Before coming to our standstill

What we did accomplish prior to Hub’s health issue.  

With Hubby being home the last week, I was a bit lax about updating the blog.  Since we don’t usually have much time together, any time we do get usually becomes my first priority.  Prior to coming to a sudden standstill over Hub’s newly diagnosed hernia, I had intended on writing a complete update.  As with many things in life, plans often change.  Anyhow, Hubby now has an appointment with a surgeon tomorrow.  It was a little tough getting that one as they were booked until November.  Thankfully there was a cancellation.  While not what I would consider a true emergency in the sense of urgency (or at least not yet!), I also would not have felt comfortable with him returning to work without further evaluation.  The last thing we need is for him to be several states away and have things turn ugly.

Getting back to the previous week.  We purchased a snowblower!  It also looks like I am going to become even more familiar with using it than what was originally intended.  THIS is the one we purchased.  Mind you, this was after reading a lot of reviews, talking to different people, checking out different businesses, etc.  We deliberated many different scenarios and ultimately it came down to the long-term math.

Our situation is that we have a very long gravel driveway, that also has a very steep hill.  It is so steep that delivery trucks won’t come down it in the Winter!  Once down, an average car (without AWD or 4WD) won’t make it back up!  We also live in a snow belt (200+ inches/season) and deal with lake effect snow.

This will be our third Winter in our home.  The past two seasons, we’ve had the driveway plowed.  The problem is that I still had to shovel the walkway to our front door and have also dealt with more snow drifts in front of our garage than I care to remember.  Nothing worse than opening your garage door to discover several feet of snow piled in front of it.  While I could have called to have that area re-plowed, at the cost of $45 per push, I frugally became very familiar with a shovel.  Last year we spent $630 on plowing, and like I said, that was with me still doing a lot of shoveling!

With all that in mind, we decided to purchase a larger more powerful snowblower with tracks.  While this meant more money, it also means that we will no longer be paying to have the driveway plowed.  We did offset the cost with my 10% military discount, $225 I had saved in gift cards and will receive 11% back in the form of a Lowes card from a promotion they were running last week.  Would we have made the purchase knowing Hubby would be off work?  Yes, as it will easily pay for itself.  No more bills for plowing!

What else?  We thoroughly cleaned out the garage!  This involved many trips out to the shed, a few bags of garbage out to the trash, condensing other items and bringing some things to the basement.  We can now park both cars, plus have room for our new snowblower and our zero-turn mower and still have a sizeable area for wood.  I am beyond pleased at how much better it looks.

We added a doggie door! I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner.  Now our geriatric dogs can get from the house out to the garage and via a side door, can get out to their pen to take care of business.  We had a similar set up at the house we moved from, so they are familiar with using a doggie door.  Just to play it safe, I’ll still block the dogs in the hallway, but at least now they can get outside and I won’t feel as pressed for time when I am out and about.  At their age, I didn’t feel fair making them stay in a cold garage.  $50 for the doggie door gives me back my freedom!

Our last (at least for now) balance transfer went through.  Now other than our car which is at 1.99% interest and one credit card which is at 5.99% for life, all of our baby step two balances are zero percent interest.  While I still want to get these debts paid off ASAP, right now my focus is on my hubby and taking care of our four walls.  At least we are no longer paying them insane amounts of interest.

Our weather right now is unseasonably warm.  Yesterday, thanks to our neighbor who still has his boat in the water, we were able to get out on the lake for a little ride.  In the midst of everything going on, we still have much to be thankful for!