Good Day

Today has been a very good day.  First of all, I got a call from my "boss" and he decided to finally figure out what to pay me.  He decided that a few of the volunteers would be paid volunteers and I was one of them.  So, I got my first paycheck and he worked it out to where half of my time was volunteer and half was paid.  I guess I get paid once a month so for the month of January (keep in mind my first "day" was Jan 28) I put in 55 hours.  Half of that he put for volunteer and half I got paid for.  The volunteer, he puts as "in like" for grant requests.  I'm still wrapping my mind around the fact that I put in 55 hours in a few days.  Not really surprising since I put in 60 hours the first week of Feb and that was with a day or two off.

Anyway, he called and I got that complete with stub and money taken out for taxes and whatnot.  With that, we filled the truck, had lunch (big, huge treat) and came home.  Oh, and we also stopped by a second hand store, picked up a small mirror, a package of pens (all of ours have been on a slow death), a couple of notebooks, and the Die Hard trilogy.  Yeah, we splurged. 

Husband went for a ride on Casey and thoroughly enjoyed himself.  I rewrote our daily schedules to reflect more of what we do and what needs to be done.  Riding the horses, while a treat is also a daily must.  We've not been riding since it keeps getting put off.  "I'll reward myself later" has been the basic attitude.  So, although we had discussed having it be a daily todo list item, I have made it official.  Daily, from 1p-3p, Either Davarge or Casey get ridden.  Both if possible.  I have it on Husband's list because he is the most natural and I am busy with the children and home and stuff.  (Incidentally, I also have Husband taking two naps a day for his health.  This will keep him from pushing himself and help to keep him focused.)

In other good news, it looks like our barrel is getting ready to retire for the season.  We will have maybe one more cold snap of a day or two and that's it.  For the foreseeable future, the lows will be in the low to mid 40s and the highs in the low 60s.  That means no daytime barrel stove.  We fire it up at night to keep a chill away and that's about it.  If it weren't for the children, I could go without it at night.  But, for their comfort, we will keep it going at night.

I have also been working on our budget for the next couple of months.  March 1 and April 1 should be my last van payments.  Then, that money will be rolled into either the truck or the cabin payments.  We haven't decided yet.  We keep going back and forth.  Either way, next month, just before the final payment, I am going to call and find out exactly what the last payment amount is and happily write them a money order.

As I said, today has been a good day.  A lot got accomplished.  If not structurally in terms of the home, then at least in the scheduling of the home so we have some kind of idea of what and when that got lost over the past few months.