I called our Realtor this morning to see if she could find time to drive by the house to see if there was move-out type activity. Turns out she was thinking exactly what I was, and she was a block and a half away when I called. Her report - there is a moving van and a bunch of cars parked there. Great!

I dropped our family mini van off at the mechanic's this morning. There is a laundry list of minor things wrong with it. We trust our mechanic to not charge us for things that don't need to be done.

You may remember that we bought a new washer/dryer set a couple weeks ago. You may also remember that we opted for a large capacity set. I can report that we are keeping up on laundry very well now. The extra spent for the large capacity was well worth it.

It's been raining here nearly non stop since Monday. Our sump pump has been running nearly non stop since Monday. The back porch project that I've been talking about for a while also includes rain gutters. Hopefully those will help alleviate the problem when the project is completed this fall.

Friday is the day. We have assurances that the renter will be moved out by Thursday. I think she will. We'll see.

We got the paperwork (9 pages) for our end of the close. On most of the documents, our electronic signature works. On two of them (title transfer and owners affidavit) our original, notarized signature is required. We'll go to the bank this afternoon to get our signatures notarized.

So, the close is scheduled for 10 AM. We hope to get word from our Realtor when everything is completed. If we don't hear from her by about noon, I'll bug her one last time. Then we do a happy dance.

Our girls show and sell goats at our county fair. They've always bought their goats from a local breeder. The problem is that that same breeder's children also show goats raised at his farm. He, of course, holds the best goats for his own children.
We've decided that if our children are to ever win grand champion in goats, we'll have to buy from another breeder.

We went to the Michigan State University campus this weekend for "Vet-A-Visit". The students in the College of Veterinary Medicine host a program where they introduce children to some of the basics of veterinary medicine.DD1 is interested in becoming a veterinarian someday. It turns out that another goat breeder was having a sale not too far from the MSU campus on Saturday. We thought we would stop by.

I should preface this part of the story by stating that we pay about $125 - $130 for fair goats.

This guy had about 45 goats for sale. They were clearly a cut above in quality as compared to the local breeder. It turns out the were very much superior. The first goat sold for $500. It's typical that a breeder will sell their best animal first, so I thought - OK the best has been sold, things should level out now. #2, 3, 4 ,5 sold for about the same. Some goats brought as much as $625. Most in the middle sold for $200-$300. The cheapest goat sold for $135. We were so shell shocked that we didn't even put a bid
on it.

The final 4 or 5 goats were the poorest quality. But, and this makes for an interesting study in human behavior, there were enough parents that were hellbent on leaving with a goat, that those (relatively) poor quality goats went for $400 to $500 apiece. The average goat sold for $410.

Needles to say, we went home goatless. The local sale is in two more weeks. So, the girls will again buy a $125 - $130 goat. We may spend $150. We'll see.

DS2's MRI is scheduled for tomorrow. We still don't know what time, this hospital is busy enough that they don't schedule until the day before. Since patients aren't supposed to eat before the procedure, they schedule diabetics first, and children second. We've been told to follow up by phone with the neurologist one week after the MRI.

Our renter talked with our Realtor yesterday. She gave her assurance that she would be out by next Thursday. We've begun the eviction process. She's behind on rent - no payment in March, and no payment yet for April, and she was (very) late several times over the past year.

We've opted to do the house closing by mail, rather than make the trip. Part of me wanted to make the trip, just to see the old house again, and to meet the new buyers. But, for practical reasons, we're staying home. No reason to make the three hour (one way) trip.

I'm cautiously optimistic about this close being the real thing. It really sounds as if it's going to happen. The bank hasn't asked us to bring any money to the table (yet), and the buyer's inspector didn't come up with any repairs. And, the buyer/inspector has presumably been in the house recently enough to confirm that the house hasn't been trashed by renters. All that's left is move out on the renter's part. It's possible that a wall could get dinged up during move out, or that a piece of furniture has been masking some damage, or something like that. It's also very possible that the renter could leave without adequately cleaning the house. So, we would either have to make a trip, or hire a professional cleaning service. I guess that if these are now our worst case scenarios, we're probably OK.

