Or... Maybe I'm not

To tell the truth, part of the reason I'm "not back" has to do with blog formats themselves. Granted, unless you're willing to pay for stuff, you have to use the features available on a freebie. But honestly, I get tired of not being able to organise things the way I want them done... Get tired of having to link to my real website (and code the pages) and so forth. It isn't that I'm lazy. (I mean, I am lazy, but that isn't why) It's that I have way too many other things to do.

But -- that begs the question of "omfg this blog is a mess, I saw a recipe or how-to or explanation once and now I can't freakin find it!"

I hate that. I'm sure other people have the same issue.

However, onward and upward as the worm said before it knew the early bird was waiting for it.

One of the reasons I've been busy is of course the winter holidays. These are a big deal for our family, be it Samheine/Halloween, North American Thanksgivings (Canada and the US), or the whole midwinter thing. One reason is EverQuest; I lead a raiding guild -- enough said, eh? Another reason though, is my perpetual frustration over "how to" stuff and "save money" stuff.

Save money? Really? By going out to your local I-krapa store and SPENDING money? How to? Really? How-to hack something you spent a fortune on? (See previous sentence.) There simply HAS to be a happy medium between "Oh good lord that looks trailer trash crap" and "Yes, dahling, Lloydz of Lundun insures this for 1meelion". There has to be.

See, the thing is, I live in a cave in the woods... Well no, not really. I live in 2 trailers, in the woods. Why? Because we could afford the original trailer, it got us out of a return to my parents' household quickly, and because (silly me) I thought trailers were fairly well constructed. After all, my grandparents lived in a trailer for 50 years and it stood up to kids, grandkids, and whee, great grandkids.

Dumdum... hah.... no, trailers are no longer well constructed. They are put together with the cheapest (NOT most inexpensive, CHEAPEST) materials available, and then dressed up to look good. And a further little word of caution -- just like "model homes" or "model units" -- yeah, the trailer you get delivered is not nearly as nice as the one you looked at before you ordered, got the loan, and spent the money.

However, we didn't find that out at first. We were pleased enough with the (apparent) durability of the trailer we could afford that, when we went into electronics reviewing, we purchased another trailer. Unfortunately for us, my little war with breast cancer put an end to our retirement career of reviewing, and as a lovely little side issue, it also meant that the trailers, and the lanai that was supposed to have been my office, connecting the trailers, began to fall apart, since no one else (young daughter, handicapped housemate) was capable of maintaining the trailers -- or even knew they needed to be maintained. And as for the lanai -- it leaked from day one and is now, basically, a pile of rotten lumber.

Then the floors in both trailers started to rot out.... wtf? Oh, well it seems the subflooring is MDF board -- "construction grade" my arse.... if it gets wet, for any reason -- open window, dog puddle, burst pipe -- then it falls apart, and you guessed it, people step through the carpet and fall under the house. Yeah. Serious.

Then the plumbing goes bonkers... yeah well THAT I fixed. After spending 1500$ to pay a plumber who broke a sink and a toilet and complained that he'd never heard of/worked on a drain and septic tank where there was a Y connector. Scuse me? Don't get out much, do you, because in housing divisions, MOST of the drains are Y connects. Why? Oh, because you know, a T connect would let my sewage back up into YOUR house, or yours into our other neighbor's, or theirs into ours... Yeah, the Y thing from the house to the sewer or septic tank is actually NORMAL. So after he breaks my stuff (and you know, the kitchen sink still doesn't drain right) I made the company replace my toilet (big mistake, the one they provided uses 4x the water my old funny looking one did, but eh) and still doesn't get my plumbing draining, and still can't figure out why the washer drain won't... well... drain.... I fixed the stuff myself. It was easy. I just checked which things were not draining, and then went in under them (and yes, under the house) and cut them open, reamed them out, and then replaced the fittings. Not including my time, it cost $100 in pieces of pvc and sealers and pipe goo. And while I was at it, I "grey watered" my washer drain. Let's face it, the rinse water is perfectly okay for watering non-food plants. Why waste it when the water bill is upward of thirty bucks a month?

Sooo everything's cool, except yeah the lanai is still falling down, but yeah let's save up and get that fixed.... then the floors in the 2nd trailer, which is no longer an "office" but a living space, those floors give out. To the tune of $700. Plus weird water damage to a wall thanks to a stray weird storm. But at least this handyman (Randy and his assistant Lee) are DA BOMB. These guys do damn fine work, they do not ever put me off, their estimates are usually within $50 of exactly what they said it would cost. They fixed the floor and walls where a dog we (mistakenly) thought would fill the niche that Milo and Ren did, had tried desperately to get out of the house one night. So I knew Randy and Lee would do good on the floor and the wall, and they did.

But between that and paying off credit cards that covered medical expenses for Cat and Lynk and me that weren't otherwise covered.... yeah, no spare cash.

Then we find out the blackpipe, the propane lines under the original trailer, have rotted/rusted out. Well, I'd said for MONTHS I could smell propane. No one else could. Finally one Thursday it was so bad, the trashman pounded on my door to wake me up because he could smell it -- COMING DOWN THE GRAVEL ROAD!

Yeah. I don't even wanna THINK about that expense. But again, there we are, behind again! Bills are paid, groceries are bought -- and that's all there is, no spare cash for anything else, not even a stick of gum, ffs.

