We've got three minor, but aggravating plumbing problems. Maybe we could take care of them ourselves, but when it comes to plumbing, I've come to believe that I need to hire a professional to do things right the first time.

I called the plumber that installed the plumbing when we renovated our house. That was probably a six weeks ago? I called them the same day I called to have the gravel dumped on our driveway. The receptionist said that she would have the crew leader follow up with me to set up an appointment. No response.

So, I called another plumber. This guy works more by himself with a couple helpers. I think I called him for the first time three or four weeks ago, and I talked directly to the plumber/owner. He said he was booked that week, but could definitely get to us the next week. I've called him two or three times since, and left messages. No response.

So, I called another plumber this morning. I think this place would be in between in size compared to the other two. The receptionist said that the plumbing crew would be out of town until Friday, so someone would call me Monday. We'll see.

I can definitely see the preference for working a large job, as compared to my pittly little two hour job.

Maybe I'll brush up on plumbing procedures this weekend.

We got our 2012 adoption credit check from the IRS in the mail yesterday. We got this one a month later than last year's check. The amount was $1,066.06 - $1,053 was credit, and $13.06 was interest. I'll deposit the check later today.

For those of you who may be new, or may not remember, we adopted two boys from foster care, DS1 in 2011, and the DS2 in 2012.

The adoption credit was refundable in 2011, so we got the entire amount in one check. In 2012, the credit became non-refundable, so we only received credit to the extent of our tax liability.

I'm pretty sure we'll use up the entire rest of the 2012 credit this year, because of the tax we'll owe on our short sale this past April. Probably, we'll owe beyond the tax credit. But, we'll see on that.

The Tigers game was a great time. Detroit won 12-5 over the Chicago White Sox. It sprinkled and misted nearly the entire game, but it was a warm rain, and I figured was better than a really cold night, which it could have been. And, we spent $0 on concessions. DD1 bought a $4.50 bag of popcorn with her own money.

The family picture went well on Saturday. All drama was restricted to the planning stage.

I broke down, and started the furnace at home Sunday morning. It was 63 degrees, and I thought it was time. I was just 9 days short of my October 1 goal!

I mowed the lawn for (hopefully?) the last time Sunday. My dad needs to use it to mow his (hopefully) one more time, too. Then we can put it away for the winter. I'd like to have it services yet this fall. It's a brand new, expensive mower, and I'd like to keep it well maintained. I figured it would be better to get it done this fall when we don't need it back soon, rather than wait until March or April when everyone and his brother is getting theirs serviced.

I'm not sure how many of you have heard of or listened to Ric Edelman, but he is an investment adviser who has a syndicated weekend radio show. I listen to him occasionally on Sunday mornings. One of his callers had a question about rolling over his 401(k) from a previous job, and the topic of a Roth IRA came up. A Roth didn't make sense in this particular case, but Ric added his own thoughts about Roths in general. His thought is that he's none too confident in Congress, and that he's not entirely sure that withdrawals from Roths will necessarily be tax free 30 years from now. That is, he thinks the chances are more likely than not that Congress will change the rules on Roth IRAs, making a withdrawal a tax event. Does anyone have a thought on that?

Tonight is the Tigers game. First pitch at 7:08, 80% chance of rain in Detroit.

The guy who visits my office to sell paper and office supplies was in this week. He is a huge Tigers fan - almost always wearing a Tigers hat, Tigers jacket when it's cool, and I even noticed that his cell phone is housed in a Tigers case. He an his wife spend several weeks each spring in Lakeland Florida, the home of Tigers spring training.

I asked him how much I could figure for four hot dogs and four Cokes at Comerica park. He wasn't sure, because he's never ordered Coke with his hot dog, only beer. But, he thought $40-$50 would cover it.

DW did some checking on the Comerica Park web site. Fans can enter with bottled water and juice boxes, and snacks, sealed in original packaging. We stopped by the grocery store to buy some snacks and water last night. We'll also eat before the game. I'm not saying that we definitely won't buy anything to eat at the game, but if we do, it will be as part of the experience, rather than to satisfy hunger.

I blogged last week about getting furniture from my BIL and SIL. Someone asked in the comment section whether we had a way to conveniently transport the furniture back to our house. We already had the furniture at our house when I posted. DW had to return her parent's golf cart. They have a golf cart so MIL can easily drive around the farm, and we had it so they could drive around the Octagon Barn festival, that I also blogged about. Anyway, DW was returning the golf cart with my dad's trailer, so that's how she was able to bring the furniture back.

I burned the furniture this weekend. I took the remaining metal to the scrap yard. Total weight was 80 pounds. About 15 pounds was scrap unrelated to the furniture, and one of the pieces was a hide-a-bed. The scrap was worth $6.

I think I mentioned our energy audit yesterday. We had an energy audit for our house as part of our decision making for the geothermal.

When we renovated our house, we had it insulted with spray foam on the main walls, and cellulose in the attic. We opted to not have the basement sprayed. That was probably a mistake. According to the energy audit, we could save 20% of our heating costs if we had the walls in the basement insulated.

