Monday

I had 5 deliveries to make spread out all over the place today. Mesa; Queen Creek; Florence; Casa Grande. I was very surprised that it didn't take much longer than it did for me to do all of that.

My boss is leaving Wednesday ona week long vacation. So - he's missing at least 5 days of work - possibly more. He had mega-hours saved up of vacation time. Me? I have enough to take off 132 hours. That's what, 14 days? - or in terms of weeks - almost 3 full weeks of time that I can and want to take off.

Since I highly doubt I will be able to afford even a mini-vacation this year - opting instead to spend whatever monies I may run into on house projects - I am going to put in my bid for a vacation in June. June is, in Arizona and historically - the hottest month of the year. Last year's electric bill for that month proves it, too. June was a $410 total amount of electricity used, July and August were at least $50 per month less. I don't mind taking a vacation where I just stay home. Get up late, do some work around the house, take a lot of siestas, maybe rent several pay-per-view movies as my treat to myself.

I have thoughts running around in my head as to how to gain more income on a monthly basis. I would love to create another opportunity for another rental. Not in this house - well anyway, it's only in the "think about it" stages so I'm not really going to go into it right now.

So, coming home today, I see Duke limping. He did something to he left front leg and it definitely is not because of a dog fight. He go into something and it's hurting him - to the point that I gave him a couple of ibuprofen to relieve the pain. His face is starting to bloat up as well. I have managed, however, to keep the wound open so I can press the fluids out of it. Antibiotics should be here Wednesday. Now that I've found a place to buy it from, I'm going to keep a 100 count bottle on-hand for any occasion that warrants antibiotics. I have not even yet determined that Duke needs it - it just depends if his face continues to bloat or not.

Oh, hooray/kudos/awesome job! to the U.S. Navy that took out those pirates. The report I read said that Navy personnel on the warship saw a pirate lift an AK-47 to the back of the captured captain, and that's when the commander gave the order for the snipers to take them out. I'm going to tell you right now that I have absolutely NO problem with the deaths of those pirates. Going around acting like nothing can or will stop them - they need a dose of their own medicine. I don't know what they expected, playing cat and mouse games with the U.S. Navy and Navy Seals. Now the pirates are making brash statements that Americans are going to "pay for it". That's only going to cause the end of their subsistence. They start killing people - and especially Americans - do you think we're just going to sit around and take it? HIGHLY doubtful. I was elated to see the captain freed without harm! This was a MUCH better ending to this BS than I anticipated.

So, onto the negative crap. I have to write about it - it gives me some sort of outlet. I know, I bring this upon myself. Some people will think or even say that. So beit. I am a landlord with people living in rooms in my house that I don't really know or are related to me (though honestly, after 9 months of having Mary living here, I can pretty much read her like a book). The male tenant is causing me problems that I will not tolerate. Mainly, taking food out of my refrigerator and my pantry without asking, without permission, without even a thank you for the food he just stole from me. He took my mother's Easter ham that she gave me - a lot of it - and ate so much that my plans for having ham yesterday were quashed. I was going to feed myself and the boys with that and some potatoes and such. I ended up BBQ'ing chicken - which was quite delicious, but still.

I was going to just get in his face - I found the portion of video surveillance which shows him in the utility room, at night, with the utility room door closed and no lights on. My newest tenant - fortunately because it fully identified without doubt who did it - walked into the kitchen with a pile of clothes in her hands, she was going to the utility room to do some laundry.

Now, all the interior doors in my house have about a 2 inch gap at the bottom. This is for the AC - the AC system draws the air out of the rooms and back into the system to recool and then redistribute throughout the house. Well, my surveillance camera shows if there is a light on in there or not at night. Actually, that door is always open - it was closed earlier that day because we were watching a movie in here and didn't want to be disturbed by the noise of the washing machine.

There was no light on in there when she opened the door. When she DID open the door - surprise, surprise - there was the male tenant, standing there in the dark, eating my friggin' ham. Instead of getting in his face, I tried the "diplomatic" way. I left an extremely hostile message - inside of my refrigerator. Tenants have absolutely NO business being in that refrigerator, so if they see that message - well - they have no defense.

But, the situation is even worse. I was quite sure today I smelled cigarette smoke in my house. The new tenant has the phone in his room - that's my excuse to go in there - I use my home phone and not my company cell phone when I'm home. Sure enough, the room reeks of cigarette smoke.

Enough. I won't tolerate people smoking in my house, period. It's spelled out on my Craigslist ads that smoking is OUTSIDE ONLY - yes, in capital letters to exaggerate and make it stand out that I do not want anyone smoking in my house. I will be leaving him a written notice under his door. If it doesn't stop, I will evict him.

And enough of that. Just had to dump that somewhere, my blog is usually better than getting mad at someone and saying things I may later regret. Mary is gung-ho to do the tile project I want to have done in the living room, kitchen and utility room. I am hoping the stock market keeps going up - it will further increase the amount of money in my 401k, which is what I will use to fund the project. I have definitely decided that this is NOT my lifelong home. At the same time, to make it as appealing as possible, I want to do the things around here - inside as well - that make it very desirable to potential buyers. I'm going to have to change the oven and the refrigerator in here eventually as well. I imagine right now would be an awesome time to find very good, used versions of it - but - I only have so much.

Duke is already passed out - so to speak - on the floor after giving him 500 milligrams of ibuprofen. I will give him more tonight before we go to sleep and in the morning before I go to work and will buy another bottle tomorrow afternoon.

As for now? I'm done. With this entry anyway. I have thoughts of going outside and getting some work done - but those thoughts are fleeting, lol.

Hope you all had a great day!
ben