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Home > Archive: May, 2008

Archive for May, 2008

Interviews

June 1st, 2008 at 04:29 am

I had a phone interview with a company out of Iowa yesterday and an in-person interview with a company 20 miles from my hubby today!

I would probably fit in with the first company better. They do more applications programming vs. hard core programming like the second company wants me to do (I've never done object oriented programming before...ssshhh. I told them I dabbled). The first company asked if I could move to Iowa, and I said I couldn't. I asked if that was a deal breaker, and he said not necessarily, so fingers crossed on that one! He did say that for that particular position it probably wouldn't work for telecommuting, but he said that their team of 20 has 6 people who work off-site, so he was going to try to find me something, if not that particular job opening.

The first company didn't ask about my "salary requirements" but the second one did. I told them what I was making and that is was costing me $20,000 just to commute and live there half the week, so if they matched my salary - $20,000 I would consider it. They said that was a lot higher than what they were thinking, but they are going to work on what they can do. (what did I say about any job around here paying me 1/3 of what I currently make?)

The second company said they would let me know by Monday or Tuesday. The head boss will be out on Wednesday - Friday, so if I need to negotiate, I will have to wait for him to get back. That may give me some breathing room so I can contact the first company and see what they can do.

working on the kitchen

May 31st, 2008 at 05:39 am

I am trying to sell my house, and I haven't gotten many bites on it yet. Actually, we have had a few people come look at it, but none have offered anything. I think it is too "old" looking. So, we started working on the kitchen this week.

It rained a lot last weekend and was supposed to throughout this week, so DH said he could come down and help me...actually, he did most of the work on the house while I was at work and when I got home, I helped. We got down here Monday night and got all the cabinets done today. I have a full wall of cabinets and we pulled all of the fronts down, sanded, painted, changed the hinges and cleaned up the handles...they were nice looking, but needed to be polished.

Here are some before pictures:




Here are some after:




The door that was hiding the hot water heater was so greasy and gross (it is beside the stove) that we decided I will just make a curtain or something to cover it up. I am going to make curtains for the windows, so I'll just get some extra material and figure out a way to hang it.

Notice the new light fixture, too!

I have read that you can paint the ceramic back splash, so I am going to paint that the same color as the walls when I do them. I'm going for neutral colors, so some kind of beige.

Still need to paint the window sills and texture and paint the walls. But, those are smaller projects compared to this monster row of cabinets.

We put a ceiling fan in our bedroom, and I had put the little weights on the end to balance it, and the weights came flying off and we heard them land, but couldn't find them. So, I super glued some pennies to the top of the blade that needed it! I'll have to add $.04 to the cost of the remodel Smile

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In other news, I transfered the money from one 0% interest credit card that was due in July to another one that is due in December. I didn't know when that transfer would occur, so I accidentally overpaid. I requested the refund today from AmEx, for $284. They said it would take 7-10 days. If I don't get it by then, I'll need to call them.

I also need to keep checking the bank of america site to know when the first payment is due for the new card.

paperbackswap

May 14th, 2008 at 05:25 am

So, I just signed up for paperback swap. You have to post 10 items and then you can request 2, and after that, as soon as you ship an item you can request another. (I think. Maybe it is when the other person receives it and marks that they have it). Anyway, I knew I had a lot of books, but I thought that many of them I would want to keep. Well...I ended up putting 23 on there, and I already have one wrapped up and ready to take to the post office tomorrow. I am sending "Anna Karenina" and let me tell you, that book sucked. I actually couldn't wait for the heroine to die at the end so the book could be over.

I requested "Aztec Blood" and "Aztec Autumn" because I read the first on in this series (name "Aztec" of course) and liked it enough to read it multiple times.

I am also requesting Robin Hood Prince of Thieves (the movie) because I wanted to watch it this weekend and DH didn't have it.

4 other books are marked as being on someone's wish list. I don't quite know what that means, but I think it means they have to actually request it before they send me the info to send it to them.

It will cost $2.93 to send this book. Since I don't ever make it to the library, this is probably the cheapest way to get new books from now on.

Catching up

May 5th, 2008 at 06:10 am

Lots to catch up here...

We sold the cull cows last Monday. Two of them were very old and skinny, but both had calves. One of them got out all the time and had a calf. Another got out all the time and was due any minute (I was joking that when it went through the sale ring, it would have the calf's legs sticking out the back). 7 others either lost their calves or weren't pregnant this year. DH has been feeding them grain morning and night to bulk them up, and they really started to look good. The two that got out tempted us to keep them because in the past they have had good calves, but troublemakers have no place on our farm! Smile We got a good price for all of them; both DH and I were happy with the check! Lowest was $.46 per pound, highest was $.5775 per pound, except for the pairs, went for $710 per pair. After paying the sale barn their cut, we brought home $7126.89. We were only expecting $5500 - $6000! And, I only paid $850 a piece for them 6 years ago, and all of them have had calves each year, plus I got to depreciate them on my taxes! That was a good investment.

We got the cows and bulls out to pasture on Friday. We have 43 pairs and 3 bulls now. DH had been feeding them twice a day, too, and having to haul water about every other day, and it was really wearing on him. He feels so relieved to not have to worry about that anymore! They are happily munching on new green grass, in the valleys, but nothing is growing on the hillsides yet. Hope that comes on before they run out of valley grass! It hasn't been warm enough to make the grass grow very fast, which is strange for around here. Most of the time the grass is ready by May 1. Where's that global warming when you need it, huh?

The wheat is coming along fine...it grew a LOT in the past week. We are going to have to get it sprayed for weeds in the next few weeks, and it is too far along for a truck to do it, so we are going to have to have a flying service do it. DH called them Saturday and he has to go give them a map on Monday. It has been so windy they are way behind, so hopefully it will get done pretty soon.

We moved the swather home the other day. (I did mention on a previous post that we had bought the swather, right?) It is driven by hydrolics, which means that if you turn the steering wheel to the right more hydrolic oil goes to the left tire so that tire will go faster, and vice versa (vs. the tires moving left or right). He said it is like a tank, but I've never driven a tank either, so that's no help. I am just learning how to run it, and DH had me get in and try to back out last night so I could get a feel for it, and he hadn't told me it steered a little funny compared to what I was used to. I started backing out, and couldn't get it to stop (did I mention that it doesn't have any brakes? You are supposed to use the hydrostat to go from forward to neutral to backing up)! I was backing right towards the tractor and couldn't stop. He lunged across me and got it stopped, and THEN told me how the steering worked. Thanks a lot! I about had a heart attack Smile

We sprayed for musk thistle (a noxious weed that you have to control or you could get fined) today in one of the new pastures. There is a LOT there. DH let me use the 4 wheeler and sprayer, and he had a hand sprayer and just walked. We did that for about 5 hours this afternoon, and it was pretty nice out. Not too hot, not too cold, and the wind wasn't blowing too hard. We will for sure have to go back.

Haven't heard anything on the house yet. We dropped the price $3000 and someone went to look at it Friday, but I haven't heard anything since. I offered it to the guy I bought it from for what I bought it from him if he would pay half the RE agent commission, but haven't heard anything from my agent about that either. I think she sucks. Not following up very well, that is for sure.

Applied for another job today. Here's hoping!