We've gotten three bids:

One for $1,200 for an inch and a half of foam - but the guy bid based on my measurements, and has not looked at the basement.

One for $750 for an inch of foam, or $950 for an inch and a half.

One for $600 for an inch of foam, or $800 for an inch and a half.

I called, and left a message with the first guy to let him know his bid was high, and invited him to look at the basement. He is also furthest away from our house, so that may be part of the difference.

20% savings in heating costs is $480 per year, based on last year's heating cost. So, even if we don't quite get a 20% reduction in heating costs, we should be able to pay for the cost in the third year. I'm not sure if that 20% savings is based on an inch, or an inch and a half of foam. I'll have to follow up with the auditor.

DW and I have been thinking about geothermal heat (and cooling). Really, we entertained the idea four years ago when we renovated the house, but we couldn't justify the expense at that time.

If you're not familiar with geothermal heat, it's a heating system that collects energy from the ground, and transfers it to your house through an electric heat pump. No fossil fuels are used - except, of course, the fossil fuels that produce the electricity that runs the pump.

Geothermal also cools your house, with no additional equipment. You just reverse the heat pump when you want to cool the house.

Finally, geothermal can preheat water for your water heater. You do need to buy a second water tank, but the water enters the first tank at 110 degrees.

Geothermal is an efficient way to heat (and cool) a house (and water), but very expensive to install.

My first step was to do some investigating on the internet. I liked what I saw. I even found an on-line geothermal forum (I think there's a forum for everything). I got some basic questions answered there.

My electric co-op offers an energy audit for your house. The rep from the co-op was out on Tuesday. According to the energy audit, we would have a 70% savings in heating home costs, a 44% savings in cooling costs, and 41% savings in water heating costs.

A neat option offered by the electric co-op is that the electricity used to power the geothermal system is charged at a reduced rate - $0.065/kWh, our normal rate is $0.12/kWh. But, we would need to buy and install a second meter.

Then I called some contractors for bids. Two were out yesterday, and one will be out this afternoon. Of course, we haven't gotten a solid estimate yet, but one of the contractors did let us know that we would be looking at about $15K to purchase and install the system.

The lines that collect the heat from the ground can be installed either vertically or horizontally. Vertical installation is about 5K more expensive, because of the cost of the drill rig used to install. A home with limited space (close neighbors) would need a vertical installation. We have about three acres of available space around our house, so we can go horizontal. The lines need to be 120' long, spaced 7' apart, and about 7 feet deep. I think the first contractor (the one we're leaning toward right now) said we'd need five lines.

My next step was to set up an excel spread sheet with all of the above information. I used 15K as the initial price, and will modify that as bids come in. Right now, according to my spreadsheet, the geothermal system will pay for itself in year 10, and after 25 years (the expected life), we'd be ahead by about 26K. I ran a separate calculation for the water heater, because that's a separate decision. The water heater could pay for itself in eight years.

Oh, and this system would be eligible for a 30% energy efficiency tax credit.

I'm interested to see what the actual cost estimates will be. We're not going to jump into this right away. If we decide to go with geo, we'll spend the winter saving money for it, and have the install done next spring or summer.

Our existing oil furnace is eight years old. Expected life is 15 years. I dunno. Maybe we should use that for a few more years. The numbers we're looking at are $2,420 spent last year to heat the house with oil, and an estimated $732 per year to heat the house with geothermic.

DD1 bought some hay on Tuesday. She has some goats, three right now. One buck (male) and two does (female). One of the does is of breeding age, and the other will be in about six months. Our objective is that she breed her own goats for the fair, and, over time, perhaps build the herd to have some goats to sell.

It really doesn't make financial sense - there just isn't enough money in goats. But, it's a great learning experience for her, and she is responsible for the daily chores associated with her small herd.

For the past year and a half or so her grandfather has been giving her the hay from his own dairy cow herd. We've been buying the grain. We decided it was time to be big boys and girls, and purchase the hay ourselves.

There's a livestock auction about 20 miles south of us, and on Tuesdays there is a hay auction. Hay producers bring in lots of 20-30 bales, and interested buyers bid on the lots. Fortunately my brother-in-law had a couple of cows he needed to sell from the dairy, and we was at the auction yard, too. Their farm is about 20 miles to the south of the yard.

DD1 bid on the hay, but her uncle nudged her when it was time to stop bidding. She bid on the first two lots, until she received the nudge. She had success with the third and fourth lots. She ended up with 46 bales of a grass/clover mixed hay for $259.60, or $5.64 per bale. That will be enough hay for about 9 months.

I'm not sure how many of you are up on the current hay markets, but I'm guessing at least a few have no idea whether that is a good price or a bad price.

2012 was a drought year in the mid west. If she had bought that same hay a year ago, she would probably paid $7-$8 per bale. Hay was in short supply. If she had bought that same hay 5 or six years ago, she probably would have paid $2.25-$2.75 per bale. Hay has been steadily going up in price over the past several years. A lot of previous hay ground is growing corn or soybeans now, because of the increase in price for those commodities.

