I spent a wonderfully productive couple of hours this afternoon organizing my kitchen to be more attractive to a prospective home buyer. Suddenly, a layout that worked for 30 years seemed cluttered and unattractive.

I only made a few little tweaks, but what a difference. Remembering how positively meticulous and clean the homes at every open house I've attended looked, that boxy oversized toaster oven that was my mother's, stuck in a corner next to the stove, was too much. I mainly use it to bake salmon, but decided I can do that in a frying pan, stovetop. Once in a great while I roast garlic in it. I liked using it because it used less energy than my full size electric stove, but it's been a few years since I used it to cook raw oats for  my homemade granola or toast nuts and I cook sweet potatoes in the microwave, I have less and less use for it. And I really don't eat much toasted bread.

I cleaned it up as best I could and offered it on Buy Nothing and had a quick request for it. Done! The cute set of 4 Pottery Barn ceramic pumpkin plates that I got myself on Buy Nothing but never really used, I decided to offer on Buy Nothing and got about 10 people vying for them. Perfect timing and great for kids.

The other big appliance taking up counter space was my microwave. It's a smaller size, and believe me, smaller than the one I used to have, but still, not especially attractive on the counter. I have a large kitchen cabinet which curiously has an electrical outlet on the back wall inside it; there must've been a remodel at some point. Anyway, my fairly compact microwave fits in there perfectly, and voila! I don't have to look at it on the counter. And with some further organizing, I was able to fit all my food items back in this cabinet, which I remember the listing agent laughably called a "pantry." I composted an ancient jar of corn starch, a smaller jar of garlic powder that expired a year ago and set aside an unopened jar of fake maple syrup for my friend's mother.

This was just a spontaneous thing I started doing when I got home from a gym workout. I really like tackling little corners or rooms of the house like this...so it doesn't seem so overwhelming when the time gets near to list it.

In other news, I ordered a navy blue , la t-shirt off Amazon that i planned on wearing while marching in the parade Monday, but I somehow ordered a men's size x lg and it's way too big on me; they don't want the return but refunded me for the purchase, so I plan on bringing it with me and offering it to someone else in our group who may want to wear it for the parade and then just keep it.

I'm down to just $1,000 ($1900 as of Sept 2 after monthly annuity payment), which has to last me til my CD matures Sept. 12. I'm not expecting any more big credit card bills, so I should be okay. That CD is $12K, and I plan to make that cover all my income needs for the remaining 4 months of the year, along with my annuity. So that's about $4k a month, doable.

We had torrential rain all day today and now, half the roads in town (including the interstate and other state highways) are closed or washed out. The meandering river that flows through the heart of town is now a force to be reckoned with; I do believe one storefront may have to be torn down as the water overflowed the river banks and the structure, as seen from drone footage someone took, appears now to be IN the river.

I'm seeing cars floating in what was the road, abandoned by their drivers. People on our local FB page opening up their homes to others who can't make it home. They have declared a state of emergency.

I am counting myself extremely fortunate as last I checked my basement remains dry. I attribute that largely to the fact that when I had my back paver patio rebuilt, I knew the grading was bad and specifically asked my mason to slightly tilt the pavers, which run the length of the house, away from the house as much as possible instead of making it level. This turned out to be very effective in keeping water from accumulating near the foundation, and instead it funnels it all down to some old stairs i have which lead to my driveway, and there is a downward slope to the drive, so the water all eventually runs toward the street and storm drains installed there.

Feeling stir crazy, I had actually really wanted to go to my gym, which is just a few miles away, but I'm glad I didn't as they did close that road as well. The sirens have been nonstop since mid-afternoon.

I'm going to cancel an appointment I had Tuesday morning as it may take a while for these waters to recede.

Well, this is entirely not money-related, but I do feel a great sense of accomplishment/satisfaction since I was able to basal bark treat 4 small tree of heaven saplings. Tree of heaven is one of just 2 plants i can think of that absolutely must be treated with an herbicide to eradicate. I learned this the hard way; each time I cut it down, it not only came back, but several more sprung up in the vicinity.

So that makes a total of 10 tree of heaven saplings I've been able to treat this summer. I have until early October to do as many more as I can. The real challenge is beating a path to each sapling, which are growing in heavily brushy areas I usually avoid this time of year due to ticks.

