December 21, 2008

A bit late but -

HAPPY SOLSTICE!!!!!

We’re down to 3hrs 44min of daylight, and tomorrow will be 17 seconds longer!  How cool is that?  How ridiculous is that?  It gets better, but the start of gaining daylight is soooo slow.  I am tanning now, as I usually do this time of year just to get through the lack of daylight.  I called the tanning salon, and lo and behold! I still had minutes left over from last year.  Only way I could be tanning, as there is a decided lack of funds available for ‘frivolous’ things in my life.

Finally got up enough nerve to talk to this guy at work last night.  He started a week or so after I did.  Cute, but in a real down to earth kind of way, and a sexy, gravelly voice that I just love.  Turns out he’s from the Keys and he’s just up here to visit his parents for a month.  Got bored sittin’ at home so he picked up the catering job for the holidays.  We ended up talking for most of the night, and come to find out he’s a bartender down in Florida.  He grew up here, couldn’t wait to leave, and pretty much worked his way south.  Now he works on the marina in the Keys.  Said he makes a buttload of money, most of it under the table.  I could do that, and I could do him, but he’s leaving after the 1st.  I tried to entice him into coming out with me for a drink after work, but apparently he’s got a second job at the grocery store stocking at night.  I didn’t give him my digits, had a major attack of ’shy.’  I know where he’s working his other job, had already run into him there once, so maybe I’ll find the big-girl panties and go there for a gallon of milk.  I’m not looking for any long-term thing, but it would be nice to have conversation with someone that is not the usual crowd.  We must have talked for about three hours, and boy, did he ever fire me up to go, just head South right now!  It’s gonna be a long, cold five months ~

December 16, 2008

Fifteen days.  That’s all that’s left until the house goes up for auction.  Will I go to the auction?  Probably, even though it’ll most likely rip me apart.  Morbid fascination will make it impossible to stay away.  What a way to start New Year’s Eve.

Last week was absolutely awful.  I ran out of heating oil and woke up to a house that was a balmy 49 degrees.  No money to buy fuel, so I wrote bad checks to get some.  I eventually made enough in tips last weekend to cover the checks, but not until the checks fees were applied, of course.  The next day I had frozen water pipes.  Apparently, I popped the breaker while I was using electric heaters.  Fortunately, that was an easy fix and I had water again in a couple of hours.  The day after that ran out of fuel, again.  By then I had a bit of cash from a couple of cleaning jobs, so I didn’t have to write more bad checks.  Lovely life I’ve created…

If I could, I would leave here today.  Just pack up and go.  It seems as if I have successfully slipped completely under almost everyone’s radar up here, as no one ever calls or stops by.  If I got hurt or ended up incapacitated, chances are no one would even know.  Last year people would call, but not anymore.  I really have no life up here I now realize, and it’s past time to move on.  ‘Bout five more months, then I should be able to sell everything and go.  Just gotta get through January and February, the two coldest months up here.  Ugh…

Monday, December 8, 2008

Last week ended up turning out pretty well.  I had my first inspection clean on the air force base, huge house.  It took a total of 20 man hours to get it done.  I got very fortunate and stumbled on a friend to help.  It was interesting how it happened.  I was sitting in the bowling alley parking lot on Thursday, wondering how I was ever going to finish the house in time, when all of a sudden I saw a friend drive by on her way to the commissary.  I called her and asked her what she was doing.  “Nothing,” she said, so I asked her if she wanted to help me with the house.  She did, and we got it done in a decent amount of time.

The next day was the inspection, and boy, did I ever learn some interesting tricks.  The woman that did the inspection brought a UV light with her, and she went over every inch of carpet in the house looking for pet stains!  I was so relieved that the folks living in the house didn’t have pets.  I had no idea that they checked the carpet that way, but you can bet that in the future, I will be checking carpets that way before I give a firm price on the cleaning.  I just happen to have a portable UV light myself which is going to be used rather frequently in the future.