Based on current hay markets, I think she paid a good price for the hay. And, because her uncle was there, I'm sure of it.

DD1 helped me unload and stack the hay in our barn Tuesday evening.

My SIL and BIL brought my MIL and FIL to watch our girls play soccer this weekend. The girls each had a great game, and they started an hour apart, so we got to see most of both games.

While there they handed us our tickets for the upcoming Tigers game.

The total for the four tickets was $68, $17 per ticket. I had blogged about a handling fee before. That was per transaction, rather than per ticket, and it was $6. My SIL absorbed that for the group.

The game is this Friday, and the group has ballooned to 20. The seats are all in the same section, but not contiguous. Maybe people will play musical chairs with us, and allow at least some of us to sit together. The four seats for my family are not in a row, or in a square, but a "z", with two of us sitting beside each other, and the other two sitting one row behind, but offset by one seat.

Either way, it will be fun.

We'll be setting an in-park budget as well. We'd like to do some hot dog purchasing, or something like that without breaking the bank. I have a suspicion that some in the party will purchase quite a bit more than we will.

It could be a special game. Detroit pitcher Max Scherzer is listed as the probable starting pitcher, and he will be going for his 20th win.

The family pic will be the next day. That has set forth its own special family drama, but I won't get into it here.

DW visited her parents yesterday. Her sister and her brother both gave us some furniture. A love seat, sofa, and recliner from brother, and a (nearly brand new) recliner from her sister.

I mentioned in a post a couple weeks ago that furniture was high on our replacement list. It's not anymore.

The only draw back is that the pieces have been in storage in a building that my BIL owns. The building has an awful musty odor, and the furniture has picked it up. We got a mattress a few years back that was stored there, and picked up the same odor. So, we know that it will dissipate after a couple weeks, and a couple applications of Febreeze.

So, we have some new furniture. Actually, we're up one, because we didn't have a second recliner before.

We'll be having a bonfire with the old stuff this weekend. Trust me when I say that with four kids, our stuff has no resale value.

We bought a generator last night. It cost $664 plus sales tax. It's a 5,500 watt generator, and received good reviews on Amazon. It should be plenty to power our refrigerator, freezer, and some lights during a power outage. We'll just have to watch drying clothes, and other huge energy draws. Our oven is also electric, so we'll have to see on that. Probably won't be able to bake a turkey dinner during a power outage.

We also got a bid from an electrician for installing a transfer switch, so we can plug it in to our electric system. The bid was $390. The total cost for this project will be $1,054. I was figuring $1,200.

We didn't get multiple bids for installing the transfer switch. My cousin is an electrician. We usually have him do our work. He didn't get back to me when I contacted him twice. Must be busy.

The electrician that we did choose has done a lot of work for my family over the years. We've found him to be trustworthy and reliable.

There is one thing I'm not sure about yet. If you have a generator plugged in during a power outage, how do you know that the electricity is back on? My in-laws have a dairy farm so they NEED generator to run the milking and cooling equipment. They have a light next to the generator that turns on when the grid power is restored (it's not connected into the generator stream). I'll have to call the electrician, and ask about that.

There is an octagon barn about seven miles from my house. It's a large, beautiful building that sits on land that has reverted back to the state of Michigan. When I was younger, it was in disrepair, and was falling apart.

About the time I was graduating high school, and moving away to college, a group formed to save the barn. They raised some money, and restoration began.

When the project was at a certain point of completion, the Octagon Barn Society began inviting the public in to view the barn, and raise additional funds. The original "Fall Family Days" was held the weekend after Labor Day, and this past weekend marked the 18th annual Fall Family Days at the Octagon Barn.

During the past 18 years, the barn and house have been fully restored, and other features have been added such as a saw mill, blacksmith shop, one-room school house, a grain elevator, and other things. During Fall Family Days, there is an antique tractor parade, a patriotic program performed by children in the school house, a flea market, and other events. Fall Family Days typically attracts 10-15,000 people over the two days at $5 per person.

Our family attended both days this weekend. We were busy on Saturday, as my girls took part in the patriotic program at the one-room school house. I returned with the four kids on Sunday, and DW stayed home to can some vegetables.

I stayed with the boys, and our girls hung around with friends, with instruction to check in once per hour. I waited until near the end of the afternoon to take the boys to the petting zoo, because I knew they would resist ever leaving the petting zoo. The people who ran the petting zoo had your typical horse, calves, miniature ponies, ducks, geese, rabbits, chickens, etc. Some of the smaller animals were for sale, including two bantam (small) roosters. The price had been $14 per bird, but had been marked down to $3, because it was near the end of the last day of the event.

You may remember that we have chickens at our house, and you may remember that DD1 shows poultry. I called DW, and asked if we should buy a bantam rooster for $3. She said that it would be nice for DD1 to have another show bird. (DW had walked through the petting zoo the previous day, and had seen the roosters marked for $14 each).