We need a new lawn mower. Our old one just doesn't work anymore.

My mom and dad live about 1/4 of a mile down the road. We think they could us a new lawn mower, too. Not sure what they think.

So, we're entertaining the idea of going in half with them on a new mower.

I haven't mentioned the idea to them yet. Not that I'm avoiding the subject, I just haven't thought of it when we've been together.

It makes sense. Why own an expensive piece of equipment in full for once weekly use six months of the year?

Our lawn is about twice as big as theirs is (about 2 acres vs. about one acre), so maintenance could become an issue. So we would probably cover a majority of the maintenance costs.

The only down side that I can think of is that we've each had a back-up mower in the past when one of ours is broken down.

Anyway, getting this typed out may help me remember to bring the subject up this week. Assuming winter ever breaks, we'll need to start mowing in a month.

My parents gave DW and me $550 this weekend. It's our share of 2012 net sales. They really don't have to pay us that much, but it sure is nice.

So, I paid $61 toward CC debt (10% of the balance of our highest interest rate "old" card), and paid off our two active CCs that we pay off each month anyway. (Except for the $705 charge for the EEG/neurologist visit I detailed last week). I'll pay that off when we get the payment in the mail, or just before we get charged interest, whichever happens first.

I'm keeping about $300 in reserves.

This syrup season has been pretty much a bust so far. It's been too cold here in the upper mid west. We've produced about 50 gallons so far, and should be closer to the 120 - 150 gallon range. We consider anything between about 160 - 175 gallons at the end of the season to be successful, and our maximum is 211.

It sounds as if the weather will warm by the middle of this week. We could easily finish off another 100+ gallons if things don't get too warm too fast.

We sold off most of our inventory when we had the open house a week ago, so really, the big priority is to finish off enough for family use at this point!

I'll start this story almost two weeks ago, Friday at about 4:20 in the afternoon. I was at work, and I got a call from DW. She told me that DS2 was "floppy" on his right side, and that he fell down and bumped his head. My sister had been watching both boys at our house, and they had been napping until about the time that DW returned. DW asked me to call DS2's pediatric neurologist for consultation. The neurologist told me to get him to an ER, and to keep in touch with her. By the time I got off the phone, DW had figured out by herself that he needed to get to an ER. He was getting progressively weaker on the right side.

By the time we were settled in at the ER, he was very much worse. No movement or feeling on the right side, and he was drooling heavily out the right side of his mouth. The Dr. ordered a CAT scan to rule out stroke. I took him down to radiology, while DW fed information to the Dr.

That's when things started to get better. He hated the CAT scan, and started thrashing, including movement of his right arm and leg. That was good. By time the CAT scan was done, he was getting back to normal.

The CAT scan results were not consistent with a stroke. The Dr. was stumped, so he ordered DS2 to Children's Hospital in Detroit.

Children's was packed, but we got a room. DS2 was fully back to normal by 8:30. The Dr. at Children's diagnosed "Todd's Paralysis", a condition that can follow a seizure. He called our pediatric neurologist, and she concurred with the diagnosis. Normally, Children's would have kept him for further observation and testing, but they had no room. We had a choice - stay in the ER room at Children's, or follow up with the pediatric neurologist. We opted for outpatient followup with our neurologist.

Fast forward to one week ago, last Thursday. We had an appointment for an EEG with the neurologist. An EEG is the test where they stick a bunch of electrodes to the head to measure brain activity. They get the beast measurement while the patient is sleeping. So, we had to bring him in tired. Our appointment was at 11:00. So DW got up with him at 4:30, and kept him awake. He has a prescribed medication that typically makes him sleepy. I timed that perfectly for about 11:15, the time we figured the test would begin.