The bartending gig on the weekends didn’t turn out so well, at least this weekend.  Apparently, folks seem to think that their free drink tickets cover their tip too, and I only made $20 each night.  That really doesn’t make the rent payment.  I’m hoping that it will pick up this weekend.  I get to work the smaller parties (50) while the other bartender gets to work the large parties (200).  She’s been there longer, so she gets the bigger parties.

Well, off to do a couple of cleans ~

december 1, 2008

for whatever reason, my caps key isn’t working today, so i guess this post will look like a juvenile wrote it.  whatever -

i called the electric company today to have power shut off to the big house, only to find out that it had already been transferred to the mortgage company.  next, i called the insurance company to try and cancel the policy so that if they succeeded in catching the house on fire, my policy wouldn’t be liable.  no dice.  apparently it can only be canceled by the mortgage company, which of course they aren’t going to do.  so, i explained what i found out there with the heaters and exposed wiring, and they made careful note of it in their records.  they also said that if that happened, they would subrogate -substitute one creditor for another, as in the case where an insurance company sues the person who caused an accident for the insured-

dirty pool, for sure.  but with all the foreclosures going on in this country, i would imagine that the mortgage companies really don’t want yet another foreclosure on their hands.  if the house does burn down, they get paid and walk away.  much easier than having to deal with yet another foreclosure auction and yet another house that nobody wants.  we’ll see what happens with that.

i’m sore today.  got it into my head that i needed to re-arrange the house yesterday.  found lots and lots of animal hair.  can’t say that i’m all too impressed with all bare floors in the house.  at least if there’s carpet, the hair gets caught on that.  with all bare floors, the hair keeps going and going and going, until it’s waaaay underneath the furniture.  major pain in the ass to get to.

this week starts a month of absolute craziness work-wise.  the biz is taking off, plus i’ll have holiday parties to work every friday and saturday night.  that’s ok; god knows, i need the money i’ll make.  hopefully by the end of this month, i’ll have enough cleaning contracts that i can drop the second job and just run with the cleaning.  one of my sisters brought up an interesting point in an email on the subject of employees that i hadn’t yet thought of; if i ever did take on employees, i would then have to deal with liability insurance, workman’s comp, all that crap that i just don’t want to deal with.  nope, i’ll just stay small, just me.

ok, i gotta figure out the problem with the caps key; it’s driving my crazy -

November 30, 2008

Hard to believe that November is over.  Even harder to believe that 2008 is almost over.  I guess if I had to use just one word to sum it all up, I would say ‘chaotic.’  Sometimes bad chaotic, but mostly good chaotic, if that makes any sense.

The biz is finally taking off.  I picked up two new contracts this week, one of which is on the military base nearby.  I know that if I do a good job on her house, she’ll be talking to her friends, and I’ll be set.  It’s difficult to get cleaning on a military base, but once you’re in, you’re pretty much golden, as long as you clean well.  Today, I will get the business website done and up and running, then perhaps I can pick up a few more contracts that way.  I was talking to someone the other day, and he asked if I were going to hire employees, etc.  I really don’t want to, that means that I have to worry about whether or not they are cleaning to my standards.  At this point (and it may change), I only want enough contracts to pay the bills and put aside money for gettin’ outta here.

Thanksgiving was kinda peaceful, actually.  I just stayed home and hung out with the furry kids.  I am rather upset with some folks, though.  I actually picked up the phone and made an effort to connect with family, and out of five phone calls, only my daughter bothered to return my call that day.  That kinda hurt.