I had the girls meet me at the petting zoo, so DD1 could inspect the birds, and decide which one to buy. When the decision was made, I gave the owner $3 for the rooster. He told me we could buy both of them for $5. I told him, no we're just interested in the one. We would be back at the end of the event, in about an hour, to pick up the bird.

At some point during that hour, I asked DD2 if she would like the other rooster. She thought about it a bit, and answered yes. When it was all said and done, we left Fall Family Days with two bantam roosters for $5.

I'm really not sure of the value of the birds. If they were sold at an event full of poultry enthusiasts, maybe they would have fetched the original $14 asking price. My guess is that this guy has a bunch of bantam poultry at home, and only needs a couple of roosters. Obviously, we'll be getting no eggs from the rooster. And if they breed with our hens, we'll have really weird looking medium sized chicks. But, the girls each have a new show bird, and our menagerie of small livestock just became a bit more interesting.

We had some mom+dad+DD2 special time last night. We scheduled a babysitter for the boys, and persuaded DD1 to stay home.

We were planning to see the new Smurfs movie in town. We live in a very small town, surrounded by other very small towns. So, there's not much else to do other than see a movie, or go bowling. So, we parked at the theater, and the marquee lights were shining brightly. We were met by Dick, the guy that has owned and operated the theater my whole life, plus probably five or ten years. He informed us that nobody else was there, since school had just started, and he couldn't run the movie with just three patrons.

I think DW and I were more disappointed than DD2 was. She probably figured that surely mom and dad would figure something out. DW had already looked at the neighboring small town theaters, and nothing else appropriate was showing. There are two larger towns about 40-50 minutes west of us where there are multi screen theaters, but no kid movies were starting that late. So, I stopped by the next small town west of us, and we got some ice cream at Dairy Queen. DD2 got a banana split for the first time in her life. We called the bowling alley, and it was league night - no open lanes.

After the ice cream was finished, we offered DD2 the opportunity to go to the toy store (aka Walmart), and told her she could pick out any toy for $15. She was OK with that offer. I don't think we've ever given our children the opportunity to go to a toy store, and pick out anything that they wanted. She took full advantage. She looked at, touched, smelled, and absorbed *everything*. Twice. She even made sure that we were aware of the availability of the Disney Princess Castle. "No, that's $50". You can't blame the kid for trying.

She ended up picking out a doll from the Barbie line. The doll has red hair, just like DD2, and wears a purple outfit, just like DD2 would wear. She was happy, and we ended up spending about the same on a doll and ice cream that we would have at the movie theater. Evening salvaged.

I know most of you have probably been waiting with bated breath to learn how much we'll be spending on Tigers tickets, so I'll end the suspense here. We're getting pavilion tickets behind the Tigers bull pen. Tickets cost $19 each, plus a $4.75 service charge, whatever that is, so we'll be seeing the game for $23.75 X 4 = $95. Plus parking plus gas to get us there plus whatever we buy for food. That works.

On to the post at hand.

I graduated from Michigan State, and my sister graduated from Western Michigan. MSU plays WMU tonight in football. I placed a friendly bet with my sister. It seemed foolish to bet any real money, and silly to bet only a dollar. We ended up betting winners choice of a bottle of pop (or soda, depending on your preference) or a candy bar. I'm spotting her twenty points.

When the bet was set, I announced it all on Facebook. That drew the attention of my brother-in-law, who is also a big MSU fan. He concurs that MSU will win, but he doesn't think they'll win by 20. So we went ahead and set a bet. The stakes on this bet are a six pack, losers choice of brand.

I drink about five beers over the course of two months. And I'm not at all picky about what I drink, although I don't drink the really cheap stuff I did in college. My BIL on the other hand is a regular beer snob. He can detect all those orange rinds or oak barrels or whatever was used in the brewing of the beer. So, since I fully intend to win this bet, I figured he would choose a nice six pack for me. If I lose the bet, I've got my work cut out for me to not disappoint.

For the record, I predict MSU 31-WMU 10. GO GREEN!

Our niece L (DW's niece, mine by marriage) and her husband M live in South Africa. They'll be coming home for a visit in about three weeks.

So L set up a conversation via Facebook about arrival dates, when they will be where, planning, etc. Among those plans was an effort to set up a date/time for a family picture (there are 28 of us in total, and everyone will be in the same state at the same time). M is also a fairly big Tigers baseball fan, and they're doing fairly well this season (current series with the A's not withstanding). So L asked if anyone was up for a Tigers game on Sept. 20.

My immediate reaction (to myself) about the ball game was "count us out". My gut reaction is always to not spend the extra money, and we have two boys with special needs, and any time we need to find someone to watch them for us is at a premium.

A lot of the ensuing conversation around this FB thread had to do with the pictures, and the Tigers game kind of got forgotten. Apparently if you buy tickets in groups of 10 or more, you get a discount, and L and M really want to go to the game, and were hoping for a sizable group. So finally yesterday L asked via the FB thread - "Who's up for the ball game?" And DW sent me a text asking if I wanted to go. I said sure.