That's when the problems began. It seems that the neurology clinic has a new computer system, and they had no history of our insurance information. We need prior authorization from our primary care physician, and we did not have it. So we called our PCP, and asked, can you please send prior authorization. Long story short, by 11:45 DS2 was beginning to fall asleep, and we needed to take action. I ended up putting the $705 charge (EEG + office visit) on my credit card, and he got in and had his EEG.

It turns out that EEG results were not consistent with the type of seizure that would cause Todd's Paralysis. Our highly trained, well respected pediatric neurologist is also stumped.

So, we go back down to the Detroit area again on April 4th for an MRI, and a blood draw for testing mitochondrial activity.

He's been doing absolutely fine since the episode two weeks ago. No long-term effects at all.

What I'm thankful for is that we had the available credit, and EF to cover the $705 EEG/office visit. We wouldn't have two years ago. Things have worked out with the insurance, and we should be expecting a check in the mail within the week.

The impending implosion of our credit scores.

As most of you are well aware, we're about to sell a house as a short sale. That assumes the sale goes through, and I'm beginning to think it will.

I don't exactly know just how much that will hurt our credit score. But my understanding is it's a little better than a foreclosure. Emphasis on little. The only option I'm aware of to protect our credit scores was to hold on to the house until its value matched what we owe. Would that be 5 years? 7? 10? dunno. Also, to cash flow, we would have had to keep paying renters in the house.

Our biggest fear has been the furnace. It was old, and needed replacement when we bought the house nine years ago. Or some other major expense. We have grown weary of dumping more money into the house. But enough on reasons to sell the house. We decided to sell it, and it is done.

When the house is sold, and CCs are paid off, we start building a real EF. That should take care of issues like furnace breakdowns, insurance deductibles, and the like.

The only thing I would see us needing to finance in the future is vehicles.

Maybe we'll have enough in savings by the time a vehicle needs to be replaced. Maybe not. We could probably get financing somewhere, but at what rate? Leasing is always an option, but I absolutely abhor the idea of leasing.

So, we'll take it one step at a time. Sell the house. Pay off the CCs. Build the EF. Nurse the credit score along. We've done enough other "good" things with our credit that it may build back up over the course of the next two or three years. We'll see.

The impending implosion of our credit scores.

As most of you are well aware, we're about to sell a house as a short sale. That assumes the sale goes through, and I'm beginning to think it will.

I don't exactly know just how much that will hurt our credit score. But my understanding is it's a little better than a foreclosure. Emphasis on little. The only option I'm aware of to protect our credit scores was to hold on to the house until its value matched what we owe. Would that be 5 years? 7? 10? dunno. Also, to cash flow, we would have had to keep paying renters in the house.

Our biggest fear has been the furnace. It was old, and needed replacement when we bought the house nine years ago. Or some other major expense. We have grown weary of dumping more money into the house. But enough on reasons to sell the house. We decided to sell it, and it is done.

When the house is sold, and CCs are paid off, we start building a real EF. That should take care of issues like furnace breakdowns, insurance deductibles, and the like.

The only thing I would see us needing to finance in the future is vehicles.

Maybe we'll have enough in savings by the time a vehicle needs to be replaced. Maybe not. We could probably get financing somewhere, but at what rate? Leasing is always an option, but I absolutely abhor the idea of leasing.

So, we'll take it one step at a time. Sell the house. Pay off the CCs. Build the EF. Nurse the credit score along. We've done enough other "good" things with our credit that it may build back up over the course of the next two or three years. We'll see.

I served notice to our renters today. I made a phone call this morning at about 10:30. Renter didn't pick up. She usually doesn't when I call. It might be more accurate to say that she *never* picks up.

I didn't leave much detail, other than - this is 30 days notice/we expect to close on Apr. 12/we ask that you be moved out before the end of the day Apr. 11.

The detail is in the certified letter I sent. I sent it yesterday, and should arrive today or tomorrow. The letter is 400+ words, and details our expectations related to move out date, where to drop keys off, setting the thermostat, that the house should be broom clean, daily rental fee for April, removing their names from utility accounts, and that we will return their security deposit if all the terms of our contract are met.

