In the garden, and RAIN!!!!
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, December 25, 2025 04:27
VIEWED: 1005090
PAGE 259 of 1154
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Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:That's some serious savings, SIX. Heck, I'm happy to get a decent grocery coupon!
Between that (20% off), the 11% menards rebate and the 2-3% cash back on the card, I'll get nearly 35% off the next $1k of materials and tools I need for the upcoming jobs. Even more if I catch stuff on sale.
Yeah... It's a little experiment I've been doing over the last 2 years or so. See how long they'll keep throwing free money at me, and how much I can get away with without killing my credit score. Once I collect on this $200, that will be $1k in rewards for getting new cards, not including the cash back you get on them. (2 cards at $150 for $500 in 3 months and 2 at $200 for $1k in 3 months) It hasn't negatively impacted my score. I recently found out from a bank my FICO score is 806. That's typically the one that is used when you're queried for things like home loans, although that's not the score you get on websites who usually use the Vantage score from both Experian and Transunion, which have me at 819 and 814 respectively.
My thought, at least right now, is that any negative impact that the inquiries have (which are considered low impact anyhow and age off after a year) have been negated simply by having more credit at my disposal.
Part of me thinks I should have just gotten this card before I was already $300-$400 in repair expenses, but I really don't want to go too crazy with it. Not only are there a limited number of cards and banks offering them, but I've heard that if you get several cards from the same bank they tend to catch on to what you're doing and they don't pay out the reward (I'm sure it's in the fine print somewhere).
I've got my eyes on one more that would be doable for sure without further strategizing. I might wait until 2020 to get it though. I can't remember if I've done only 1 last year and 3 this year now, or 2 last year and this would by my second this year. I don't want to push my luck and I want to keep it at 2 per year until they stop offering it to me.
Anyhow, it's a cool little experiment and who am I to turn down tax free money?
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Sounds like you had a rain delay and took it easy. Good for you! Everyone needs a mental and physical recovery period once in a while.
Yeah. Being lazy by nature, it's kind of hard on me to be working so much without breaks. I go crazy when I do work, but I love my days off. Trying not to get too vested in any recreational activities that I used to though, because I don't want them pulling me away from what needs to be done. Not going to start binge watching Game of Thrones yet, or start playing a RPG that I could easily lose 500 hours to. Don't have time for that stuff in my life right now. :)
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As for me, I took an unplanned 5 day vacation. I just couldn't get my rear in gear! But we finally got the big cooldown that was predicted ... it'll be pleasant for four days or so ... and that triggered a restart on that VERY long list of "things to do" so the bedroom floor is now cleaned up 100% of paint (Yes I know, I said I wouldn't get involved, but I did) and I helped out in the garage modifying the woodworking bench, plus puppy-wuppy finally got a decent walk in.
Today I have a service tech coming in to do a top-to-bottom cleanout of the AC system. I know we have a less-usual refrigerant so I had to dig out the file to show them DON'T put in the "usual stuff" if the system needs a top-up! Fortuitously, today is one of those cooler days, so we won't mind the AC being turned off.
Also we are finally going to stucco the holes that the plumbers left. Since the mesh is already in place they've been critter=proof for a while.
Sometimes you need a break... an extended one. Especially when it's hot. No shame in that. Don't beat yourself up too much over it.
I can't believe I've be
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Looks like I need to get my left ear flushed again. Will make an appointment about that. Rainy day here. Need an umbrella.
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The last of the big furnature I'm not keeping is out of the house now. :)
Staged in the garage until they hopefully pick all of it up tomorrow morning.
A bit unfortunate since it's now in the way of the work space and lumber. Was kind of hoping in light of that my friend wasn't going to call me today about doing work, but he did, and I'm not going to say no when he wants to come out to work. We'll just have to work around it and I'll have to get up extra early to make sure everything is clean again before they pick it all up tomorrow. Hopefully she'll call me a bit ahead of time and I could just stage everything outside of my garage before they get here.
Getting so close to having the hoard completely out of here. Just some minor things still to go through in the house and I've got to do a deep clean everywhere before I decide what home improvident projects I want to start as soon as the porch issue is wrapped up. I'll be able to clean up the garage now soon too that the furniture and the bed frames will be gone tomorrow. As soon as we get the porch complete and it's not stuffed with lumber I'll be able to organize everything. :)
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Rain today and just some errands ran. Might rain again tomorrow.