So, the four from my family plus L and M plus L's mom and dad plus DW's mom and dad makes 10.

I'm not sure how much the tickets will cost. I just looked on-line, and saw that fairly decent seats to great seats are priced anywhere from about $30 to about $80 each, before the 10 ticket discount. I just made my first contribution to the FB thread asking about price, so we'll see.

I haven't been to a Tigers game since 1995 or '96. Not sure. I think I've only been to four or five games in my life, and I've never been to a game in the "new" Comerica Park (opened in 2000). This *could* end up being a special year for the Tigers, and if it is I'll be able to say that I saw a 2013 Tigers game.

First - to make the new porch truly barrier free, it will cost quite a bit more than the original estimate.

Second - the new porch area will have new soffit and fascia. We've decided to have the contractor put new soffit and fascia around the entire house. The old soffit is wooden and peeling. Do you even call that soffit when it's wooden? Not sure.

Third - our house has never had eaves troughs. We'll have the contractor put eaves troughs around the house. That will help withe the water in the basement problem.

So, yeah. That's a lot of money we'll be spending on the house.

I've probably hinted and mentioned the circumstances about our house a few times, but there are some new readers hear, so I'll go into some detail.

About 5 1/2 years ago, a job opened up for me in my home area. My wife grew up in the same general area of the state. So, I took the job, and moved home. We put our house up for sale right at the beginning of the housing crash. Selling that house became its own adventure that I've detailed extensively in past blogs.

My maternal grandparent's house was empty, so we rented it cheap from my mom until (we were thinking) our old house sold, and we could find something permanent. During that time, my fraternal grandmother died. That house became available to us. It's on the original farmstead that my dad's great grandparents settled and built in 1882.

While the actual real estate transaction was cheap, the house was in very bad need of updating (previous update was 1929). We had absolutely no money, and absolutely no capacity to borrow money to make the necessary renovations. While it's true that we could have moved in, and renovated one room at a time as we saved money, we just weren't up for that option.

My aunt (my dad's sister) really wanted the house to stay in the family. She really wanted us to update the house and move in. She had just inherited a bit of money from her parent's estate, and she has money of her own saved. So, she lent us some money to get started.

We gutted the house ourselves, and hired a builder to renovate it. We were still under the delusion that our other house might sell during this time, freeing us up to borrow more money to finish the renovations. That didn't happen, so we ended up borrowing more money from my in-laws to complete the project.

When the project was complete, we had an almost entirely new house - on the inside. We did nothing on the outside, except clear brush, and cut some trees, and add gravel to the driveway. The house still looked old and beat up from the outside.

Since moving in, we have dome some improvements outside. We put on a new roof two years ago. We replaced the front porch last year. I've blogged on here about each of those projects. They each needed to be done.

So now, we've been gifted this money. And, really we're finishing the project that we started five years ago.

So, there's some pride and sentimentality involved with our decisions. We certainly could have made other decisions that would have been cheaper. We could have stayed in my other grandma's house until our old house sold. We didn't even have to move from our old house. But, we did. And we took the opportunity to move into my family's farm house. And now, we're taking the opportunity to update the outside of the house. And, I'm happy to be doing it.

Some may question the wisdom of us spending 4K on renovating our back porch. Our EF is pathetic, and our college savings is pathetic. Our retirement fund is not exactly pathetic, but anemic may better describe it.

All of this is true, yet we are going to have our back porch renovated. It's not at the level of safety concern, but it is an eyesore. And, my 82 year old arthritic/diabetic mother-in-law and 82 year old father-in-law with Parkinson's have great difficulty in entering our house to visit their grand children. That can also be read as the people responsible for the gift that will allow us to renovate the porch deserve better access to our house.

The builder starts today. There is no rain in the forecast. Hopefully he's finished by the end of the day tomorrow. We'll see.

Oh, I almost forgot to add - we had the same builder renovate our front porch last summer. He stored some materials in the old family blacksmith shop. He happened to notice that we had an anvil, drill press, and other small blacksmithing tools. He offered us $500 for the items. When he's finished with this project, he will knock $500 off the cost of the renovation, and take the items with him.

I'm going to try to add a couple of images to show the current condition of the porch and walkway.

We were at our county fair last week. Our girls show animals, and take projects like sewing, entomology and baking.

DD1 was Grand Champion Poultry Showperson. She won both her goat showmanship and her market classes. Her pigs earned 2nd place in her pen class and 3rd in her heavyweight hog class. The dress she sewed was Best of Class, as was her entomology collection. She earned a public speaking trophy.

DD1 was made a 4-H Princess. She was 2nd place in her goat showmanship class and earned a medal for dramatic reading. Other projects included sewing a dress, baking cookies, and insect and wildflower collections. She excelled in pig showmanship.

And, DS1 participated in the fair for the first time by showing a goat and exhibiting a bead necklace.