So that's done.

In a separate communication with our Realtor, we found out that a Rural Development inspection/appraisal was completed last week. The good news is that there were no noted repairs that need to be done. Great news!

DW and I are still confused on one thing that our Realtor said, and that's that there have been circumstances where required repairs weren't found in the inspection, but were picked up when the file went to underwriting. So, I guess we're not necessarily done with that step. We'll see.

The closing on our house is scheduled for April 12, just a month away. We still have renters in the house, and our contract states 30 days notice is required to break the contract.

So, we need to give notice tomorrow.

Our plan is to contact them by phone tomorrow, and follow up with a certified letter.

I hope they don't give us any problems. They probably won't. Heck, an appraiser walked through the house last Thursday. That should be a hint, right?

They haven't paid rent this month (due on the first) so, I don't expect any more rent from them. We do still have their $800 deposit, which will cover March rent, but not the 12 or so days in April. Small cost for selling the house.

On another subject, we finished 12 gallons of syrup yesterday. Our first of the season. It didn't freeze last night, so the trees ran all night. Weather forecast for the month looks perfect.

I mentioned a year ago that my family produces maple syrup. We have about 350 taps on about 700 trees. Next weekend we will invite on Friday other home school families and on Saturday and Sunday, the general public to our woods. 2013 marks the 131st year that may family has produced maple syrup in these woods, and the sixth year we've invited groups of people to our facility on the third weekend of March. We keep the date set on the third weekend of March for simplicity sake.

There's only one problem right now. We've not produced one single gallon of syrup yet. It's been too stinking cold. DW and I tapped about 2/3 of the trees last Sunday, and my dad finished up on Tuesday. As of right now we've gathered about 100 gallons of sap, which would boil down to about 2 and a half gallons of syrup. Ouch.

Ideal syrup producing weather is 26 degrees F or colder at night and 37 degrees or more (preferably 40-45) during the day. The freeze/thaw cycles keep the sap moving down to the roots (cold) and up to the branches (warm) each day. We capture about 10% of the tree's sap as it's moving up. We've not been much warmer than about 36 since Sunday, and closer to 34 or 35.

Looking at the 10 day forecast, every day through next Sunday (except for next Monday) looks pretty good. A week from today we could have 90-120 gallons boiled down and packaged. Fingers crossed.

We call this a hobby that pays for itself. It demands 6-8 weeks of our time each spring. We make a little money at it. Most of the money gets pumped back into the business/hobby.

It's a great experience for our kids. Life outdoors, family togetherness, and with the tours, really helps their public speaking/public relations skills. DW and I represent the 5th generation of my family to carry on the tradition.

April 12, 2013. Six weeks from today.

The continuing saga of trying to sell our house.

We finally got approval from our bank for the short sale. It took from Dec. 6 til today. But, it's done.

Well, not really.

Buyer still needs to get loan approval, and we still need to have the house inspected under USDA RD parameters.

But, this is a major hurdle cleared.

It's not the weather, at least not here in Michigan.

It's not my birthday month, or my anniversary.

We don't plan an annual February vacation.

It's because it's short, and the monthly cash doesn't have to stretch as far as other months.

That's why I love February.

I dislike pretty much everything else about it.

The weather in particular.

Oh, and I forgot to mention anything about the DD2 birthday party. It was a whopping success. Before she went to bed, she said it was the best day of her life.

We got our federal refund yesterday!

I paid a couple of bills that weren't due yet. I was going to wait until I was paid on Friday, but bumped them up a couple of days. I also sent $235.42 to one of our credit cards, the one with the higher interest rate. Why $235.42, you may ask? I wanted to pay (about) $200. The balance was $935.42, so I decided to pay it down to an even $700.

The rest of the refund money went into savings toward our porch/close the expletive house fund.

We're expecting a $500 refund from the state. That will go straight into savings.

It's always nice to be able to pay bills!

We signed up for our electric company's budget plan.

