And then there were two

On Tuesday morning I took the dog out for a walk before work and I noticed a shallow hole in my front yard. It looked like a dog had been digging in the yard (or an army of squirrels). When I looked down I saw a lot of dirt on the sidewalk and it was the good dirt, the birthday present dirt* so I kind of scraped it back to the yard best I could with my flip-flop, then continued with our morning walk.

When Yoshi and I round the block from the other direction I happened to look at the yard again and noticed that one of my plants was GONE! That hole, that's where the plant was. I had three 'Autumn Joy' Sedums in the front about 8" apart in a triangle and now, there are just two of them. First, "who steals plants from people's yards?" Really, who just pulls an entire plant up? They aren't little anymore either, about 8" across and a foot tall. Then, "Who steals 'Autumn Joy' Sedum?" It's a great plant for zone 5 (where we live) and probably a lot of other places too. It's easy to grow, easy to maintain, looks cool in the winter, and easy to propagate. Just take a shovel to the plant every few years for a whole new plant. Ask anyone with an established clump and they could give you some without disturbing their landscape. So, people give this plant away, but someone stole one from my yard.

There isn't much I can do about the thievery. Nothing else had gone missing, and I can easily replace the missing clump by dividing one of my remaining ones. But it's the principle. It's things like this that make you want to put a fence up around the front yard.

*2 years ago my parents gave my a truck load of dirt for my front yard to amend the dead soil under the compacted lawn.

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Money Spent = Money Saved?

Although it’s still cold and windy outside this week with unseasonably low temperatures, the warm weather is almost here and that means the end of the heating season. Last fall we replaced our 1987 oil burning furnace with a new 92%+ efficient gas burning furnace. Of course at the time I started collecting bids heating oil as nearing $5 a gallon and I was understandably concerned about the cost to run that oil burner al winter. Then the prices dropped. Well, oil prices fluctuate – or, they do now at least. I gave myself a conservative estimate on the return on the investment or 6 years back in September and well, we’re a little behind on that. The price of heating oil dropped back to $2.29 in February and that put a damper on my speedy ROI.

However, just because we’re not “saving” as much as I planned/hoped doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a good investment. We are saving money. In fact, our heating bill for the ‘08-’09 winter is around 50% of the estimated oil cost. And the price for natural gas is actually supposed to go down for next winter so maybe we’ll make up some of that momentum.

Estimated ’08-’09 cost of heating the house with oil: $896.35

Estimated ’08-‘09 final natural gas bill: $470.43

Dollars saved: $425.92!

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Save on your taxes! Buy a house!

Everyone told me that my tax burden would be significantly less when I bought a house. I’d be able to deduct everything and pay so much less. It didn’t quite work out that way. Maybe if we already had a bunch of things that were “itemizable” but we are apparently a household with little to deduct and came up a few hundred below the standard deduction. We were still able to deduct a portion of the real estate taxes – that was nice – and since it was all still so simple this year I took advantage of a free online preparation program and free e-file.* Really it’s a good thing that we came up short on the deductions because it means we aren’t paying a lot in interest. I mean it’s a lot, don’t get me wrong, we don’t have one of those swanky 4.8% mortgages that people can get now. But it isn’t the 14% that my parents paid. Maybe the low rates will stick around and we’ll re-finance and get a 15 year, or buy the vacant lot.

*Apparently I wasn’t paying enough attention while completing my tax preparation online because I got an email this morning with the subject “Your Federal Tax Return Hasn’t Been Filed”. What! I finished it I swear, I remember entering in my account number and routing number and “signing” the return with my new PIN, what do you mean to tell me (the day after taxes are due) that I haven’t filed? I logged back onto the web site and figured out there were three more “next” buttons to click to finish filing. Don’t you think they could have sent me an email yesterday? “Make sure and file your taxes since you obviously forgot to click Finish?” Or maybe when I closed the tab a warning popup could have asked “are you sure? You haven’t actually sent the IRS anything yet.” I know it was my fault, but it still sucks. And I’ll have to pay a fine of something between $1-$28 and if I don’t pay in a timely manner the IRS will demand 20% interest. Yay.

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We Have Laundry

It took a while – over a year – but we can now do laundry in the house. I wanted everything to be in place before I bought a washer and dryer. Electrical, plumbing and venting all needed to be altered to install a working and safe laundry area. Hiring a plumber to re-do the drains was the biggest expense. It actually cost more than the washer and dryer, but after two days we have a new stand pipe with a p-trap to replace the old drum trap and a new drain extension off an existing 4” vertical drain for the upstairs bathroom. It was all the little expenses that added up to be not so little that surprised me though. $30 of stuff to vent the dryer, $50 to wire the dryer outlet, another $30 to wire the washer outlet plus new water shutoffs, and no-burst washer hoses and it was about $200 just to connect everything.

I decided to vent the dryer through a window – temporarily. The pane was already broken and it’s right above the dryer. Eventually I want to vent through the foundation wall and maybe replace the windows above the dryer since only one has hinges and can open. ( I could add hinges to the other one maybe, but 30” in-swinging casement windows in the basement seem like a hazard since they are all open at about face level – 5’.)

To install the new outlets – one for the washer and one for the dryer – I decided to run the wires through the ceiling instead of running 30’ of conduit and competing with the water supply lines for space. This meant that I had to drill a hole through each joist and pull the 12 and 10 gauge wire across the room 1 foot above my head. It took a little effort and a little help and with the additional help of the reciprocating saw we got the wires down the wall and to the new outlet locations. The lathe and plaster were already pretty damaged on that wall anyway so I’m okay with the mess I made of it. Someday I’ll take out that section and put up some nice smooth drywall. Someday…after the electrical in the rest of the house is replaced, after the water supply lines are replaced…you know, someday.

But for now I can wash the sheets, and blankets, and jeans, and t-shirts and delicates without trudging down the street and procrastinating for 6+ weeks. I’ll probably still procrastinate but at least when I get desperate I can do a load of socks and underwear.

No, No, Nanette opens tomorrow and we’ll run for 5 weekends but after that I’m taking a break - I think. I want to , but I want to do a lot of things. If I decide to stay at home for a while, I want to start getting seeds for the side of the house and the vegetable garden, pick out a rose and scrape/repaint a trellis to grow it on. I want to start work on a patio for the back yard and start the fence. Before you know it the snow will be gone and it will be spring and we can start taking real walks with Yoshi and spending time outside. Yup, I’m done with winter.

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