DD1 sold her hogs for a very good price, and her goat for not such a good price. DD2 chose to not sell her goat at the fair. It is a female, and she will add it to our breeding herd at home.

As a family, we spend quite a bit of money at the fair, in addition to spending some money on baby sitters and day care for the boys. We've been so down and out broke past years, that we've always had to watch money very closely. We didn't go over-board by any means, but let the money flow a little more freely than in the past.

This story begins a couple weeks ago when DD2 began complaining about a tooth ache. DD2 is a bit more of a whiner than her older sister is, and it can be difficult for DW and me to discern when the pain is real, and when it is being exaggerated.

The pain persisted, and DW set up an appointment for her with our dentist. That appointment was set up for one week ago.

Last Wednesday, the day before the appointment, I got a call from DW. She was on the road with DD2. The pain was unbearable, and she was hoping I could get an appointment yet that day. I called around, and finally found a dentist who could see her that afternoon.

The dentist claimed that the pain was superficial, and nothing to worry about. Just keep on with the ibuprofen as needed. Not hard to believe, given DD2's history. So, we cancelled the appointment with our regular dentist. Bad move.

The pain persisted and persisted, so we set up another appointment with our regular dentist. That was this last Monday. Turns out that the previous dentist had not set the X-ray low enough to see the entire root and nerve. The tooth is dead, and needs a root canal. (I should add that this tooth had a deep cavity about a year ago). Our regular dentist prefers to not perform root canals on young children, so DD2 was referred to a dentist in a larger town.

Fortunately, the first, and last good turn of luck was realized when the appointment was set up for first thing the next morning. That dentist decided the tooth was too young and immature for a root canal. The dentist also claimed that while he is not typically an advocate of pulling teeth, he saw no alternative. This dentist did prescribe an anti-biotic, which has helped with the swelling and healing. But, this dentist does not pull teeth, that is below his pay grade, and our regular dentist would have to do that.

So, her appointment with the regular dentist was today. Our regular dentist strongly disagrees that the tooth is not a candidate for a root canal. We would, of course, prefer for her to keep the tooth. So, we're going with that. The dentist also did some prep work for the root canal today that has further relieved the swelling.

My insurance covers 1/2 the cost of dental procedures. So, our out-of-pocket for the root canal will be $650.

I ran in my first of two planned summer 5K's Saturday. It cost $15 to participate. The group of runners/walkers was much smaller this year than last time I ran this race three years ago. Maybe the heat? Saturday was the warmest day we've had in a while.

I finished with a time of 34:38. Not great for a 5K. I'm hoping to run the August race in less than 30 minutes. But, it was great to get back into a race again. I just settled into a slow and steady pace, and ended up running the whole thing.

My daughter's doe Zoe (female goat) died on Friday. She had the doe for three or four years. It was pregnant with twins, and one of the fetuses died in the uterus, and killed the other one. The uterus became toxic enough to kill Zoe, too. Very sad.

We called a veterinarian out to treat the doe. He gave a shot of penicillin, and a shot to help expel the placenta. The Zoe ended up dying about 30 minutes after he left. DD went out to check on her, and found her dead. The vet visit cost $103.15.

On Sunday, my two nieces and nephew were baptized. They were adopted from foster care by DW's sister and brother-in-law about a year ago. My two girls were baptismal sponsors for two of the kids, and another cousin was a sponsor for the third. DW bought three picture frames on clearance for (I think) $1.75 each. Cheap, anyway. She took a picture of each of the three kids with their sponsors, and printed them off, and gave them as baptismal gifts.

We also stopped by a goat farm to look for a new doe yesterday. No doe will replace Zoe, but it's something we need to do. The place we stopped at had only one breeding age doe that she was willing to sell. It's not a pure bred boer (the breed of goats we raise), so we weren't interested. We've got names and numbers for other breeders, so hopefully we'll find another one. Our hope is to buy a doe that is old enough to get bred this August or Spetember, so she'll give birth in time for goats for next year's fair.

So, it was a good weekend and a bad weekend, but it was spent with family.

Our bank is undergoing a complete destruction/reconstruction this summer. A temporary trailer/mobile bank has been set up, and only drive-thru service is offered. I've never been one to use the drive-thru, so this is new to me.

So, I was thinking that as a drive-thru teller, you could get a real feel for the correlation between one's bank account and the vehicle one drives.

I'm sure that there are many people on both ends of the extremes - those who have plenty of funds in their bank accounts, and drive very nice cars, and those with very few funds in their accounts and drive very inexpensive cars.

But, I would guess that for many in the middle there is a reverse correlation between their bank account balance and the value of the vehicle they drive.

Just one example of some of the off-the-wall things I think about sometimes.

Maybe you remember that we bought some chicks last January. We bought some broilers and a few layers. The layers are producing now. They have been for two or three weeks.

The first eggs are small, sometimes have no shell, and can be double yolked. And, laying is sporadic at first. But, now they are laying more consistently, and the eggs are, for the most part, getting bigger.

