What's under your lip/in your nose right now? - Part 2

[Waho]

We went to an off the grid camp in the Adirondacks of upstate New York last fall. Another ECF member works there and it was awesome meeting a fellow member.

My mother in law paid for most of my wife's dress and her grandparents also chipped in a bit, but a majority came out of pocket. I've dedicated two profit sharing checks and two income tax returns to it and still putting some on credit cards. Crazy.

We put "no gifts" on the invitations and didn't register anywhere hoping to prevent folks buying us a toaster or silverware or something else we already have since we've lived together for 4 years now. I'd love to get some cash to pay off some of the wedding and put the whole ordeal in the past.

 

[hittman]

For the most part, weddings are for women. It's programmed in their dna to dream of the perfect dress, wedding, etc. I think guys care a lot less about all the hoopla. I would have been perfectly happy to go to a justice of the peace and be done.

 

[Waho]

We would have said screw the whole thing after our little ceremony, but the entire balance from the venue was nonrefundable. Losing a few deposits wouldn't have been so bad but tossing 15 grand into the wind, not so much.

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[hittman]

Holy cow, you weren’t kidding. I don’t think ours was anywhere near that. Of course that was almost 24 years ago.

 

[firechick]

For the most part, weddings are for women. It's programmed in their dna to dream of the perfect dress, wedding, etc. I think guys care a lot less about all the hoopla. I would have been perfectly happy to go to a justice of the peace and be done.

Not me. After living together for 17 years we had ours in our back yard with a local Judge presiding. Less than 10 people and our dog as the best man/maid of honor. His sister does great cakes so that was covered. I think we spent less than $300, license included. And the cake was camo with deer on it. Ya gotta let the guy have something he likes too, right?

We put the money into a new furnace and shop. Better investment.

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[rothenbj]

FC, you're every man's kind of girl. The expense of things like weddings has gotten out of hand. How much more valuable the money would be to use to get a good start for young couples rather than one day of celebration.

 

[firechick]

I'm with ya on that. It IS a special day in people's lives, but that kind of money could provide security and/or a level of comfort for a long time.

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[rothenbj]

Anyone get involved in the bitcoin world? This is so weird.

 

[hittman]

I’ve looked at bitcoin but never took the leap.

 

[rothenbj]

Yeah Hitt, I was the same way, it just seemed so hard and wild west and I couldn't find anyone that could lead me in the right direction. To think $300-500 back 7-8 years ago is worth a million or two is just too bizarre to imagine.

I finally figured out how to get it moved to an exchange site, converted to US Dollars and into a bank account but if you don't do it right on any of the transfers, it disappears.

 

[hittman]

I'm glad you got it done. I don't know that I'd have the patience.

 

[hittman]

I just saw that snus express is taking paypal now. I wonder how they did that.

 

[rothenbj]

Got a surprise deliver of firewood on Wednesday, They called me Tuesday and asked if I could handle a load the next day. I really wasn't thinking other than it was better getting it now than later in the summer when it was stinking hot so I said bring it. They said first thing in the morning which turned out to be 11:30 and the temp had climbed to the upper 80s.

Now the load is all oak cutoffs from a skid manufacturing company, big pieced little pieces that dropped in the drive makes a pile 20'x9'x8' that weighs over 8 ton. I load a wheel barrow, push it to my skids and unload and stack so basically the weight doubles in the process.

When the gf is around, it's not too bad because I can keep feeding her the pieces and she can fill in the jigsaw puzzle while I keep moving the material to create about a solid block appx 10'x6'x6' of firewood, a big space saver. Unfortunately, she's actually working (well, volunteering) at a thrift store with the goal of getting a job there. Thursday was worse at the temps went into a record 90s plus it is gnat season. The timing was just not good. With a little help when she got home both days, I got almost all stacked before I dropped on Thursday late afternoon and went out Friday morning and finished up, except for the really little stuff which I put in containers and use as startup pieces during the winter.

I'm getting too old for this stuff. Thursday night I got cramps in both hands and my right arm, then later I avoided dueling charlie horses in both legs. They cramped up, but I managed to avoid the muscles from just locking up. I did sleep on my back which I rarely do and was thankful for the Nectar mattress I bought a month or so ago. The one thing that was cool about an otherwise hot two days was the forest, it came alive before my eyes.