It's not a true budget plan where we would pay the same amount per month, and catch up at the end of the year. We pay a rolling average of the previous 12 months billings. That will normalize our monthly payment quite a bit.

On our short sale, our bank appears to be dragging its feet again. We got word from our Realtor that the buyers will be walking if things aren't firmed up by this Friday. So, I called our contact with the bank, and got her assurance that this segment of the process should/may/might be finished by next Thursday, Feb. 28.

So, I emailed an appeal to our Realtor to forward to buyer's agent, asking for continued patience from the buyers/we're all frustrated with the process/trust me, no one wants this to happen more than we do.

During my call with the bank, I also found out that our point of contact person at the bank will be leaving the company very shortly, and our file will be transferred to another representative. As much as I dislike working with the bank, I have developed a certain rapport with this current representative. We seem to understand each other, and she seems to do her job well. She at least returns my calls and emails. So, the frustration continues.

I went to the optometrist today. My employer just started offering vision insurance in November, and I signed up as both DW and I require corrective lenses. The cost is $13.24 per month, or $158.88 per year.

The coverage included $10 copay for exam, $25 copay for lenses, and a $130 allowance for frames. Anything over $130, I pay 80%. I can get new frames every 24 months.

So, I picked out a pair of frames that costs $155, so I paid the $20 difference. Plus $10 for the exam and $25 for the lenses = $55 for exam and new glasses. Of course, plus the insurance = $210.88. But, DW will get new glasses sometime later this year.

The glasses should be ready in about 10 days. Hopefully they don't break!

Can't really think about anything financial to blog about today, so I'll mention the Autism Support Group DW and I are attending tonight.

Maybe I've mentioned that DS1 is autistic before? Maybe not. DS2 also appears to be on the spectrum, but not nearly as severe.

Anyway, a support group has formed at the southern end of our very rural county. We live at the northern end. It's about an hour away, but it's the closest thing we have.

I think this is the fourth time the group has met. This will be our second visit. We missed last month due to a family emergency. The group leader has opted for a guest speaker or some other type of program on odd numbered months, and simple parent-to-parent support on even numbered months.

The group meets at a church, and child care is provided. I'm telling you that walking into a church nursery filled with autistic children is quite a sight. We'll be dropping our girls off with my sister.

In December, there were nine people from 7 families. It was very interesting/thought provoking/powerful to hear the stories provided by the other families. For me, the most important person to hear from was the mother of a 25 year old. The rest of us all have younger children. This lady has EXPERIENCE.

The group as a whole is very important for us. There are things that we can't talk about with parents of neuro-typical kids. You have to be the parent of an autistic kid to understand and relate. Thus, the reason we will be traveling an hour once a month for an indefinite period of time. This resource is just too valuable.

Our chest freezer failed. We discovered the failure last Thursday. The circuit breaker tripped. That circuit services all of our outside outlets plus the chest freezer, so we didn't know about it. Everything in it was ruined.

DW wrote down the contents for an insurance claim. The contents included:

93# ground beef
28# Chuck Roast
23# Sirloin Steak
4# Tender Loin
1 bag french fries
7 qts. strawberry jam
2 qts. cherries
½ # cheese
8 qts. blueberries
3 qts. carrots
3 qts. strawberries
2 qts. tomatoes

Our insurance claim is limited to $250. We had that just in hamburger. The check is on its way.

Truth be told, we didn't buy the beef. The beef came from a cow from my in-law's dairy farm. They gave us the cow, and we paid for the processing. I think we spent $135 on the processing. But still, the value of the meat alone was about $560.

We got rid of the meat. DW found an ad on Craig's List for a couple who has 10 Siberian Huskies. They feed their animals only raw meat. Mr. Siberian Husky picked the meat up Saturday night.

The freezer was stinky, but I think we cleaned it up well enough that we can still use it.

Live and learn.

I think I first heard about the cost to produce a penny about 15 years ago. Don't quote me on any of the figures I will present in this entire post, because they're all from a very shaky memory. But, it seems like 15 or so years ago, the cost to produce a penny was about .98 cents. And that cost has risen tot he point that it now costs much more than one cent to produce a penny.