The big house is done; I spent the last two days finishing up with it.  Got everything out that I wanted to keep; the rest can go to the new owners after the auction.  I was really freaked out on Friday when I went out there.  I went into the house expecting it to be very cold (I haven’t bothered to heat it; can’t afford to heat two houses), and when I opened up the door, warm air hit my face.  I went into the house and discovered that someone somehow got into the house, probably jimmied the back door (looks that way), and put electric heaters all over the house!  Needless to say, I got very motivated to get the rest of my crap out.  I pulled the heaters out of the house and that was when I discovered that even though they were brand new heaters (the boxes were on the floor next to them), two of them had bare wiring!  Whoever put those in the house deliberately removed some of the wiring casing, obviously hoping to start a fire.  If a fire started and burned the house, then the mortgage company wouldn’t have to hassle with the auction, they could just get paid out by insurance.  People sure play rotten, don’t they?  So, I played just as rotten; I took all the heaters, cleaned out the rest of my crap, and when I was done and no longer needed to use the garage door, I shut off the electric at the main box.  Monday I will call the electric company and have them shut off the power.  I don’t need power anymore, was only keeping it on so I could use the garage door to get my bike out.  I think I also need to talk to the insurance company, tell them what happened and see if I can go ahead and cancel the insurance.

November 25, 2008

Finally, it warmed up a bit.  We made it to 14 above.  Woo-hoo.  I was watching the news last night, and my theory proved correct on the weather part; it has been about 10-15 degrees colder than normal this month.  I really didn’t think that we usually sat at -15 for days this time of year, and I was right.  Woo-somebody get me a donut…

Did a move-in clean for a guy yesterday, and he was so impressed with my hard-water stain removing talents, he hired me to keep coming back every week!  Yay!  I do ache today though; his clean included carpet shampoo, and with no tub to soak it away afterwards, I am very sore today.  Is ok, though; I imagine I’ll survive.

If J had still been alive, he would have turned 60 today.  I’ve been gearing up mentally for about a week now, so I’m really hoping that today doesn’t wreck me.  So far, so good.  Just gotta get through today and Thursday, then I’ll be ok I think.  I hope.

I think I’m pretty much set on leaving here next summer.  If I were to move into the camper full-time in May and live in that, I could sell the rest of everything, work up here for the summer (and enjoy one last summer here), then go about the middle of August.  My brother has givien me his blessing to land at his place, he has an RV site already built on his property.  Unless something major happens, I’m gonna go.  I feel as if I’ve over-extended my stay up here at this point, and it’s time to move on.  I’m alone, and this is a brutal place to be alone, especially in the winter.  The climate at my brother’s place is much milder; I could live in the camper year-round, which would suit me fine.  I’ve been doing research on full-time RV’ing, and that spells ‘gypsi’ all over it.  I’ve never really been one to fall for the ‘buy a house and settle down’ mentality (I did try with J, though), but to eventually buy a bus that’s been converted, oh yeah, that I could do.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Haven’t updated in awhile.  Don’t really know what to say; my life is pretty boring.  The cleaning business isn’t taking off like I had hoped.  I think people are more concerned about heating their houses this winter rather than cleaning their houses.  Fuel prices have dropped dramatically all over the country; except for here.  Even though we have a refinery in our back yard, we are still over a dollar more a gallon than the Lower 48.

I’ve been pretty down lately.  Seems like no matter what I try to do, it just ain’t good enough.  Then there’s the feeling of ‘why bother?’ that penetrates most aspects of my life.  I can’t seem to find motivation to do much of anything, and that does bother me.  I have nothing to work towards, no retirement with the one I love, or anything like that.  I just go through the motions, day after day.  No joy, very little happiness.

I think that if I could, I would simply pack up and move.  Alaska has been the best experience of my life, but anymore I am feeling so isolated.  My kids and grandkids are so far away; immediate family consists of a dog and two cats.  My phone never rings anymore.  The supposed ‘friends’ that I had a year ago are long gone.  Left about the same time the money did.  Interesting, but oh so predictable I guess.

The thought of facing yet another set of holidays alone is, daunting to say the least.  I barely made it through last years’ set.  I don’t know if I can do it this year.  Or if I even want to.