I'm not sure how many more I have....at least a few...plus the big tree that needs to have the "hack and squirt" method used. Then you wait 30 days, then cut down only when completely dead.

I've been completely inactive when it comes to yard work for about 3 weeks now. While we had lovely weather in June, July and August have been oppressively hot and humid. This was the first day I've been able to do anything, and since this decent weather is supposed to hold at least til the end of the week, my goal is to do something in the yard each and every day. I have 3 ironweed plants and a gooseberry that have been in pots all summer and really need to go in the ground, but clearing areas where they go is a ton of work. Must be done!

But going after the tree of heaven is a top priority.

Here's an update on my cash flow situation since my last post: my checking balance has shrunk to $3583, and that needs to last me for another 4.5 weeks. I will get an infusion of $932 Sept 2 from my annuity. I should be able to stretch it out until the CD matures.

I've been picking tons of cucumbers and tomatoes. I'm only growing cherry tomatoes and  a yellow grape hybrid. I've gotten a decent amount of yellow squash, and my stringbeans should be developing beans any day now, since they're flowering. I've given extra cucumbers to my father, who likes to pickle them, and my friend/neighbor R.

My knotweed group is meeting on site this week at a popular walking trail in town where a smallish patch of knotweed has been sighted. We will make it a demonstration plot, mowing one side and then cutting and then treating the other side with herbicide, with instructional signage designed to show residents walking by that mowing alone won't be effective.

Still going to the gym 4x a week.

This, in a nutshell, has been my summer.

Since coming to the realization that I need to move, I've been looking around here with different eyes. With thoughts about staging the house, eventually, and still working to give things away for less clutter. Today I posted a rather beat up old rattan chair that I acquired from Buy Nothing, but no one wants it so to the dump it goes. I have a sentimental thing for rattan, a hangover from growing up with my grandparents' complete patio furniture set, all rattan.  

I think it was actually something Dido said that made me realize I was just fooling myself by saying I was going to "age in place" here.  The yardwork, or my inability to care for the property the way I think it should be, would likely always be a source of stress for me. I want to do other things with my life. I was telling my father of my decision and he surprised me by telling me his opinion, which was that I shouldn't move. He hardly ever insinuates his opinion about anything, so for him to say something was unusual. Basically, he said you have everything you want in your house now, and the yard is only a source of stress because I allow it to be so, and that most people would not be so focused on invasive plants, etc.

That doesn't really change how I feel about things though.

These comments were made on the same day that he confessed his regret about selling his beautiful home on the Jersey shore, which he'd made so many improvements to, to live in a small studio apartment on my sister's property. He decided to try renting out the home for a while (which I would never have done, given the distance between that house and where he moved to), and unfortunately, he failed to do a background check on the woman who someone at his favorite diner said was looking for a place. She was late with the rent from the get go, often not paying the full amount. He had to start eviction proceedings and she stole things he left in the house. (Carelessness on his part, I have to say.) Because she had no assets, his attorney told him it wouldn't be worth pursuing in court. An all-round unpleasant experience that I got to experience as well since I had to drive my father down to NJ a few times to meet his attorney. Sigh. Well, that's all in the past now.

I brought my father to physical therapy this morning, then took him out to lunch afterwards. I drove back home around 2 pm. When I walked in the front door, my cat immediately began meowing to be fed, and when I walked into the kitchen, there was a funny noise coming from the basement that sounded a little different.

Wondering if either my central air or my new heat pump hot water heater was malfunctioning, I went into the basement to find about half the basement floor covered in water and then, shockingly, I saw that the cause of the sound was a burst pipe where water was gushing out.

I was able to stop it by turning off the water for the whole house. There was plenty of water on the floor, but judging from the amount of water, it seemed that it had only been gushing out for 5 or 10 minutes. That's why I think if I had arrived even 20 minutes later, I would have had a REAL mess on my hands. I can't imagine what I would have found if I had been away for a much longer time period. This is the kind of thing you just can't prepare for; it just randomly happens.

I started calling plumbers but all I was getting was answering machines. Since I had no water in the house now, I didn't want to wait around for someone to call me back, so I kept calling til I found one right up the road that I have never used. He said he could come over in a half-hour.

