Finish what I start

After last week hearing that there was a hole somewhere in the exhaust of my spouse’s car, I made an appointment last Friday for this morning and succeeded in dropping off the car at the shop at 8am.

P got a ride later on this morning and picked her car up before going to work. A hole in a pipe and a new muffler (which I knew was going), $350 later.

There is always something needing service when you own an older car. It had only been about 3 weeks since I last had P’s car serviced, but not the exhaust… glad though, that this is done.

Our Outback wagon wouldn’t start yesterday morning. I suspected that the battery was going or weak. It did manage to start later on and I ran it for awhile and again last night.

This morning, it was mild and thankfully, the car started. I took it to a place I know that was open at 8am and they checked the charge level of the battery and sure enough, it was reading at a “marginal” level. Because I don’t know how old that battery is (it was in the car when we bought it almost 2 years ago) and it’s not performing well, I chose to buy a new one. The price was good, too and I also got $5 off with a coupon. I got a couple of other things done, plus a new windshield wiper for the driver’s side. Hopefully, the car is totally ready for winter, now!

My spouse is happy, too, because this is her car and I will have peace of mind knowing that it will be able to start and run well for her this winter. It’s also the only car we have right now, because I let my elder son take my car to use at school.

I had to bear down this week and get our medical receipts together so I could make a health insurance claim and hope to receive a payment before Christmas. Finally got everything done and the form filled out and mailed it at the post office last night.

This afternoon, I worked hard at putting things away, stripping the bedding and emptying out the fridge and freezer at our trailer. I put away all the deck furniture, took the deck vinyl roof down and cleaned it, let it dry, folded it up and put it away in the shed. I covered up our nice Adirondack chairs with a tarp and also covered the BBQ with its own tarp. ;) I still have to go back next month to rake and pick up about 10 big paper compost bags of leaves. There are so many leaves up there! Adam told me he would help me some Sunday in November.

It’s nice, yet bittersweet to get all this done for the end of the season. I would normally have done all this at the beginning of October, but the past couple of weeks, either something has kept me busy, or else last week, I didn’t have a vehicle to use.

Here’s a photo of Buster at the trailer a few years ago. This used to be my first avatar on 43Things! :)

This year, because we’re getting small refunds, I made a huge effort to work on this ASAP and often and early last night, I was able to finish up our taxes for all four family members and file them electronically. It’s nice to have that all finished instead of procrastinating until the last minute!

Glad this is out of the way. The two young service techs who came were very friendly and competent.

I asked them how long a tank usually lasts and they said that the average lifetime of a gas hot water tank is between 12 to 15 years and once in awhile, they will last 20 years, if not overly used. Ours was 15 years old and starting to run out of hot water quickly. Fortunately, it didn’t spring a leak like our last one did.

It is always sad when we have to close up the trailer for the winter. The resort shuts the water off right after Canadian Thanksgiving. We still have electricity all year round and have a propane furnace in the trailer, but we don’t have skidoos, so we hardly go up to the resort in winter.

Even more than in previous years, I found that our trailer was quite a good refuge for me this summer, whenever I wanted to get away by myself and relax. The weather was fantastic this summer as well. I took a week of vacation during all three of May, July and August and spent a lot of time reading and bumming around at the trailer this year.

If I ever come into some money, I’m going to buy a hard-top roof for the deck attached to our trailer. They are up to $10 grand for 10’ x 20’ coverage, expensive enough! I’m getting tired of taking down the vinyl roof and washing it and then putting it back up every Spring. It only takes a few hours of work each time, but after 5 years now, it’s getting to be a real pain. ;)
A downside to having a hard-top deck roof is that we would have to pay about $250 of property taxes per year, isn’t that ridiculous? Just because the hard-top roof is considered a permanent structure.

It’s nice to have all the work of closing for the season all done, with everything cleaned up, ready for next Spring. Six more months until May 1st!
There is still lots of raking left, there are tons of leaves down already. I’ll go up next weekend and fill a dozen bags or so with leaves and then take them to the compost area and dump them there so I can re-use the paper bags.

I guess this can be classed under “Finish what I start.” a little over 4 years ago, I promised myself and made an objective that I would learn to ride a motorcycle. I took a bike safety course and bought a nice used bike, with low mileage. After owning my motorcycle for some time, I really enjoy riding it, but I find that I enjoy driving cars better. Since I wasn’t using my bike all the time, I decided to sell it. It was time. If I get the urge again in a couple of years, I can always go out and find another one. :)

Yesterday, we moved my son’s and his gf’s furniture to their new apartment. It is a very nice place that they have rented for the upcoming year. The only difficulty was climbing three flights of stairs with all their things! Glad that this can be marked as done.

I just finished doing a major clean-up in the kitchen. It truly is nice to get things put away, clean and have a shiny sink! ;)