Shopping, Cleaning, and Fixing

 One of the must do's this week was to get my closet cleaned out. Done! Winter and Summer clothes have been switched out, a nice big bag of no longer need, don't like, why did I buy that, things have been delivered to Goodwill.

 On my list of 101 errands yesterday was to pick up a few things at the grocery store. The 75% off sale buggy caught my eye, humm whats this. Wohoo stuffed animals that will be perfect for Project Night Night bags were marked down to $3.79. I bought all that they had!!

 Another must do was to mow the lawn as my staff (lawn mowing service) didn't show up Monday or Tuesday :( grrrr. With heavy rain coming in today the yard would have been a real mess if I waited until next week.

An unplanned but couldn't put off any longer must do was to back up my photo's and files on the laptop. The laptop has been having lots of problems lately, running slow, shutting down for no known reason, locking up, and such. I am ready to throw it out the window but in the meantime I don't want to lose everything on it. At least it was work I could sit down to do, no shovels or lawn equipment needed.

I feel like I am chasing my tail this week in the get it done department :( Hours and hours spent on the phone with insurance and Dr's offices trying to get and handle on and understand why our insurance discount is so low before I pay the bills. A $942.00 Neurologist bill was only discounted by $30.00, WHAT, yep that's all that was allowed. So much for the new affordable health care, in the past that bill was discounted to around $300.00. Those days look to be long gone.

My staff (lawn service) too put a monkey wrench in my schedule. They are due to come out each Monday. Knowing I didn't have to do the regular lawn chore freed me up to do some extras in the yard Saturday and Sunday. Taking down the old raised garden beds was a real bugger of a job but its done. The front bushes and trees also needed to be trimmed, completed. Monday morning I hit one of the front beds that ivy has gotten out of control in. Some of the vines have bark on them! Some progress was made but it might take all summer to get rid of the stuff. By 7:00 Monday night the staff had not shown up...what the heck I will jump on the tractor and get the front yard  done. Tuesday...same deal, they were a no show. Before the predicted rain came in I once again got on the tractor to do the back yard. So much for my staff, however I did eventually hear from them.

Late in the day after running yet more errands I found a note in the door from the lawn service "Call us ASAP", Oh No I thought.....they must have had a family emergency. Nope. Seems they had taken on a few side jobs and gotten behind. When they came by the house he saw that our lawn had already been mowed, he was NOT happy!! I explained to him since they never showed up or called I did it on my own, we are expecting 3-5 inches of rain this week, the lawn had to be cut. He had the nerve to still be angry and told me I would still have to pay the $75.00 contracted amount.
A) We DO NOT have a contract
B) If we did have a contract you would have been in breach of that contract
C) You have one of those phones that hangs from your ear on at all times, you could have called!!

I won't be paying for service that wasn't rendered. Hopefully he now has a clear understanding of our expectations, no work, no pay.

Last but not least aggravating To Do was to make contact with the homeless shelter. I sent an e-mail to one of the higher ups after I couldn't make contact with the department that accepts donations. His response was to give me another name and number. OK..I had left at least 6 messages to this staff person who is a paid employee BTW over the past two weeks. Her voice mail says "I am out of the office until Monday March 31" please leave a message WHAT!! Time to quit dilly dallying about. I called a friend who I knew had some connections. Amazingly I got not one but two calls later in the day expressing how excited they would be to receive such a generous donation and to be included in the Night Night Project,grrrr You shouldn't have to call in favors to elected officials for people to do their durn job!!!

That's my rant for the day. On to the next spring cleaning To Do. I figure at the rate I am going I will have my spring cleaning completed no later than Halloween! ha