Wow, I haven't been here for a while!

So in the past 6 months I have not really gotten anywhere with my debt. I got my roof done finally and perhaps too late. There is some watter damage on my living room ceiling. It took a long time and I fought with the roofers but they did a great job.

I also rebuilt my crap ass back deck. Me and my 64 year old mom. I took 3 days and cost about $800. My first deck and it came out great. My neighbour across the back lane came over a couple of days after I finished and told me what a great job I did and how great it looked. He was very surprised that it was built by a chick. The deck was more expensive than I expected because I decided to go with cedar for the decking but it looks awesome. So the top pictures are the new deck and the lower pictures are the rotten old one. I didn't realize how dilapadated the old one was until it only took me an hour to tear it down by myself. Mind you, I was pretty angry at the roofers so I was a little motivated.

One of my new year's resolutions for this year was to write a little bit everyday but you can already see how that went.

Debts. I haven't done well in that area. I have two high interest loans that are costing me an arm and a leg.. Fortunately one has a beginning and an end. The other however is a line of credit and I was making a fair bit of head way in the fall and then Christmas came. And now I am back where I started. So I made an application for a low interest bank loan to get rid of that. With the payments I am making now, I can be free and clear of that in two years. Less if I get really motivated.

I am waiting for the result of the application.

Oh yeah, Happy Valentine's Day. I hope you all get to spend it with someone you care about.

Love Buble!

I went to see Michael Buble tonight with the parental unit. I am not sure whether or not she enjoyed the concert but that is OK, I enjoyed it enough for both of us. Itwas great although next time I have to pay attention to the seats. We were in the 3rd tier and that is way to far from the stage. It wasn't horrible but I am getting to old to sit in the nosebleeds. When I was younger, I was just happy to be at the concert. Now I want premier seating. No floor seats or anything like that but I want to see everything clearly. Old eyes and all, lol.

While driving there and back, I noticed a old pulling sensation when driving. There was also an odd faint klunking sound. I will have to monitor this. Today is Friday the 13th. So far nothing horrible has happened.

Opps! or maybe not

Looking back I may have jumped the gun by locking in early. The rates have gone down a bit since late June. But on the other hand I would kicking my own ass all over the block if they went up while I was greedy and waiting for them to drop lower. I am secure in my decision.

Day 11 - Now they want money

Can you believe the nerve?! Even athough they know I am on midnights and that I haven't slept much since they have been banging on my roof, those f*****s were knocking on my door at 10:30 AM. To get their money no doubt. They will get it when I feel like it.

Day 10 - Finally!

I think the roofers are as fed up with me as I am with them. They had a whole crew here today. There were even a couple of little kids and a pregnant lady. I never did find out who the kids belonged to but their job was to clean up. They picked up every shingle and roofing nail they could find. The very pregnant chick was the girlfriend of the head roofer. Why she would choose to sit in a hot truck all day when she should have been somewhere cool, I don;t know. But they finished. It is done. And although I will say horrible things about they from now until the end of time, I can say they did a good job. Or at least it appears that way now, time will tell.

Day 9 - here by noon

So today I think is the last day. I guess they feel the same way. They didn't bother to show up until noon.

A knock on the door is the owner to let me know about the price for replacing the addition deck.

And the fight is on. I tell him I intend to hold back money for non-productive work days. He gives me excuses about rain and ankles and the weather network. AND threatens to tell the guys to stop and start tearing the roof down.

I tell him all I expected was a call telling me what is going on. He doesn't feel that is necessary. "That is just roofing" he says. Problem. (By the by, and I'm sure it the same for all of you. If I have to be at work on a Thursday and I don't show up and don't phone, I don't get paid.)

Anyway, I tell him fine, whatever, I just want to be done with him and his slack ass band of delinquents. But I want it in writing. There will be no handshake deals since he can't be trusted. He gets on the phone to talk to the wife about writing something up.

I go upstairs to take a quick shower as I anticipate a trip to the bank. I come down 15 minutes later and he is gone (the workers are still here). He is gone home to deal with some personal business - on my f****** time. Nice.

Day 8 - about 2/3 done

Back to work again. They are almost done the east side. Tomorrow is the addition. And then they are done. The deck on the addition is almost all rotten. I want them to replace it all and start from fresh.

Day 7 - rain

It rained all last night. So far today is the only day they have had a legitimate reason for not showing up.

Day 6 - back to this again

Didn't show. Didn't phone. I didn't bother to call.

Day 5 - finally

For those of you keeping score, that is 4 non-productive work days. Write this down folks. You can keep between 10% and 15% up to 30 days after completion of the job. The theory is that in that month, anything that you notice wrong will be fixed by the company if they know you still have some of their money. Once you have paid the total bill, they may disappear. At least if they do disappear, you have some of your money. I recommend 15%.

So the roofers did show up today and they set to work. I was pretty sure I could sort of block out the pounding but then they turned on a stereo blaring hard rock. That ended my sleep at about 1 PM. And I was pissed. One because the job should have been done by now and two because they screwed up my sleep.

They do good work once they show up. It is a more difficult job than most. There are two layers of shingles and then cedar shakes underneath. The west side of the house is basically done. So it was worth not getting any sleep.