Two or three years ago, I heard someone on the radio say that the cost to produce a penny is irrelevant because of the number of times an individual penny circulates through the economy. It pays for itself each time it is used, so pennies end up being very cheap. That made sense to me, so the debate was settled in my mind.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, Time magazine had a story about the penny. The story was published on the eve of Canada discontinuing its 1 cent coin. According to this story in Time, the single entity lobbying for the continuation of the penny is the firm that extracts and fashions the all the zinc used in penny manufacture in the US. That firm is maybe a tad bit biased.

If the penny were discontinued, cash transactions would be rounded up or down to the nearest nickel. Electronic transactions would not. How many cash transactions do you make compared to electronic? And, for the cash transactions, wouldn't the rounding down happen about as often as the rounding up?

I dunno. I thought that the debate was very silly. Who cares how much a penny costs to produce? But, this Time article made the case for me. It's time to end the penny. What do you think?

DD1 and I went to look at fair pigs this weekend. This will be her third year showing pigs through 4-H at the fair.

Two years ago, we waited until too late (mid April), and there weren't too many left. The pigs we found weren't well matched (you need two for the fair, and try to get pigs that are of the same size and body type), they were awfully big, and not of great quality. We paid $40 for each of them.

Last year, we looked in the middle of March. The pigs were much nicer, better matched, and of better size. Same breeder. DD1 paid $80 for each pig. She had her own money from the previous year's project. She did quite a little bit better in the competition.

We've found out that if you want to have the quality of pig that will really do well in the competition that you really have to spend $150 for each hog. And, those that do really well buy three pigs in the spring, and pick the best/most well matched pigs to show in July. The third pig is either sold on the open market, or kept for family use.

So, we looked at a new breeder's farm this weekend. He is a cut above our previous breeder. He charges $120 for pigs. They're still too young to buy, but we looked at his inventory, and were impressed. We're on the guy's list, and he will call us when they're ready. (late March/early April) There is one family from our fair on the list ahead of us.

DD1 loves raising animals, and showing them at the fair. The money she makes goes into her college fund. (her mother and I defrayed a fair bit of our own college expenses the same way)

We would probably be money ahead to buy cheaper hogs, but she wouldn't do as well in the competition.

DD2 will turn 7 on the 22nd of this month. She's going to have an "invite friends over" party. We've always celebrated her birthday with a party, but until this year, it's always been family members who have taken part in the celebration.

I think she's invited 6 or 7 little girls. We're going to pay the neighbor girl $20 to bring her horse over for the kids to ride. It's a really old really tame horse, so there shouldn't be any problems with it, but helmets, just in case!

Besides the horse, costs will include some food (prepared at home) and some simple decorations. It's a cowgirl theme, so DW ordered some fabric, and DW and DD2 are sewing a cow girl dress.

The guests are other home school friends, a girl from church, and a girl from swim club. None of them will expect a big fancy expensive type party, and the horse should be a big hit. As of right now, the horse is a total surprise. And DD2 is already super excited. We've not even told DD1. Hope it's a nice day.

I've joined a real estate forum to get some answers to questions I have related to selling my house. I've gotten some good information. Emphasis on some.

The people are helpful, and respond very quickly to my questions. But, when compared to the thoughtfulness and intelligence of respondents here in SA on both the forum side and the blog side, there is no comparison.

So, a big Thumbs Up! to you, SA community. I haven't found a better free resource on the whole internet.

This is the current situation with our short sale. A buyer made an offer on our house on December 6. There was some negotiation back and forth between the buyer and our bank. The final settled upon price is 5% less than our list price, and 9% more than buyer’s initial offer. So, that’s done. We have an agreed upon, contract signed price for our house. That was last Thursday.