We have about a dozen birds, and some of them are roosters. We're getting 6-8 eggs each day. The fridge can fill up quickly, unless you have buyers. We've sold three dozen this week. We're selling them for $2 per dozen, that seems to be the going rate locally.

We'll provide my parents and in-laws with all the eggs they want, and we'll have more than all the eggs we want. Hoping to sell some to people at church and work as well.

This is very much not a money making opportunity. Just trying to offset feed costs for the chickens, ducks, peafowl, pigs, cats, and goats. That's a tall order for a few laying hens.

DW went shopping this weekend at the local grocery store. She looked on the cork board and saw three ads for cleaning services.

I called each of the three this morning. The first charges $10/hr. She doesn't have her own supplies, and it sounds as if she doesn't have reliable transportation, although she assured me that she could get to our house, six miles from town. It also sounds as if she doesn't have much experience. She will mail me references.

The second charges $15/hr. She has her own supplies, including a Kirby vacuum cleaner she prefers to use, because she's familiar with all the attachments. She does have reliable transportation. She has 20 years experience, including jobs in California and Colorado. It sounds as if she has moved here recently, and is trying to get another cleaning business going.

The third did not answer the phone, so I left my number, and asked her to call me back. I'll give her a while to call me back, but I'm leaning toward #2. Unless #3 is cheaper, and is just as experienced, and provides her own supplies.

Hopefully we line someone up for this week. My sister watches our boys on Fridays, and DW can take the girls out of the house for a few hours to allow for cleaning.

CCF - last time I blogged about this subject, you commented that it sounded as if I already had a lead on a cleaning service (the same lady that cleans my co-worker's home). My co-worker and I work in the same office, but we each drive 20 miles from opposite directions, so her house is far enough away that her cleaning service is not available to us.

snafu - thanks for the tips!

I was talking to a co-worker the other day about general house stuff - I'm not really sure at this point exactly what we were talking about, other than I mentioned something about people who hire cleaning ladies, assuming that my co-worker didn't hire a cleaning lady.

It turns out that my co-worker does hire a cleaning lady. She comes in twice a month for three hours each visit. My co-worker pays her $10 per hour - or $60 per month.

We have four kids - two of whom have special needs. Let's just say that we find it very difficult to keep up on house work. The serenity that $60 per month would buy (or $75, or something in that range) seems very worth the cost. So, we're considering it. Needles to say, DW is all for the idea.

Not so much on the financial end - except for possible future health care savings - but I've taken up running again.

I've had an on again off again relationship with running. I ran during the summer 5 years ago, and again three years ago. I ran a 5K race each of those summers, and my running habit fizzled out after each of the 5Ks.

I started running a week ago Monday, and as of this morning I'm up to about 1,300 meters (0.8 mi.) of constant running without stopping. Then I walk for about another quarter mile, turn around and walk back toward home, and jog the last tenth of a mile. I aim to get in 30-40 minutes of exercise in the morning before I go to work. My littlest guy is usually up between 5:45 and 6:15 in the morning, so I put him in the jogging stroller and go. Occasionally his older brother will join us.

I've targeted 2-5Ks this summer. One will be the weekend of July 4th, and the other is the second weekend of August. The July race may have to be a run/walk for me, but if I'm aggressive with my morning routine, I may be able to run all of it.

I'm really busy with work in May (thus the lapse in posting to this blog). The work is fairly physical, and between the work schedule last month and the exercise this month, I've lost about six pounds since the beginning of May. If I lost another six or ten pounds by the end of the summer, I'd be a happy camper.

Just this past Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. We visited a state park, about 35 miles north of our house. It was our first family vacation since 2009. Part of the reason it has been so long is finances, but a bigger part is that we now have two boys with special needs, and we haven't felt comfortable taking them away on vacation until now.

We stayed in a cabin at the camp grounds, $80 per night. It was at the very end of the camp ground, so lots of privacy. We took our bikes, and bike trailer for the boys, and biked a lot. DW did some massive grocery shopping, and had meals all planned out. The girls had lot of fun, the boys limited their melt downs, and mom and dad were exhausted by the end. It was great.

You may remember a few weeks ago that I blogged about going to an auction to buy fair goats for the girls, and the average price per goat was somewhere around $400. And,we went home goatless.

The local auction was this past weekend. We were more successful there. Each girl got a goat, and each spent $110.

DS1 was at a church retreat, so she entrusted her mother and me to choose and bid on her goat. Actually, DS2 did all the bidding.

I think the high goat went for $180, and the low goat went for $100.

The herd owner is also a feed dealer, and he was selling bags of feed for $10, less than his cost. We usually pay $14 or $15 for a bag, and he was offering two bags of feed for $10 per goat purchased, so we left with 4 bags of feed.

He also offered lunch to bidders. Bratwurst made of goat meat, and regular hot dogs for those who are less adventurous. The brats were good, but a bit dry. Not as much fat on a goat as there is on a hog.

All in all, a successful weekend. DS2 named her goat Rosetta, and DS1 named hers Cleo.

