Reflections on Memories and Magic of This Holiday Month!
And so, we write December! Around our place, that usually means we've entered the busy season. It's sort of funny and ironic to think about, because I always figured I would have a lot more time on my hands once we closed our retail store.
I guess a lot of people would argue that it's better to be busy and having things to do than to sit still and look at a wall. OK, sure... but I have never minded wallgazing!
Today we spent most of the day - or at least most of the afternoon - setting up for this weekend's event at a local Spiritual Center where I will be vending with my painted rocks, and Mrs. Denmarkguy will be putting her Tarot reading skills to work at this "Festival of Lights."
This is just one of many holiday events that are happening in our part of the world over the next few weeks, and we choose to participate in many of these simply because it is a worthy additional source of income and we need that very much.
With a bit of luck, we might actually make enough over the next three weeks that we can afford to buy a new water heater, which is a very necessary thing around here.
The sad thing is that it's actually a pretty good water heater and the actual heating of the water is not the issue, but the high mineral content in the water where we live is causing leaks from corrosion and we also have the issue that the water that arrives from the water company comes in at such high pressure that it tends to force leaks wherever it can.
Bottom line is that home ownership is expensive, and it becomes a little more expensive every year. And I'm not just talking about mortgage payments and taxes, but the cost of the various things you have to replace,after a while.
Our lovely house is getting on towards being 50 years old, so it is increasingly in "the maintenance years" and the cost of maintaining it get higher and higher with each passing year.
Over the past few years you might have seen me occasionally write about the fact that we're going to end up selling this place one of these years and move to somewhere smaller. If there's anything I have learned from our current homeowning experience, it is that we will probably want to move into a somewhat newer house that doesn't have as many problems.
After all, we're not getting any younger! But then again none of us are, are we?
I suppose the answer for a lot of people is quite simply just to hire someone whenever something goes wrong, but that approach to homeownership is predicated on having lots of money. When you're struggling to make ends meet you kind of put more things together with string and duct tape and chewing gum and hope that they hold out a little bit longer.
We have a few larger expenses on the horizon, but I guess the water heater is top of the list, and then comes the whole house heater, and we are also going to need a new roof one of these days.
I have to admit that there was a time when I also got caught up in the Hopium of the cryptosphere and thinking that maybe if we played our cards right our investments in crypto would end up going well enough that we could afford some of these things.
However, like most things in the real world, results tend to be flat to mildly disappointing whether you're in the conventional investing market or on this new frontier.
So I'm just grateful for the fact that I can do a bit of blogging and build a small savings account here and I can cross my fingers that maybe we'll have a bit of a Santa Claus rally so that'll help the cause!
However, I'm not going to hold my breath on that one!
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great Friday!
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Created at 2023-11-30 23:35PST
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