I found the cap that had burst off the main water line on the basement floor and showed him. He told me it was quite old because it was made of iron, and nowadays they are made of brass, and said that it was the wrong type to have been used on my water line. It was an easy fix for him. Since he was there, I showed him some copper piping that was pretty badly corroded and he said since the burst pipe didn't take up the full hour, he could fix the copper corroded pipes for just an additional $38 (materials), so I had him take care of that too. A good thing to do since I'm planning on selling the house now. All told, I felt kind of fortunate to have  only had to shell out $213 for this unexpected emergency.

While he was here, the other plumbers I had called started calling back, and the wife of one of them texted to tell me that her husband and assistant were on their way, but I was able to tell her I already had someone here. At least now I know these plumbers do respond fairly quickly to emergency situations.

In my town, if you ask someone whose a good plumber to call, 85% of the time you get 1 of 2 plumbers who are mentioned again and again. It's like they have a lock on the town. There are plenty of other plumbers, but they are recommended less. As a result, these top 2 plumbers charge a premium, it seems. I have used them both; they were both competent, but I had issues with both of them, aside from price.

So I was happy with the plumber who came here today and will call him first should I have a need moving forward.

I'm running my dehumidifier down in the basement now to dry it out. All the water also flowed into my adjacent garage, and for the first time I used a wet vac I had bought for just this kind of emergency. So I got most of the surface water sucked up and now it's just wet concrete. I had a 5 x 7 cheap indoor/outdoor rug in front of the washer and dryer which I guess I'm going to have to toss since with this humid weather it's not going to dry out anytime soon and will probably get moldy. There's also an old draft dodger my mother had made for me that got soaked as it was in front of the basement door, so guess I'll toss that too.

You think your life is orderly and you're on top of everything; it's disconcerting to realize life will always throw you curve balls and that you can't organize every possible curve ball away.

All of the high cost bills I mentioned recently have been paid, save for the paint job of the garage ceiling ($366), which will happen next week. My taper finished retaping it today, so not only has that bill been paid, but also my car, homeowners and umbrella policies and my property taxes. I used two different agents to try to get better prices fo the home/auto policies, but in the end, my current policies were more affordable. They had risen substantially, but apparently not as substantially as The Hartford or a host of other insurers would like to charge me.

So that means I have $4,107 left to live on until Sept. 12, when my IRA CD matures. SEEMS reasonable. That includes about $935 after taxes on my annuity payment this month. I already shut off the Vanguard dividends income stream since I planned to obtain income from the IRA CD instead, all in the name of keeping my 2024 income low. The CD is about $12,000, and after trying unsuccessfully to have it rolled back to my Vanguard account 5 years ago and then getting stuck with where it is now at a lower rate for ANOTHER 5 years, I figure it will be simpler to take the distribution. I called them to see if I could notify them in advance I'd be taking a distribution on it, but she said I would have to wait until the day of maturity, and then I have just 10 days to tell them what to do. This was originally a State Farm CD, and then US Bank apparently acquired this part of the business. I am anxious to get my $$ out of there.

I have a birthday coming up very soon but won't be doing anything special except for a litter cleanup with the group I volunteer with, at a beach about 35 minutes from here. On the way home, I may treat myself to lunch out somewhere, and when I get home, I'll go to the gym. Business as usual!

My cousin in PA shipped me my B'day present from Amazon, but inadvertently sent me 2 packages (an air fryer and chichuahua meds) he intended for himself. He asked me to give him a day this week when I'd be home all day, so I picked Tuesday, a day that came and went with no sight of a UPS driver to retrieve the package. Which was a little annoying becus I did have things to do that day. I rarely have a day with nowhere to go.  So looks like I'll be holding onto the packages until he makes another trip out this way.

I heard from another cousin who had been living with her husband in upstate NY, who had moved to Utah to live with their daughter/son? about a year ago. At the time, she had said everything was great, it was a big house, etc., but apparently things weren't so great after all because when she texted me a Happy Birthday, she told me they are back in NY state and plan to start house-hunting in North Carolina to be near their grandchild. Well, NC is closer than UT, and I would like to meet her someday. We discovered we were related via Ancestry.

I received a little gift from another wonderful cousin in NJ and I need to call and thank her for it.

My friend R., the baker, always bakes me whatever kind of cake I want to mark the occasion, but this year I requested dark chocolate chip and walnut cookies. Built-in portion control.