Why did it take two months to agree upon a price? The reasons are too many for me to list, or even for me to remember for that matter. I’ll comment on one of the reasons, though. When the title work was being done, it was discovered that there was a second mortgage recorded on the property. We proclaimed that “We have no second mortgage on the property” And we didn’t, and we don’t. In fact, as clear as day, the mortgage was recorded to Frank and Jody W., the previous owners! The previous owners had taken out a mortgage on this house, before we bought it, to build a new house, and the mortgage wasn’t taken off the house when we closed on it, eight years ago! So, getting that figured out added about a week to the process. But, I digress.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, our buyer is getting financing through USDA Rural Development. The folks at USDA RD do not want their buyers to purchase crappy, in disrepair houses that their new owners would be ashamed to own. Fine. So, USDA RD has a whole check list that a home inspector goes through to deem the house worthy of a USDA RD sale. Any deficiencies are to be repaired before close, at either buyer’s expense or seller’s expense, as negotiated. Also, buyer does not have mortgage approval. He has a pre approval letter, but not an actual approved mortgage. As both of these items (the inspection, and the mortgage) are an expense to buyer, he did not want to proceed with them until after the price was agreed upon. So, maybe he’s started on these now, but not prior to last Thursday.

The original, agreed upon closing date was Feb. 4. About 2/3 of the way through the price negotiation period, it became clear that we would not meet the original close date. So, we extended to close date to Feb. 28. When the price was agreed upon, the close date was extended to Mar. 15. Just to add additional time for buyer to get his part wrapped up. We were about to agree to that Mar. 15 close, when the short sale rep from our bank said “Wait a minute, the BPO expires Mar. 6”. What’s a BPO, you may ask? We didn’t know, either. It’s “Broker’s Price Opinion”. Our Realtor gave her best opinion of the actual market value of the house back in December. It’s good for three months. And, the Realtor has to wait until the current BPO expires, before giving a new one.

Why don’t you close on March 5th, you may ask? I asked the same thing. Our Realtor has seen enough RD loans, that in her opinion, the inspection/repair process is very unlikely to complete before six weeks.

Our current contract with our Realtor also expires Mar. 15. If buyer does walk, we will get a new Realtor. Some of the reason this has taken quite as long as it has is due to her inexperience with short sales. That has become evident to us. Also, if we have to go through this process again, from the beginning, we will be more experienced. We will know that we have three months from the start, before the BPO expires. We will also know what price range the bank will accept, so we can do some of the negotiation before the offer gets sent to our bank.

So, we’re keeping our fingers crossed that this sale happens. This is closer than we’ve ever been to a closed sale, but we’re not holding our breath either. And, we sure hope that the next offer comes from someone with conventional financing. I’m working on a rant about who is and who isn’t getting approved for financing these days. But, I’ll save that for later; I’ve said enough for now.

We've got all our forms. We've got Turbo Tax. Almost everything was entered last night. We didn't have a solid number for what we paid in insurance for our rental house, so I called and got that amount this morning. Our tax forms should be e-filed later today.

I'll comment on the refund amounts (State and Federal) after they're filed. The Fed refund will be a bit less than last year, as I adjusted my allowances. I only had $227 withheld on the Federal side, with 13 allowances.

A while back I blogged about making a decision about whether or not we were going to get satellite TV. The decision then was to not get satellite TV, and that remains the decision. But, I do have an update.

My folks bought DW and me a brand new high def flat screen TV for our birthdays in November. Please, don't read that as a very expensive high-end deluxe TV. It's a nice TV, but my mom didn't break the bank. And, it replaced a mid 90's era box like analog TV.

During this same time, we got fed up with our very slow cell internet connection. We finally tracked down the single company that could provide true high speed internet to our very rural surrounded by woods location. For the record, that company is Hughes Net. We've been with them for about two months, and we are actually pleased with their service. We do pay them $96 per month. Remember, they are our single option.

Anyway, with this new TV, and high speed internet, it seemed a shame to continue limiting ourselves to DVDs. So, we bought the Netflix streaming package. The available movies that we can watch seems limited, especially with young children in the house, but we were away from TV for long enough that the television shows are like brand new to us.