DW and I have filed our taxed jointly for 17 straight years. We have filed schedules A,C,E,F, and SE. We have submitted forms 8812, 8880, 4562, 8283, 8839, and others. We have never hired a professional to prepare our taxes. We have always used Turbo Tax.

This year may be different. I'm not sure yet. This year, we disposed of a rental property. We took a loss on the property. We have claimed depreciation on the property. And, we were forgiven debt on this investment property.

We also claimed an adoption credit in 2012, and have unused credit to claim. My estimation is that the tax liability from the forgiven debt, and the adoption credit will approximately wash each other out.

So, it seems to me that Turbo Tax *should* guide us through this maze adequately. But, I don't know. We might feel more comfortable if we hired a professional to prepare our 2013 return.

Our goal will be to minimize tax liability, and file an accurate return as inexpensively as is reasonable.

What do you think? Of course, all are welcome to weigh in with their opinion.

About a month ago DS2 had an EEG and an office visit with his neurologist. You may remember that we didn't have a prior authorization from his doctor for the visit, and thus couldn't get approval from our insurance company for the procedure, so we paid with a credit card.

The reimbursement check arrived yesterday. The original estimate was that we would get the check within the week. And I called two or three additional times, and each time, the person on the other end assured me that the check would be on its way shortly. I called back again this Tuesday, and the person said that they couldn't pay me until after they had received payment from the insurance company. Also, our son is on Medicaid since he was adopted out of foster care. Medicaid acts as his secondary insurance.

I'm pretty sure that what happened is that our insurance company reimbursed relatively quickly, but they didn't cover a $90 deductible on the EEG and a $20 copay on the office visit, and Medicaid was billed for the balance.

I can understand that the neurologist office wouldn't want to reimburse until after they were paid. I can also understand that these things take a while. In fact, I'm kind of surprised that Medicaid reimbursed within a month. What bothers me is that the people at the neurologist clinic kept telling me that the check would be on its way shortly. But, we have the $705 reimbursement check now, and all is well.

On a related note, I had talked about how the EEG was inconclusive, so we were taking DS2 to get an MRI and some blood work. Turns out that the MRI and blood work didn't answer anything either. So, we still don't know what caused the stroke like symptoms, other than it wasn't a stroke, it wasn't a seizure, and his mitochondria work just fine.

I started this blog on April 18, 2011. So, today marks the first entry of my third year. This is also my 205th entry. It really seems as if I make an entry more than once every third day, but I hardly ever post on a weekend, and there have been a handful of "blogging droughts" on my part, and numbers don't lie.

A lot has happened in the past two years. We've eliminated A LOT of high interest, unsecured debt. We had A BIG chunk of secured debt forgiven (house short sale). And, my retirement fund has reached a respectable level (119K). Things are definitely a lot less stressful on the financial end.

So, thanks to you, SA blogging community for the words of encouragement and general cheering on. I'm looking forward to my next 2 years, and 200 posts, and also keeping up on your activities.

I've spent so much time blogging about our formerly "for sale" house, that I've not talked much about our primary residence.

As a reminder, we live in my family's centennial farm house. We completely gutted it, and hired a contractor to finish the inside. We borrowed a total of $70,000 - 30K from my aunt, and 40K from DW's parents.

A year ago January, we began paying them back. We paid a token amount at first - $90 per month to my aunt and $120 per month to my in-laws. Nothing was recorded, nothing was official.

When we started talking with an attorney this past fall about the short sale, he asked about our current housing situation. We explained to him what I just described above. The attorney suggested that we get those mortgages recorded with our county register of deeds. His reasoning was that if our bank did an asset check on us, they would find that (on paper) we owned this house 100%, and they could force us to take out a borrow money against it.

So, we wrote up a couple of mortgages, took them to the register of deeds, paid $20 each, and recorded the mortgages.

The mortgages were amortized over five years, at 2.25% interest. At the time that the mortgages were written (Nov. 2012), 2.25% was about the what the best mortgage rates were, not that we would have qualified for the best mortgage rate. We began making the new payments this past January. So, our (now only) mortgage payments are as follows.

Aunt M. Loan

Original Borrowed - $30,000
Monthly Due - $500
April 1 Balance - $26,164.66

In-Law Loan

Original Borrowed - $40,000
Monthly Due - $650
April 1 Balance - $34,953.06

We plan to have them both paid off Dec. 1, 2017.

For the record, I have no idea if our bank ever did an asset check.

It's done. I just got word from our Realtor about a half hour ago. The house is sold!

Big relief. Five long years. We were tempted, and almost walked away several times, but we held on.

Our renter left some trash behind. She left a table that we left, and she left a stove that doesn't fit into her new apartment. But the new owners also got a piano that we left behind, and we know they wanted that piano. They signed the papers and took possession.

Whew!

In reviewing their HUD paperwork, and the fact that they got USDA Rural Development financing, we've gotten a clue that they can't actually afford the house. Hopefully they hold on. The house is too nice to get trashed.