When I started on Wednesday it looked basically as it had all Winter although you could see the buds on the trees if you looked close enough. By the time I was finished, everything was green and the dogwood even bloomed, all in a 36 hour period, perhaps inspired by the heat. Even the Japanese Maple proved that it wasn't dead as it now as tiny red leaves coming in. My breaks allowed me to watch the transformation and I took plenty of them.

 

[hittman]

That sure sounds like a lot of hard work. I don’t know that my body would deal well with it. I need to get dirt to build up on one side of my house but am thinking I’m going to get a pallet of bag dirt to avoid shoveling. I got two pallets one time before when we were doing landscaping. It’s a heck of a lot easier than shoveling and not much difference in price.

 

[Waho]

Wedding done and in the books. Not without some last minute craziness however.

Our tux's were supposed to be in before noon, and they ended up arriving at 2pm. Not that big of a deal as the ceremonies started at 4:30, except that right as we were going to leave, the power went out. Kinda fortuitous as my sump pump has been running every 15-20 minutes and after we left no one was going to be there until after midnight. So I ran outside and immediately hooked up my generator and put all my gas in it and asked my neighbor if he would watch it. It had about 8 hours worth of gas in it but I figured the power would come back on before that, so I gave him the rundown on my generator interface and thanked him profusely.

Then my wife and her sister had a screaming match for reasons I still don't totally understand. So I'm trying to console her on the phone while attempting to try on a full tux. They ended up giving each other the cold shoulder all night and their family left super early. My brother in law must have been confused as to what happened also as he was apologizing for it all night.

The reason the power went out and the story of the night was the weather. It was supposed to be rainy and overcast, but ended up being sunny with 50mph gusts. We had to move the ceremony inside, but we got some awesome photos when the wind died down a bit. She wore a 6ft long veil that made great photos blowing in the wind.

All in all it was a success as I don't remember half of it. My coworkers wanted to do shots and it was a forgone conclusion that I was blacking out after that.

 

[hittman]

I’m glad things worked out in the end. Family can often times be challenging. The weather didn’t help either.

We are at my daughter’s first apartment. We barely got the doors closed on the car with everything we had packed in including a kitchen table and two chairs. This will be the first time she won’t be coming home for the summer from college.

 

[rothenbj]

Glad it all worked out Waho, even with the drama and electric problems. Heck, you're so much younger than I and already have one more marriage than I'll ever have. I told my wife that if we ever broke up I'd never remarry and I've kept my promise.

Hitt, sounds like one of your birds has left the nest permanently. That's always a good sign.

I finally broke down an bought a new vacuum cleaner. I've been using Rainbows for ever. The one I have still is working well, but it is a lot of trouble cleaning out the muck created in the water then cleaning out the container, particularly in the winter. A friend had showed me her Shark months back and they were running ads lately so I did some research and bit the bullet, It came in two days ago and I became a fan. I did find out it gets clogged much easier than the Rainbow but getting to the clogs is easy and pulling the rollers, it has two, is a piece of cake. It also take less ceremony to pull it out and vacuum so will get done more frequently.

 

[hittman]

We have a Simplicity vacuum. We’ve had it for several years. We also had a smaller cheaper vacuum for downstairs but my wife gave it to my daughter for her apartment. The plan is that she will have the apartment for her last year of college and then come home for a year to work and save money to pursue her acting career. However that could change if she had something lined up coming out of college.

 

[rothenbj]

Never heard of a Simplicity Vac, same company as the lawn mowers I assume?

I've had the weirdest experience with Mint the last two days, niccups. I'm down to two portions left in the can and a some in my travel can so I probably have used at least 2/3rds of it. However yesterday I put a portion in and they started. It took almost an hour for them to go away. Now this morning I put another one in and the same thing. That hasn't happen for a couple years at least and never with General Mint.

 

[hittman]

Some of the Simplicity vacuums can be pretty expensive but we got a mid range one. They are made in Missouri and a couple local places carry them around us. Here is their website.

Saving Good People from Bad Vacuums Simplicity Vacuum. Saving good people from bad vacuums.

That is weird about the niccups. I used to get them for a short period sometimes with es portions but haven’t in a long time.