Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Checking In

   Yesterday I brought home the guitar that I put on layaway last month. We did borrow some money through our credit union to make the purchase because, as we have learned, having no debt is actually bad for your credit. (WTF?!?) Yes, it turns out that if you are not beholden to anyone the lenders don't like you. They also don't like it if you pay things off early because they don't make as much interest so, while we could pay off the small sum we borrowed in short order, we are going to make the minimum payments and drag it out for a full year to help reestablish our credit. Blood sucking bastards!

   (A quick note on the guitar -- I have yet to take it to work, but I did do a small bit of recording with it and it blew me away. I do believe it will indeed be the last performance guitar I ever need!)

   I had made a deal with the wife that, if I get another guitar (yes, I have a few, but they all do something unique. I am not a collector, each has it's utility), she gets to book a trip she's been wanting to take for some time to visit a friend overseas. Our original plan was to pay off the first loan, then take out a second for the trip, thus establishing credit. It turns out it doesn't work that way. After talking with our person at the credit union we have decided to drag the first loan out, save for the trip then take a out a second loan secured by the money we saved. Effectively, we are paying our credit union to help us show lenders that we are good little consumers (what a crazy system!). Hopefully by doing this, though, a farm will not be out of future reach!

   I got my tracks back from the studio and the project I recorded almost 17 years ago is now in my studio program on my laptop. I have plans to meet with a co-producer for the redux to listen to them and make decisions about what to keep, what can be fixed, what to re-record, and anything else later this week. It's happening!

   The move out of the old house is more-or-less complete. There is a small amount of uncut firewood, a garden cart, the compost pile (hell yes we're taking it with us!), and the pen in which we kept the chickens (which we thought could be converted into a temporary/moveable greenhouse, but we're not sure if we can carry it over in the pickup truck) still at the old place. All evidence suggests that our old landlords have defaulted on the property, so we don't feel a particular hurry to have it all removed by any deadline. We will be collecting it all soon -- we need to get a garden started here and we need that compost! Now we need to sort and organize the boxes of stuff here at the new house...

   In sad news, we lost another chicken this week. Dumpling, one of our Ameraucanas, was acting like she was sneezing at first. Then she started opening her beak and stretching out her neck and I thought she maybe had something stuck in her craw. Then she began to cough up blood and we became very concerned. I tried to see if there was anything I could do but it soon became obvious that she wasn't going to make it. I ended up having to put her out of her misery. The whole thing was awful. My son and I patrolled the backyard the next day and hopefully removed anything that might be harmful. They are not the most selective when it comes to what they'll eat. I am guessing she found a piece of something she thought was food that was instead sharp and dangerous (I was surprised to find many things in the yard that matched that description).

   The pantry is going to be much more user-friendly at this new place. I am looking forward not just to stocking it, but actually looking forward to USING it. That's going to be huge!

   I still need to complete our taxes. The move really put a wrench in things there. Hopefully I can get that done over Easter weekend.

   Lots on the plate. It's all about finding balance right now.