February 24, 2004

Can you tell I'm feeling all peppy and saucy today?  No real reason.  Nothing has particularly changed since the last time I wrote.  Things are shaping up for Eric and his partner, Mike, to start working sometime next month.   They'll get paid a month or so after that and will get a check once a month throughout the project, which will likely take them a few months.  All we have to do is hang on for a few more weeks.  Once they've gotten a project or two completed, it will be easier for them to get more work.  It's been a long, long 8 months since Eric was first laid off.  He worked for about a month, knowing it was likely temp and it sure was.  With the lilies going mad like they have, I know this is the beginning of something really, really big.  :)  I can't imagine what it would be like to not have to have money challenges all the time.  Eric has worked so very hard for this and I'm tremendously proud of him. 

We got our "out of strange places" miracles this weekend.  It was actually quite interesting.  Our washing machine has been dying for more years than I can recall.  Eric has replaced belts, rewired and done all kinds of resuscitation on it.  Lately, he's had to reach down into the tub and physically wrench the agitator into working.  He's even had bruises on his upper arms from it.  The clothes don't get as clean as they used to and it takes the dryer a lot longer to get them dry because the washer doesn't spin out the clothes very well.

I was having dinner with one of my friends, Jennifer, a few nights ago and out of the blue, she said, "Do you know anyone who needs a washer?"  Turns out, she has one she's never used (she bought it used) and hauled it to a couple of different houses with her.  Eric rented a U-haul and picked it up on Sunday and it worked wonderfully!  Score!  While he had the truck, we traded the boys' bed frame (a full sized bed where they both sleep, except that Nathan often sleeps on a sleeping bag next to our bed) for David's full sized bed, which is the bottom bunk to a set he and Josh used to sleep in when they were young.  I had the frame to the top bunk (a twin) in my garage, but no mattress for it.  We traded beds, got some dowels and bolts and a mattress and now the boys have bunk beds, which I've wanted for a couple of years now!  It dwarfs their room in a major way.  Even though it's trading a full sized bed for a full sized bed, the other one had no head board or foot board, so it is much more encroaching.  Still, it's good they have separate beds now.  So that's two wishes granted for the cost of a U-haul!

Eric also got an Unemployment check out of the blue.  Only one week, but every penny helps.  It was for the week before the suspension took effect.  That definitely helps to tide us over.  Eric and his partner have a small job to do this week from a client that always pays promptly, so that will help as well.  They are having to take legal action against a client who owes them around $2500 and hasn't paid in about 2 months other than to bounce a check to them.  I have cursed his very soul into the depths of hell.

Speaking of bounced checks, I'm going to have to look into legal advice because the company identifying themselves as a law firm is still trying to get me to pay on a check I supposedly wrote to someone 11 years ago.  I asked them for written proof a week ago and have received nothing but more phone calls (asking me if I received the proof they sent).  I've got to figure out where to call to find out if there is a statue of limitations on this.  If $358 weren't a stiff amount, I wouldn't be too concern.  All I can find online is what the payee can collect (three times the amount of the check, etc).   I imagine I can call a legal clinic or bank and find out.  The Department of Consumer Affairs was no help whatsoever.

Wow!  That was interesting!  Eric came home and said there were cops at parade rest all around the school's perimeter and I'd been hearing helicopters circling (nothing unusual there).  I called the school and the secretary immediately put me on hold.  When she picked up, she said (without finding out what I called about, so I could have been reporting an absence or something), "There has been something reported in the neighborhood and the sheriff's department has the school on lockdown.  Everything is fine here at Pioneer.  Please stay in your home."  WTF?  Eric called the sheriff's department and found out that some woman in the area came home to find an armed intruder in her house.  He fled and the cops were looking for him.  Eric went to get the kids (by then, it was dismissal time) and as it turns out, they even had the kids in "duck and cover" mode for a half hour!  Anyway, kids are home and safe and rumor has it the guy was caught. 

Meanwhile, I love this:

See you soon!

Love,

K

PS:  Be good to people.  Smile.  Make the world a friendlier place.  It will come back to you.  It's not all New Agey bullshit.