Okay, so MY paycheck will drop quite a bit because of no overtime, and with that stupid garnishment coming out, I'll be lucky to bring home $250 a week, but he'll be bringing home over $400 most weeks, so we won't take a hit financially, and will instead be gaining a bit. Not a LOT, but every little bit will help, we know. So far, things are not going great, but hey, I'm happy that things are going at all in the income producing outside the job department.
Would you believe my little cookbook, which I gave away last weekend, has actually sold a few copies? (Yes, I know some of y'all were the ones who grabbed it, thank you!) A lot of copies sold, I'm trying to keep track of how many with the royalties thing, but gosh it's a weird thing to see little numbers like that for actual purchased copies. Now to sell a bunch, instead of give it away, as it's currently 501,000-something in the paid cookbooks, lol. I'm juiced it's making it at all, but boy, do I need to really promo the thing while working on other things, too. So far, between various venues, I've made a whopping $13.26 in the last couple of weeks. Not so good, considering that we need another $9986.74 to make our minimum downpayment on a place. But then again, that doesn't count the couple-three bucks in loose change we've got laying around in a change bucket, or what we'll be able to sock away once we're both working and I'm able to work more online (assuming we can get internet at the house fairly soon after he's back to work - that's hopefully my Christmas present this year). So yeah, long ways to go.
But heck, that property we like is still for sale. Now if it sells, fine, we'll find something else. But with a 1974 home that "needs TLC," according to the listing, being as far out in the middle of nowhere as it is, access across a deep dip with a low water bridge on pavement OR a lot of rocky, steep, one-lane county dirt road over at least four low-water bridges, it's not going to go very fast, even as low as the price for it is. Those are some serious detractors for someone looking for a nice, big country property if you aren't prepared to be out in the boonies and disconnected from major things by 20+ miles, on a dirt road, and surrounding by cow pastures. We don't care, we just want the downpayment money ASAP so we can go buy the place. It's just about perfect for us, and we don't mind the work to knock it into shape. With all we've tolerated where we're at, that place would be a blasted palace, lol.
Oh, we had a good time yesterday in Harrison. It was the weekend of the third annual Veterans 4 Warriors Corvette Rally at the local Chevy dealer in town, and while I forgot my camera, and am not a gearhead like hubby, we both had a grand time just looking. THREE Indianapolis 500 Pace Car Vettes were in the show. Amazingly cool, and Quentin discovered that his dream of someday owning a classic mucle car isn't as out there and expensive as he'd thought. The local Corvette/Classic car build shop had a red on red Vette in the show that was for sale. Quentin was drooling and going, "I wish I could afford something like this, but I'd have to hit the lottery." I told him to look at the price tag - a "mere" $10,000. Of course, we need that for the house downpayment fund first, but at least he now knows that owning a classic muscle car in show shape is affordable down the line.
Speaking of what we've tolerated brings up what's been going on besides tree-cutting and trash-burning, and Quentin slowly going out of his mind with boredom while he waits for rehire at the plant. So .... pictures!
While Quentin did most of the work, I was responsible helper-person, and handed tools and things he needed out the window. THIS window, with no screen in it, because we had to put the screen that belonged here on the other side of the living room by the front door last year when we found it and fixed it, since the frame for the other window was bent and we didn't feel like buying a new frame. (Hey, we're cheap that way.) In this photo, you can see how the paneling we tacked up over the old air conditioner hole last fall finally came loose, and some kind of wren had built a nest in one bottom corner of the hole. Thankfully, the nestlings were gone, but I'm pretty sure Mama and Papa Bird were not too happy with us. (Speaking of birds, I think I finally identified our hummingbirds around here - very possibly buff-bellied hummers, so tiny and QUICK!)
Hubby tearing the old paneling off that protected the hole over last winter and this spring and summer. We didn't expect it to last this long, so it was a blessing that it was still up at all.
Where hubby fixed the wall to the floor under the A/C hole. The black thing on the lower right is our plastic two-step stepstool, so I could more easily hand things to him out the window. Being short sometimes is NOT a good thing.
The other project that went on a couple of weeks ago, where he fixed the floor between the living room and kitchen. It ain't perfect, but it's a lot better to walk on that and not sink or feel like you're going to go through the floor when you're going back and forth.
