Work

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Good Deals

Today’s project was to come home with a dehumidifier. I’d done my online research as to what was available to me and Canadian Tire had the best prices, with two brands, Lancanster and Whirlpool. My experience with Lancaster heaters is that the brand is crap, so Whirlpool it was. Store availability in Penticton was nil for Whirlpool, while Kelowna had a few available. I really didn’t relish the four hour round trip drive, but I’m not going to get any further in the renos without reducing the dampness in here.

The Penticton Canadian Tire is right on the route to Kelowna, so I decided to stop in there first, just in case the online inventory was wrong. Well, they had a unit set aside for pick up by store closure yesterday and only just put back on the shelf!

Whirlpool 35 pint dehumidifier

I couldn’t believe my good fortune! While in the store, I also got some tinted window film for the loft. There was a sale going on and the store was swamped, but I had no problem getting customer service the three times I needed it today. I thought I’d crossed over into the Twilight zone. Seems like there are some Canadian Tires with decent service.

The dehumidifier is going to kill the proverbial two birds. My mini conduction heater, Lancaster brand, has died. A dehumidifier also gives off heat, so what I will do is move the big, good quality, heater to the study and use the dehumidifier to heat the front of the rig. As an added bonus, the dehumidifier draws a maximum of 500W, meaning my amp usage will drop from 6.25 to 4. Every amp counts!

The next thing on my list was a new computer chair. I tried out all the chairs at Staples last time I was in Penticton, fell in love with one that was on sale, and made the mistake of thinking I could order it online to have it delivered. Turns out, it’s a discontinued model not available on line. I went back and the chair was still there, but at full price this time, $239, vs. the $169 it was at last time. So, I went through all the chairs in my price range again, but couldn’t find one I liked. I was narrowing down the choices when an associate finally came over to check on me and I explained what I was looking for. She took me directly to the chair I liked! I shook my head at the price and she said “We’ve only got two left and we want them gone. How about $98, plus tax, assembled?”

NO WAY!!!

Ahem. I told her “Sold!” and happily wheeled the chair down to the car where I had fun squeezing it into the front seat.

I ran a few more errands and then headed home, absolutely exhausted. The holiday shopping season has commenced, so I will be staying out of stores until early 2011!

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Contentment

I’m sitting here on this grey and gloomy Monday morning in my beautifully decorated and functional home office, flitting from task to task, mostly focusing on the book I’m writing, petting whichever cat is sitting on my lap at the moment, occasionally staring out at the lovely view of mountains, sipping a good cup of coffee, relaxed and happy that I didn’t have a job to return to after my trip, and wondering How did I get to be so lucky?

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Finally Feels Like a Home Office!

Wow, the new printing, filing, and shredding centre in my study is awesome! I spent a few hours tonight catching up on… printing, filing, and shredding. 🙂 The printer does not have wireless networking capabilities, so I bought an 11′ long cable to run across the room. I would have thought that would be more than enough, but I was a bit short, so I pulled out a USB extension cable I had lying around and that gave me just enough length.

So, I now have a printer cable running across the room? You’d just about never know it since I ran it under the mattress base, and it comes up just behind the desk. Once I find some clips for securing the printer to the top of the night table, it will be permanently set up for the first time since I moved into Miranda. Finally! I do have to get up and walk all of two steps to turn it on (or I guess I could roll the chair three feet…) since the printer is a power hog and can’t be left on. Big deal! It and the shredder are sharing the outlet by the electrical panel.

Today’s changes have made Miranda feel like a whole new rig and I am very pleased with my day’s work!

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Easing the Pressure

I’ve been scraping by since I got to Osoyoos nearly a month ago and I’m spending an incredible amount of time looking for contracts and new clients. It’s not leaving me time for other commitments that won’t garner income until early next year. So, I finally decided to loan myself enough cash to ease the pressure well into December, but not so much as to make me complacent. The markets have been good in the past few months, so not taking a loss made this decision quite a bit easier.  I’m not happy with this situation, but I have to keep reminding myself that what I’m working on these days will pay off, just not immediately. It’s actually rather an exciting time in my life!

The bit of the puzzle of wealth building that I only just acquired is one I wish I’d understood a decade ago: passive income. That, not earning big gobs of money, is the key to early financial independence. For example, Sorting It Out wasn’t a huge financial success, but it has brought me a steady trickle of mad money since I released it and I sold enough copies of it in September to cover both my insurance payments! So, while working on another book might not be making me money right now, it will at some point, just as will my Suite101 articles. The trick is to remain solvent while the passive income accumulates. 🙂

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Quiet Weekend

Now that the blog makeover is done, I can focus on my two other major projects that need to be done by February. I reserve the weekends for such work since few people are posting want ads on Saturday and Sunday. It gives me a break in my week.

Yesterday was a lovely day. I headed next door to Donna‘s and invited her for a walk. We headed up into the desert behind the RV park with Midnight, who soon grew tired. Donna wanted to take him back home, but he’s such a little thing that I decided to just hold him. A dog like him would be perfect for me…

While the days have been nice, the nights have been cold and loud. Imagine this: when the temps go down to near freezing, the vineyards operate huge wind machines to keep the air circulating. These machines sound like helicopters. For the last two nights, I felt like I was living right on a chopper pad from about 8:30PM to mid-morning.

As if that noise wasn’t bad enough, the RV park has been doing lawn maintenance during the day. So, the minute the chopper noises stop, the mower noises start. Try to concentrate on anything in such circumstances! I decided to formally extend my stay in Osoyoos to the end of January, worried that the RV park would rent my site out from under me (which they did), but I’m starting to regret that decision! Perhaps when the colder weather arrives things will quiet down.

Speaking of colder weather, I’m going to have to start thinking about hunkering down since I am now committed to wintering here. Many rigs in the park use foil-covered bubble wrap as skirting material (R4 rating). That seems to be the most cost-effective and easy to store skirting method for me, so I will go load up on that stuff shortly. The hookups here are badly done and I need about ten feet of water hose to reach the tap. I have five feet of hose wrapped up in heat tape and no intention of investing in more heat tape. So, I think I will live off my water tank when we start getting extended periods of nights below freezing.I’ve heard rumours that They (whomever They are) are predicting that Osoyoos is heading into its worse winter ever! I am not even willing to entertain the thought that anything could be worse than the winter of ’08 to ’09. I’ll keep an eye on weather reports and will start to consider blowing out my water lines at the end of November. I’m close enough to the park facilities to make using theirs a viable option.

Leaving Osoyoos just doesn’t make sense. Yes, the Vancouver area would have milder weather, but I’d be looking at twice the cost of living. I’m going to make a proper stand against cold weather this time around and see what happens. Last night, the bad weather didn’t hit until the middle of December, so I’m hopeful that I’ll be comfortable until at least then.