The City Mouse in the Country

If you have been following this blog for some time then you know that 2023 has not been a great year for us.   We have dealt with death, failure, job changes (which I realize was a mistake) and more negatives than positives. That's life.  It was the hand that we were dealt. Now that Thanksgiving day is upon us (and at the time of publication, past us), it occurs to me that we do have some things to be thankful for.  We do have good friends and a strong family.  We do have money in the bank and jobs that we are successful at. We have our health. We can change some things and work on making our lives better.   We also have, perhaps overly ambitious plans, for the winter and next spring.  We plan on painting this winter, which has been on the agenda for sometime but still has not been accomplished.  If we manage to get one room done then I'll consider it to have been a success.  Then in the spring, I think I'll put off planting anything like a traditional garden and instead in

This has been a year of progress.  We are entering our third year of country living and I'm actually feeling a little more hopeful than I did this time last year.  We entered the year with vague goals, things that we wanted to accomplish but with little to know idea on how to accomplish them. We managed to get a lot done. Susan could not stand the bathroom and kitchen from day one in our home, and we somehow managed to replace the windows, redo the majority of our kitchen and part of our bathroom.   That was just some of those goals we had in mind at the start of 2022.   Technically the bath is far from done, and the kitchen does need a little more work before I'm ready to call it "finished."  We got things done, that's the important thing. Yes, they took longer than I would have liked. We discussed how to keep your house warm on a budget.   I wanted to plant a small garden and we did have a few containers full of strawberries, some herbs, tomato's and such.

My wife and I have been blessed with good luck, good opportunities and  family that has always been there for us.  However I also know that not everyone has the fortune, family or opportunities that we have had.    We have sadly learned a lot about those families in our area through the IOOF and other charities in the local area that Sue and I belong to.   So as I throw another log onto the proverbial fire and think about how lucky I've been compared to others I thought I would pass on some common sense, and not so common sense ideas to help someone save a bit of money and get through the coming winter months.   I can see no reason why someone needs to live in an icebox, or choose between food and warmth .   Sadly there is no easy solutions and everything that is worth doing takes time and energy.  Sometimes even a little money.  So what I'm offering here is advice that will help reduce your energy costs at least and can be used to help cool your home in the summer as wel

 Rome, the saying goes, was not built in a day.   Home improvement will take longer than the rise and fall of Rome and despite recent emotional issues, simply can not wait.  Plans were put in place months ago, and for a variety of reasons, could not be completed until now.  Our home was built by its original owner and although there is much to be celebrated about it; it was never really updated since its construction in the 1970’s.  We replaced the roof shortly after moving in as well as the outdated wood stove used to heat the home with a much more efficient wood pellet stove. Fast forward a few years and now we are in the process of replacing the older windows and doors with new and more efficient ones, and the stress of having those replaced as well as work in our kitchen and bath going on at the same time has caused me...to become "unsettled." I would never call myself a fastidious person, but I do have my schedule and my own ways of doing things.  I like things to

     Lately everything is on "hold."  My garage is filled to the brim with appliances and tile waiting to be installed for the updated kitchen.   We have a new front door ordered, windows sitting on a loading dock somewhere and lightening ready to be installed.     We are waiting on our contractor to finish one job and start ours.        I started a new position at work in late August, where I am working nearly exclusively with "high touch" customers and agents that need to have their needs fulfilled yesterday.  I feel for them, I've been an insurance agent for eight years now and have owned my own independent delivery company (one of those jobs that I fell into - much like insurance) for roughly 15 years.  I've spent nearly my entire working career in sales.  You always want to under promise and over deliver. Due to 1001 reasons a lot of those requests and desires simply can't be fulfilled.       Holding patterns.      A long overdue vacation is also pl

      When I sit down to write something, I do so for two reasons; the first is that yes, I want to remember my thoughts and feeling about a particular moment in time, so in some ways this blog serves as my journal.  The second reason is that I hope to impart some knowledge or information on.  In the hope that you, gentle reader, might learn something new or, more likely, avoid the mistakes I make.        I leave that decision up to you.       Thus, in some ways you can blame our youngest cat, Bobble, for our upcoming spending a lot of money on window's and other home improvements.       Our first winter in Western Pennsylvania was not really that bad.  This year it seemed we had weeks of sub zero temperatures and several feet of snow.  Our house was physically colder.   Now if your wondering why I'm blaming the cat then please read on dear reader.      Bobble was born in the early spring of last year, so he's still a kitten come winter.  A kitten with very sharp claws and

    Well I don't consider myself a homesteader in a strict sense, I often find that homesteaders often ask questions about income and financial matters.  This article is to address a bit of confusion about how a home equity loan works and why home improvement is a secret weapon you can take advantage off.        You should always consult a tax and licensed financial advisor in your area. That being said, I am a licensed and bonded insurance agent and have over 20+ years of banking and financial experience and offer this advice freely.               I'm standing outside the house with a tape measure in my hand and marking off an area roughly 24 feet wide (7.3 M) by 24 feet long.  It's roughly the area of a two car garage.   The current garage we have is internal and used more for storage than anything else.   It's a tight space for one car.     Rates will be going up soon and it makes sense to lock in a home equality loan now while the market for homes is still high (our

       By the time you read this it may very well be the 10 or 11th day (if not later) of January, 2022.   Happy New Year!     We would have got here sooner but frankly we were hiding in our bunker, unsure if we should peak our head or not.  Sue and I caught what we thought was the common cold around the end of the Christmas Holiday and it stuck around.   Two, thankfully negative, Covid tests later and we are ready to enter the world once again.       However we are flying blind here.   Normally we have a goal, a sure plan on how to attack it.   This year we have a vague idea of where we would like to be and a even vaguer idea on how to obtain those goals.       Sue somehow found a job cleaning some buildings every night which, while not particularly hard, does take up some time and is paying what debt we do have down drastically.    Well I'm thankful for that, it cuts into the time I have to work on other projects, such as this blog.     We are still planning on put up a small con

    With Thanksgiving on the horizon, many people have asked me what I am thankful for in the last year.  My glib replay is the title of this article.  I know it seems like I'm being a whiny little bitch right now but bear with me, it does get better.     It's not that I have nothing to be thankful for, I'm still healthy and neither my family or anyone I know has lost a family member to COVID.   I have a roof over my head in a house that, all though dated, has good bones and is slowly but surely becoming "our" home.  All my bills are paid on time and both Sue and I have good paying jobs which we actually do enjoy and like...most days.          I am just feeling stressed and pushed to the limit by circumstances that I can not control, for example this week alone I will have worked ten days straight often putting in a minimum of twelve hours a day for the majority of those days.  When I was a younger man working for an engineering firm in Charlotte, NC I would not h

                             Up until this moment, I had never heard of or seen a Grinder Pump.  It's actually a very common piece of plumbing equipment that is usually found in commercial businesses or homes, like mine, that are located lower than the nearest municipal sewer line.  It's designed to prevent waste water backup.                 (Sorry for such a bad video but there is so little information out there)                  Now exactly how my house sits lower than the nearest municipal sewer line is beyond me.  After all, when my house was built, it appears to have been done so in such a way that all the water flows away from my home and downhill.   So what I'm thinking is that the grinder pump is there to "push" the waste into the sewer lines that are a good football field distance from my home?  My property is the last in the boro to be hooked into the municipal lines so I suppose I could be "down hill" from them?             I might be wron