Monday, March 18, 2013

The Sound of Silence


It seems like every week comes with new and unique challenges.  I have not made any progress on my 'switch to part time' savings account because of all of the bills for my rental house but I have made progress on getting to the point where I will be making progress.  The property management company told me on Saturday that they have someone willing to sign a 12 month lease for my house.  The only down side is that the management company says that the rent is too high and recommends that I reduce it by $100.  I kind of expected that but still, it adds a few months on to my 'switch to part time' plan.  Now I won't have enough money saved until the end of April next year.  That's a whole year away and a whole year out of this 4 year span that I will still have to work full time.  I'm kind of disappointed at that but maybe I can switch to part time at my current company next January.  That would still give me income and I wouldn't need to save as much.  We will see how I feel about my job in January.
 
Starting this month I am going to give myself one 3 day weekend a month.  I like that better than taking a whole week off at once.  I'll have something to look forward to every month.  Also, I am hoping that my nephew will be able to catch the city bus to get home from the bus stop.  For $1.50 he can walk 5 minutes from his school bus stop to the city bus stop and then get off with only a 15 minute walk home.  He hasn't done it yet.  I plan on riding the bus with him on a practice run.  This could greatly reduce the "emergency" transportation problems I have been having when after-school activities get cancelled.

My nephew is off visiting his out-of-state grandparents for the next 2 weeks of Spring Break.  I have the whole house to myself.  Well, I did have the whole house to myself but I let a mom and puppies move in to my laundry area for the next 5 weeks.  She has her own dog door and outside run so I don't have to do much, just keep the food and water filled and the area clean. 
 
Now is my chance to get my house organized.  I'm taking next Friday off so I can start on the time consuming job of finding a place for all of this miscellaneous stuff that seems to accumulate on every surface.  I should start in the storage room, then when I make some room in there I can move stuff from the house out and maybe clean off the porch.  The storage room is really small so I'll try not to be too much of a pack rat.  I'm looking forward to making lots of progress on this to-do list in my head.  It will be so nice to look around and not see things that need to be fixed/sorted/put away.  It is such an energy drain.

4 comments:

Dave said...

You should go along with the rent reduction. It is only a 1-year lease, so after 1 year you can try raising the rent $25 or $50 a month, as the tenants may not want to move again if things are working out okay otherwise.

Taking a day off every month is something I did in 2000 when I added a week to my annual vacation allotment (my last full-time work year). I actually took every second or third Wednesday off that summer which broke up the week nice. I liked working only 2 days then having at least one day off. Might that work for you?

Daizy said...

I think that other commitments will dictate what day I actually take off. I'll try to make it convenient for a school activity or errand or half school day or something like that.

Lizzie@her MFW Homeworld said...

I knew you didn't really like peace and quiet, your nephew goes and you replace the noise with puppy noise!
Well done

Daizy said...

Actually, Lizzie, it is more like growling and barking because momma dog is not very friendly. I was not expecting that!