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Had to undo a little of our previous work. Marrying joists is a lot easier on paper than it is in real life on an existing structure. Funny thing about brand new solid pieces of wood is that they don't like to bend like play doh to fit where you want them to go.
Learning process for both of us here...
Good news is that we did get a few brand spankin' new joists in tonight, they fit nice and tight and are level. Only two of them though. But at least I didn't have to convince my friend to remove the bad stuff altogether instead of marrying them. There was no way around removing them. It would be impossible to fit the new ones in without taking the bad ones out completely first. Pesky existing walls keep getting in the way...
I'm sure this is all much easier when building from the floor up. 
We seem to be developing a system though, and I think things will go a lot smoother from here on out. The only problem is that we won't be able to marry joists on the other end where everything was much better and the floor hadn't caved in, but I'm a still a bit iffy on the structural integrity. I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and end up doing a lot more work than I initially wanted to. There are youtube videos on how to do what I think needs to be done. It involves putting two half joists next to existing joists, sandwitching the bad joist with them, fitting them in tight along the walls and then drilling large holes through all 3 of them and bolting them together in the middle. My friend will probably think that this is overkill, but when we seal this up I want to know that it's going to stand for another 30 or 40 years.
This is probably going to end up being twice or even three times as expensive as I was hoping, but it sure beats knocking it down. :)
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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2nd bedroom set is finally out of my garage and out of my life forever.
I'd have my garage back now completely if I didn't have all of that lumber out there and the three pallets that I had used to span the crevasse of the bad porch floor the last year or two. Those won't be coming with me, but with all the upcoming work they might still prove useful, whether for their intended use or repurposed for another task.
Well... I still have one of the bed frames that I'm not keeping. They didn't take both of them. Got it out on my street now. Somebody should take it by the end of the night, but it is the one that I never glued, so somebody might not take it when they try to lift it and see that it's going to need some work. Supposed to thunderstorm tonight, so I might have to move that back in and just keep taking it out on the nice days until somebody takes it.
Unless my friend calls me today, I'm not planning on doing any rehab work. It's hot AF today. I think I might vacuum and clean the floors behind all the old furniture in the master bedroom so I can move the antique set I'm keeping all in place and get the nice bed in there too. It's going to be a huge upgrade for my bro when he comes in for the holiday season this year, going from a claustrophobic mess of a small bedroom to a huge room with plenty of leftover space when all the furniture is in there.
Now I just have to decide if I'm going to keep the 2nd futon or not. If I get rid of it, the small bedroom is now added to the list of completely empty rooms in my house (3 total now). I think I might keep it though. When the porch is finally done, it would be nice to have out there. If we get it sealed watertight and do it all right it should also keep the bugs out which was always a problem before. It would actually be a nice place to lounge and even sleep on cool nights, so the futon is something I should probably keep until I move.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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No rain today but two bags of books with little puzzles taken in to the local thrift shop.
Looks like the stuff I've been storing in my dad's old dresser maybe useful. Some of it. Had to throw out two sheets that were just too holey to be useful anymore. But other stuff may just need a wash to be useful. Will have to see.
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Rainy weekend and rainy next week expected here.
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Hey guys, I'm going to be less present for the while. The weather is turning, and more needs to be done. I'll be reading and taking encouragment from your progress, it's awesome to see how everyone is making progress and will be chiming in from time to time but not as often as before. Carry on!
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
You idiots have been oppressing the entire sexual spectrum as long as you have existed. I can't wait for the day your kind is dead - WISHIMAY
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Good on you Brenda. :)
Make sure not to throw out any sentimental stuff till the end (of course linens with holes are acceptable). Just keep plowing through the easy stuff first. Once you've done that you can re-evaluate where you're at with the clutter and where you want to be before you go more in-depth during the next round.
It's one thing to kick yourself at a later date because you threw out something useful that you would absolutely have made use of now if you hadn't thrown it out, but it's another thing entirely to be sitting there looking at stuff that you decided to save during round one and chide yourself for choosing that junk over a box full of precious memories.
I think you're already doing that, but just wanted to offer that reminder based off of my experience. I'm already dealing with a twinge of regret on a few smaller items that are gone now. I think if I had to do it all over I wouldn't have started boxing up things for a future move while I had been doing this. There's definately pros to that method, but when I consider the two boxes of Christmas junk I still haven't gone back through to remove all non-sentimental items, I wish I had kept a few things I got rid of to fill in those boxes instead.
No real regrets though. In a year or two I'll probably never give it another thought, and I did keep most of the stuff with sentimental value.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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