DD1 even made a YouTube video for a home school project yesterday, and we got to watch that on the TV.

So, it's been fun with the new TV and internet connection. We aren't slaves to the TV. It's not on all day. It's not even on every day.

DW and DD1 ordered some chickens Saturday. The newly hatched, yellow peep-peep kind. We'll raise them for a couple of months, and sell them as fryers.

They will arrive via US mail Mon, Tues, or Wed next week. It's funny, because you usually get a 7:30 AM call from a confused Postmaster telling you that you've got a package of chickens???, and will you please come here as quickly as possible, and pick them up.

The chicks cost $2.29 apiece. We're getting 25. They'll send one or two extra chicks at no charge to account for mortality, but we've never received a dead chick yet.

This is DD1's project. DD2 will help, and the proceeds will be split between the girls according to contributed labor. If all goes well with this project, honestly the proceeds will probably get dumped into the next project.

It'll cost $3.50-$4 each to have them processed. We're not ready to process them on our own yet. Plus, we (of course) have to feed them. Have I mentioned that corn and soybeans are at historically high prices? Mom and dad will spring for the electricity for the heat lamps.

DW's market research has told us that we can sell each bird for $12-$14. I'm sure we'll keep a few for the freezer, plus grandparents.

We're looking to sell them in March. I blogged last year about our open house at our maple syrup woods the third Saturday of March. We hope to sell the bulk of them that weekend.

If we do have another batch in the spring, we can pasture that group, and cut our cost of production a bit.

DW also ordered a half dozen layers. So, by June or July, we'll have three or four fresh eggs every day.

I'm sure I'll be offering updates along the way on how this project progresses. Stay tuned!

Our "for sale" house has a current, active offer. The new offer contract was signed 12-6. This is the third offer since October, and none of them have made it this far. We are in the "negotiation" stage. That is, our bank negotiating with the buyer. Just today we saw the bank's counter - they are about 6K apart.

Our buyer is getting a loan backed by the USDA Rural Development program. Kind of like an FHA loan, but for buyers in rural areas. My understanding is that a USDA RD loan means slightly different rules, and a few more hoops to jump through than an FHA loan.

Our buyer is waiting for the short sale approval before getting the RD inspections done. So, still plenty of chances for this deal to fall through. We cross our fingers and wait.

I need to talk to DW about it, but if this deal does fall through, I'm thinking about approaching our renters (again) about buying the house. They are interested, but claim to have no money for a down payment. And, her credit is trashed due to a recent divorce and foreclosure. Sound like prime buyers, right? They have been making their rent payment every month, although late, and seemingly later every month.

If we do approach them, at least this time we can arm them with the figures of what the bank will accept for an offer. We'll see.

Hopefully, this current deal pulls through. Then, we just need to kick the renters out. That will be fun.

I've mentioned before that we don't have TV.

I'm at a conference, and am at a hotel. I had the TV on as I was getting ready this morning. There was a cheesy local car dealer commercial on.

Let's preface this by saying that over the past couple of years my thinking has been conditioned more by the SA site than by local car dealer commercials.

I heard the guy say something about no "crazy down payments". Then he said, "just $39!". So, either this guy sells $200 cars, or 20% is a crazy down payment. Sometimes I'm glad we don't have TV. Oh, and the political ads!

My grandparents gave me some Mercury dimes when I was young. I have 18 of them. They are not particularly nice Mercury dimes. None of them are rare mints.

I did some research on their value when I first graduated college, and was flat broke. I found out that their value was generally 2X face value, or about 20 cents each. I decided to hold on to them. Letting go of them was just not worth $3.60.

I did a little internet research recently, and found out, due to the price of silver, their melt value is around $2.40 each now, or $43.20 for the lot.

What to do? They sit in the top of my dresser drawer. They are not nice enough to display. All they ever were was pocket change. But, they were a gift from my grandparents. I don't particularly like the idea of selling those gifts for melt value.