Bouncer laying on my desk, supervising the A/C hole repair.
The hole once we got all the old stuff out that we'd put in/on it to keep the weather out over the winter.
The 2x4 frame Quentin built to go inside the hole, laying on the living room floor. That sucker is SOLID.
The bird nest in the one bottom corner. You can see where hubby is putting the frame in. It took several tries to get the darn outside metal sheeting bent or cut out of the way so it would fit in right. Once we got that done, it mostly slid right in, and only had to be bashed a bit where the stud in the middle of the hole had been cut to originally install the A/C unit. Whoever did that didn't bother to frame in the hole properly, hence why we had to do this. They just cut a chunk right out of the stud, on an exterior load-bearing wall. Lord knows, we've watched enough DIY shows and read enough and such to know that you Do Not Do That Kind Of Thing Because It Is Not Safe. Or, as Mike Holmes (who we love to watch) says, "Unacceptable." Yeah, we're like that, too.
The frame is finally in!!!!!! And tacked into what framing there was available to nail it to for further stability (the 2x4 stud on the left as you're looking at this photo, and the stud that had been cut, top and bottom). The frame just plain is in there so tight that even without tacking it, it wouldn't move.
Quentin cutting up a piece of sheet metal off the Merlot to cover the outside of the hole. Tin snips come in darned handy at this point. Less than five minutes of cutting and he had the piece to size.
Yes, he's drilling on the living room floor. But it's so crappy anyhow, a little bit of punctures isn't going to do much more to it than has already been done. We managed this with a bit of ingenuity. He took the metal out and held it up against the hole, and I used a magic marker to draw on the inside of it, edging out the frame he'd built and installed. This gave him an instant way to know just exactly where to drill the pilot holes for the screws to hold the metal on the hole. He loved the ease of just drilling without guessing and HOPING the holes were lined up right. The hard part was getting the marks lined back up when he went back outside to install the thing. Once the top corners were done, it was just stick a screw in the hole and use the drill to put it in fast and solid.
Taking a break with Bouncer. He likes to steal straws out of Quentin's soda cups.
Insulation from the Merlot that was in good shape got gathered (I got it and stuffed two five-gallon buckets full of the stuff and had more than enough) and I stuffed it into the framework. It's not a pretty job, but the frame is pretty darned full. I couldn't stuff more in if I wanted to.
And the old piece of linoleum that I originally put up to cover the hole period is now back up and re-foamed around the edges to keep air leakage to a minimum. Quentin took the can out and did the outside, but I'm not climbing over all the trash that's still back there to get a photo, lol.
A new toy - a Harbor Freight can crusher. Love this thing, it makes squashing his soda cans down so much easier. It also means that a lot more cans can fit in the trash can for them outside, and we can get more in a bag when we take them to the metal recyclers.
This one came out dark and nothing I can do about that. I already lightened the photo, lol. It's the bottom of the front door. Yeah, it needs weatherstripping, but at least the gap in the floor where things could get in because the floorboards had rotted away for an inch or so got fixed with some of that spray foam, too. Quentin sprayed the heck out of it to fix the hole. Cheaper and faster than ripping up the floor and replacing it for the moment, especially if we don't buy this place.
Remember how I said Eric and Bobbi's baby was here and I was making a layette for her? This is the sweater body, all the way up to the armholes.
I decided to do the sleeves flat and then knit them in at the armholes like I'd started to do, because while I hate seaming, at least this way, I only have to seam the underarms on the sleeves. This sleeve is up to the armhole decreases and ready to be added into the sweater. The other sleeve is only halfway through the cuff ribbing, but since I did the sleeve and that little bit of ribbing yesterday while doing laundry and last night during "date night" time, I'm rocking along.
So that is this week's news. Wish there was more good news on the homesteading front to give, but I figure every little thing we do helps to be a learning experience, a fun time and keeps us heading in the direction we want to go. So till next week, happy homesteading! And don't forget to visit the Bountiful Farm Astore, in case there's other things you've missed here that need to be found, or you just want to do some Amazon shopping, because I'm adding everything there instead of here - it's a bit less time-consuming. Have fun till next weekend!
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