One thing after another... we think we're back on an even keel again and -- blam -- the electrical system in the 2nd trailer goes weird. Now, this bugs me for a couple of reasons -- one, electrical fires suck, and electrical fires in trailers are deadly... and two, the computers are in this trailer. So now I'm saving up to get this fixed. And crossing every finger I have, that nothing bad will happen before I do.

Then, after almost 20 years of "yeah we'll get it there next month!" CenturyTel (Now CenturyLink) finally gets DSL here. Now, for a little over 3 years, I've been using an air card, from AllTel Wireless -- which suddenly gets bought out by VerySucky, I mean ver - izon -- you know, the company that's been in the news lately for cheating its customers? Yeah them. So when they buy AllTel I call to BE SURE there's not going to be any BS with my contract and that it will, as planned, roll over to month-to-month, no contract, no crap. Yes of course! they assure me.

Liars. I called to cancel it and they suddenly claim I bought new equipment the prior month. Wrong, I still have my original AllTel card (it's a gadget about the size of a thumb drive, if you don't know). No, you bought new equipment and signed up for a longer contract. NO I DID NOT, and it no longer gets a signal anyway because you jerks refuse to use existing towers, refuse to rent or lease other towers, and YOUR tower is over 30 miles away -- so I get, oh yeah NO SIGNAL. Turn it off. Okay we'll do that and you'll get a bill for the $420 you owe. The hell I will -- you waive that because first of all you're a bunch of lying thieves, second because you're a bunch of theiving liars, and third, because I don't get a signal so I CANNOT USE THE DEVICE! Oh but you show as using over 5g of activity this month... Really? Wow, considering the card is unplugged and packed in its original box. You mean the card works even when it's not in use? Nice try, liar.

I finally did get the charge waived and the service off. I won't say CenturyLink's DSL is any great improvement (I actually see very little difference in speed or quality) but yeah, at least they don't lie about what services you have, I know the local techs personally (Lynk went to school with some of them) and it doesn't randomly shut down. But I was ready to go back to dial-up, rather than put up with VerLIEzon any more.

So... we're still not even up to right now!

This past couple years have been rainy mild summers AND winters. Hey that's neato, you say... yeah, except for one small problem -- the japanese honeysuckle that has invaded large parts of the Mizzourah Ozarks. This stuff can, in one year, destroy a tree with a trunk as big around as a dinner plate. You can keep ahead of it if you try a bit, but all the being sick, then surgeries, then more sick, more surgeries, and then finally the mild years.... wow. Surprised I still have a house. So we go out and start cutting it back, and yay, that's working great. Finally, SOMETHING I can conquer, ya know?

The garden? yeah not so much. The whole "raised bed" thing just flat doesn't work for us. I dunno why, maybe I dun do it right. But it's far too expensive, for one thing, because I don't have "found objects" I can use to build up the beds, and so forth. So, with the help of a friend, her chainsaw, and her brush-hawg, we cleared an area that we *hope* we can make into a garden this coming year. We'll probably have to tarp it, and till it over several times, and I may have to at least grow my tomatoes on the deck (yet again) but this should eventually work out. Always provided I get the tiller fixed, yo. And my own chainsaw. If I can find it. It's around somewhere.

We also started to work on the chicken yard. That was when I remembered all the sandstone that underlies the forest mast.... We have to date broken two shovels. I'm going to buy a real one, and a pickaxe. The trouble with all this sandstone is, the rocks are "just big enough" to mess with your head -- you can't find the edge because actually, you've found a nest of little rocks... you can't pry them out because.... so yeah. Saving up for a pickaxe and (another) shovel.

At least I have old leftover fence I can use to make the actual pen. I'll have to buy a shed kit, though, because bantams can't survive a Mizzourah winter without some shelter from the cold. Just because the last 2 years were mild, doesn't mean the next two years will be -- I remember this cycle from my childhood. One year of cold, a couple years of holy god hell froze over, a couple years of Wow, let's go get in the pool on Solstice Morning, three years of mixed, rinse-repeat. But so far, this at least is looking like one more thing I can conquer. For now. Maybe.

And so, finally, are the bills -- I've got a payment plan worked out to where I should have them all done with, in the next 30 months. What messed with me so far was the fact that every time I paid OFF a bill -- mortgage, car payment, house payment -- then the following month, prices on everything from gas to groceries, went up MORE THAN the amount I was now "getting back". Like freaking clockwork, I am not kidding. Then add to that the fact that CONGR-ASS voted themselves raises but screwed the veterans who spent our working years defending their right to be elected to positions of corruption -- yeah they didn't give VA or disability pensions any raise. So while the cost of living skyrockets, those of us who faithfully served our country were cheated. And when the current president tried to enforce the laws that say You can't have a raise unless you give vets one too, he got shot down. Go, go "re-fuck-licans". I hope someday every one of YOU faces the challenges that normal ordinary poor folks face.

Gee. Angsty much? Yeah, I spose I am. It's been a bad couple of years. However.... Things change! They always do!

So, with luck, this h'yere blog will change as well, to something fun, usable by those who click it, and informative for those who read it.

Whee! Happy Holidays, and may you enjoy yours as much as I am going to enjoy mine!