at about 20-25 total totes. So going from about 100 to about 25. 

We then will go through the shed. Our hope is to put the totes from under the house to the shed. Just keep downsizing. Because really if it's under the house for years do we really need it? A few totes have been really hard. Well others go straight to goodwill. And some going what were we thinking saving this? When hubby is off next week, we will pull the final 25 totes and finish up round one.

Doing this now, and not doing all of everything as we are looking to move, and set up some land.  It also makes you feel better. Living with less, the house feels like it's breathing.

Then the truck is back in the shop, after breaking down on the road coming back from a hay run. Luckily we live in the country and have a country car guy. So I picked up the kids, and the car guy came to help them home. But now the truck is with the car guy. Nearly everything was under warranty so it shouldn't hurt too bad. But until you know. 

So on the Mortgage end of things. The amount is going down slowly, we seem to be in a rut. Going from 119,689 to 119,559. Seems we will be in the 119's for a few more weeks.  But we are chugging along.

Wild Flowers

Well lots going on here garden wise, herb wise, seed wise, growing wise. Honestly some days I don't sit before I fall into bed and do it all again the next day. 

So today got on a yarrow kick, I was googling something and came across a really pretty red yarrow. So I had to go and see what two I was growing in pots. I know what grows wild. And I have White and a Pink-ish in pots. I have purple and white that grows wild in the back field. So this afternoon I was trying to close my eyes (for a rare nap), but they popped open when I went DUH I'll buy some seeds and put them across the street in our "field". On our street we have houses on one side and land on the other. It's someones land, we think the line of it is the counties, but no one takes care of it and it's trees and such. You go up the road and ten tons of blackberry's. It's where you find me in August picking berries and filling our freezer. 

Since becoming "aware" of weeds and such. I have been up there just looking when I have time. No yarrow over there. But on the other hand I don't want to spend money. I have tons of yarrow why not transplant it. I then went out back to see what is happening to my yarrow. My container of white yarrow has gone crazy. Where my pink is barely hanging on, looks like I have 2-3 plants in there. Where white is wanting to jump and I wouldn't be shocked if I have 50 plus plants in there. 

So tomorrow I will be thinning out the white yarrow and moving it to the open field. Depending on how many I transplant, I may go and dig up some of my wild and place it over there??? 

But I went up today to show hubby where I was thinking of putting the yarrow. And we found these two flowers. I know they are something????? But what? So the last picture I believe it's Wild Camas. The top picture, really no idea. I'm tempted to call it Dames Rocket or in other words Hesperis matronalis But honestly I have no idea. Hubby went out and planted it with the wild bleeding hearts he brought home last year. So in the morning I will take out the computer and compare. Might have to wait until it has bloomed more? Anyone have any ideas? 

According to the map of WA Damas Rocket is not in my area, it's in the county below me? Hum yeah like things don't jump?

Weekly Update & Mortgage Challenge

Yep, it's been two weeks. Well we had sun. Yes. SUN. And I had two very sick boys. Just a fever, but it was high and nothing was bringing it down and they felt like crap. So a few sleepless nights.

Our apple tree, it gave us about 6 apples last year. This year it's loaded. Might be too loaded we may be picking baby apples so we don't loose the tree from weight? Hopefully I can get a photo of our pear tree later. It's loaded also.

Ran to the garden store, as I lost BOTH bay leaves this past winter. So I'm replacing both of them and found a pink rosemary. And lavender thyme.

One of my herb beds. See the holes? I finally dug up my garlic chives that died. Major debate going on here. Do I replace with new garlic chives? or plant my Nelly chives there? They are doing great and need a home. On the other side of the holes, I lost my rosemary. I haven't pulled them yet as I still have hope. But it's ever fading?

This guy finished his math book. Lucky for me he has a math brain. But Tucker started this book this week. Oh just pray for me. He does not have a math brain. But three lessons in and we are doing ok. Ethan is finishing up his "hard" math book this week. Then he will start 5th grade. 

Mortgage is going slow, it's dropping, but the numbers seem to be falling slowly. Sitting at 119,689. Math wise won't be out of the 119's until next month. Ran numbers for a few weeks in advance. And things are ever so tight. We have cut a couple of wants so we can save for some van work that we know is coming. Belts will need to be replaced before our trip. I'm not getting stuck on the side of the road with a broken belt. Been there done that, won't be doing it again.

Weekly Update & Mortgage Challenge

And it has been a week and then some.

This one finished up third grade math. Lord help me trying to get him through fourth.

So it's our Anniversary on Friday, after 11 years it's nothing exciting. Just surprised we made it another year. But In laws give us money, and it came Tuesday. So we jump in the truck and run up and get some bark. We have been wanting to do this for 3 plus years. I can not tell ya how awesome this looks. Although we are a little short.

But we won't be finishing this week. Why? Well in pulling the truck into the driveway the truck died. This was apparently a start of a fight. After getting the kids into the house. I come out to tell hubby we should try and jump the truck. No, it doesn't need jumping. So he calls his car guy, the car guy tells him to jump it. So now I have to go out and help him jump it. Which worked and we got the truck into the drive and then proceeded to have a BIG fight. About how he doesn't ever listen to me, but he will listen to anyone else. We had the same fight a few hours later. And I'm sure we will have it again.

Pretty right?

The boys got a few plants for their beds. 

So it's a very tough week right now. We seem to be getting hit left and right with expenses right now. The truck was moved to the top of the list because it's needed for hay runs. I blow a fuse today, not only blow it, it was out. Had to replace it. Puppy went sick, but after some googling decided to give it some time. No food for about 12 hours and now he has nearly all bounced back and started eating chicken and rice that I made him. So had to worry about him all day and do we take him in, do we wait. We've been through this before with other dogs, we get antibiotics and sent home. I don't want a puppy full of antibiotics if we can just wait it out. Although we know how puppies get into things and eat stuff they shouldn't. 

So BIG Mortgage news. We are now below 120,000. Being hit left and right makes it really hard to pay that extra. I keep hoping the struggling will pay off. Currently at 119,949.49.