Saturday, May 18, 2013

And so I did. Went to Denny's that is.  It was the only meal of the day, I am sure.  I won't be hungry again until this evening, but I am going with George and his girlfriend to see the new Star Trek movie at the Imax theater at 5 something.  I doubt I will eat any theater food, not a big fan of it.  I was going to go with my son, but he wants to see it next weekend, so .......  I'll go twice, lol.

Denny's was packed with people and the kitchen was having a lot of trouble. I know this because I always sit at the counter.  You get much faster service and they keep your coffee refilled as often as you wish.  I got out my computer and started reading the news, got completely lost in a world of all kinds of stuff going on, including a jetliner that had to do a belly landing.  I've actually seen that happen up close and in person.  A twin-engine Piper Comanche.  The training instructor raised the landing gear just before touch down, intending to force the student to abort the landing, but.......it didn't quite work out that way.

I was treated to a very loud, exaggerated screeching noise and looked up in time to see the thing sliding on the ground.  Extensive damage, of course, including trashed engines by virtue of props that were still spinning on touchdown (and, of course, immediately stopped spinning as soon as the blades hit tarmac and did a lot of damage to that plane!).

Anyway, left there and went and looking at some more plants.  The stuff that died out last year in my front yard has left that entire side of the yard looking quite - barren.  I planted a yellow bell a couple of months ago, but I wanted more.  I finally found out what the tree is called that is growing on my property that wasn't planted, there are now 3 of them.  They're a version of an Acacia tree, desert version.  I asked the lady that was showing me around at the nursery who found the only one that they have.  She at first stated that they don't do well in Arizona.  I didn't buy that story but said nothing to her.  These trees are growing wild on my property, I didn't plant them and the tallest one is around 25 feet tall now.  The one that they had was in a 25 gallon box, but it was a scraggly looking thing and it wasn't even 7 feet tall.  $199 for it.  

Just saying, my wild growing trees are worth something, lol  I found a yellow bell plant - they are nice looking plants with yellow flowers - and I am going to plant it on the east side of my property.  I have enough of those kinds of plants growing over there now that eventually, the view of my neighbor's trashed property will disappear in a see of green and yellow. I wouldn't mind having a tree growing at the northeast end of the property, but I have the brakes on on that until I figure out what I want there.  I would, really, like one of those Acacia's, but I am not paying 200 for a scraggly looking thing. They have other versions of Acacia there, but they don't look as good and I simply don't like them.  So there.

Meanwhile, the feeling of having that car paid off and no more monthly payments is extremely good. It runs quite well, still looks good, has low mileage for a car that's 9 years old - 79,000 - and I don't see the need to have to buy another car for quite a while.  Hopefully.  I have upped my savings quotient - I have automatic transfers from checking to savings once a week - and am also doing a once monthly transfer.  No need to think about it, just done automatically.  This is to take most of that money towards the car payment and save it instead of finding new ways to stupidly spend money.  

Well, time to take a nap.  I don't want to be falling asleep in the theater, though I suspect this movie will have enough action in it to keep me from doing so anyway.  

ben

Woke up at 5 am this morning.  Fell right back asleep.  Woke back up at 6.  Fell back asleep and then didn't wake up until 8am!!  That's like sleeping half the day away for me!  lol  I was so tired by the time I got off work yesterday that there wasn't much energy to do much of anything.  But, uhhh, my appetite is mostly back and I think I am going to go out to have a bite - well make that a lot of bites - to eat something that tastes really good, probably chock full of fat and calories and have fun doing it : )








Wrote the partial entry below yesterday, thought I had posted it!
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Got up this morning - finally started being able to eat again yesterday late afternoon, btw, which helps energy levels immensely - thought about the reason I had taken out the loan, sat down at the computer and proceeded to pay the car off.  I had been mulling the idea as to whether to do it or not - but I decided that much less in payments per month?  Good thing.

I then paid a credit card off that had been closed for a while now.  That company simply went out of business and closed everyone's accounts.  I had it down to $150 anyway, wanted that payment gone as well.  The rest of my credit cards will stay as they are, not paying them all as part of the point of the loan was to have extra cash around for emergency use.  I get a bit nervous if, during the summer, I don't have at least enough extra funds to fix an expensive central AC problem.  I actually did have enough extra funds to cover such an expense - but then there would be absolutely nothing if something like that happened.

Yesterday I paid the mortgage up to current.  I get so sick of Midland Mortgage and the way they treat their customers on the phone.  If you are delinquent on your payment, they go through a spiel that goes on for 20 minutes.  They stop short of asking your blood type, but you get the picture.  They ask you a relentless barge-full of questions that are the same questions, every single month.  Today I stopped the lady short: If I am paying my mortgage up to current, then it is no longer delinquent and I should have to be subjected to this ridiculous tirade of information that your company has informed me about 15 times over.  Blah blah blah.

I would like to speak to your manager, please.  Sure, hang on a minute.  She comes back a few minutes later saying a manager is not available as they are currently "tied up" but she can take my payment.  I refused, saying: No, I am not going to sit here and listen to this annoying speech, I shouldn't have to and when I speak to managers, they don't do all of that nonsense.  She took my payments and that was that, lol.

Just because I am feeling better doesn't mean I am at 100% and so, when I was still out at 3pm in the truck today, going from one place to the next to the next, I was starting to get very tired and I was also, concordantly (I don't CARE if spell checker says that isn't a word, go look it up!), getting extremely irritable.  10 hours?  No thanks.  I don't care about overtime when I am not feeling good, I don't care if I don't get ANY the entire week.  I got back to the shop and I got OUT of there.  Came home and sat down in my chair, just a very rotten week as far as I'm concerned and will be easily forgotten.  Well, excepting paying off the car, a credit card and getting the mortgage paid up, lol.






















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