JANUARY 2024
Monday, January 1st, 2024 01:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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A year ago today, I was just starting in with the effort to clear out the back room so it could be a guest bedroom for Tim.
Dad was still alive, in his room, on the bed provided by home hospice, and I'd just gotten rid of his old bed the week before.
I was still part time.
Snoop & Prowly were still indoor cats, upstairs, not fully grown.
Yvette was still eating exclusively, Good 'N' Fun Dog Kabobs.
The trunk of the fallen mullberry still laid along the ridge out back.
So, I have made a lot of progress in a year.
Next month will make one full year that Snoop & Prowly have been emancipated outdoor cats.
And while there've been many moments where I worried that one, the other, or both, had vanished forever... when I got up today, I found Snoop sleeping in the next room... and Prowly sleeping on the porch.
They'd both gone MIA this weekend, just like last weekend... but here they both were back home again.
So it's clear now that they know where they live, and they also know how to survive out there.
I managed to impress upon them, early on, a healthy fear of cars... and to this day, I see them run for cover if they see or hear one coming down the street.
They do cross the streets... late at night, when there's little to no traffic... but they seem to spend most of their time on the island of our block interior.
I sometimes have to remember that they both originated out there in the neighborhood... no doubt born to some local cat... and spent their earliest days as outdoor kittens.
And in that light, it's kind of amazing that it only took six months inside... upstairs with me... to imprint them permanently with the idea of this house being their home, and me being their human.
But that said, this is a good neighborhood for outdoor cats.
The neighbors all have cats and small dogs that are allowed to roam free, so people aren't just tolerant of Snoop & Prowly, but... I do think... may feed them, and even welcome them inside occasionally.
And the last thing I'll say about the cats here is that they do not seem to mind the cold at all, out there.
The only kind of weather guaranteed to bring them both inside is rain.
Yvette has also come a long way in a year.
This house has not seen a, Good 'N' Fun since last February.
She's lost weight, is better house trained, and gets along well with the cats now.
I do think it's the case that Snoop & Prowly keep her company, in some sense, while I'm gone at work.
They may not be inside sleeping next to her, but she sees them come and go, and she knows she's not alone.
She's also very good on walks, about not crossing the street if she knows we're being tailed by one or both of the cats.
She put up with very truncated walks for many months... just up and down the street a bit.
But we've now gotten back to the point where we can go on long walks out into the neighborhood again, like we used to... on days when the cats are either not around, or have chosen to stay home.
I, of course, have gotten used to working full time again, after having had two years off.
I was having a hard time adjusting to just the 10K steps of part time janitor work at Grape, and when I went full time at Cloud, it took months for my feet, knees, and hips, to stop aching.
But I am now able to get around the building, and up and down the stairs there, without any pain or discomfort.
And eight hours now, doesn't seem so long anymore.
11:30PM doesn't seem so late either... to be in a dark, empty building, clocking out.
And for a year now, I've managed to maintain the schedule of getting up around three hours before work every day... which is something I never did, in all the years I worked 2nd shift at the hospital.
As for the house... there is no end to the list of repairs that need to be done, but the house and yard are still in much better shape today than they were a year ago.
Right now, I'm happiest about having transformed Dad's room into a recording studio.
I've spent a lot of time in there the past three weekends and... it's just nice to have a space downstairs that's really my own... set up the way I want it... to do something fun.
This back room still feels like just an outpost. I'm still using Dad's old computer down here, on a folding table.
And the side porch has become a useful workspace for windows and doors... disorganized and full of sawdust like the basement shop.
But the studio is a nice clean space.
My rule for myself is never to eat in there... or work on anything that will create a mess.
That room was pretty awful, after being Mom & Dad's bedroom in their old age, for two decades... with globs of dust behind furniture, and crooked pictures with broken glass on walls of crumbling plaster.
Mouse poops in every corner... glass missing from a drafty window... shitty floor tiles... crappy electrical... ugly acoustical tiles for no reason on one wall... and those stupid glow in the dark stars on the ceiling.
But it's MUCH nicer in there as we start 2024, and I'd be in there right now, but... with it being the first of the month... I need to be back here working out the bills and the groceries today.
I do have a little house project I plan to do here in January, however.
Recall that last summer I bought six, very nice 12V garden lights for future use.
I figured I'd put them out in the back yard, at various spots... like one by a rock garden, and one by a fountain, or whatever... running huge lengths of wire out to them... cleverly tucked under the turf.
But there won't be money for such grandious things this year, or next... and meanwhile, the area out front by the driveway remains quite dark at night.
I'm talking about where the side porch, and it's door, meet the music room, by the stoop and the brick walk, and the driveway.
I have a single bulkhead light out there above the door, but it's not enough.
Of my three camera feeds, that area is always in black & white at night... in night vision mode... while the two out back are always full color.
So... I still do have wiring for these lights, and the plan now is to put one to the left of the stoop... three more along the foundation of the music room, and then two more in front of the music room, facing the street.
I ordered a little $16.00 transformer on Amazon yesterday.
I can wire it into the junction box for the interior sconce over the porch door... which is already on the photo-sensor outside.
This means all my garden lights will come on at dark, and go off at daylight, in unison with the bulkhead and that interior sconce.
So... another mostly free project that will have a huge impact, I think, on illuminating that area.
The reason it's so dark there, despite there being a street lamp right across the street, is thanks to two things; The huge hackberry tree out front that casts a shadow, and the fact that, for whatever reason, our house sits about ten feet further back from the street than most of the houses on the block.
So, this will improve security, while also making the house look much nicer from the street.
Okay, with that, it's time to buckle down and work out the bills.
I need to get my car payment and my home insurance pointed at that AmEx, starting today, because I can no longer just pay them straight out of the checking account.
I also need to get money into the BMO account for the mortgage.
And then I need to pay minimums on all the credit cards, and figure out how to pay for groceries... which I'll need to have delivered tomorrow in the morning.
But if I can figure this all out today and get into January without being broke... then I'll have the month to get the ball rolling with BMO about a forbearance, as we work out how to deal with that balloon.
But BMO and their balloon aren't the only hurdle to clear, here at the start of 2024.
I also need to deal with that PNC loan, and it's painfully high $780.00 monthly payment... either by restructuring that debt, or rolling it into some kind of refinance with BMO.
I have a few months here, before the balances on my cards start to get dangerously high, so I have to act fast.
I need to have a sustainable survival plan worked out by March 1st.
And by that I mean... some way to make all the bills and still afford gas and groceries... for the long term... even if it means I'm going a bit hungry, and can't do any more home improvements for a few years.
2023 was about buying time to settle things down.
2024 will be about... that sustainable survival plan.
WHEW!.. Okay!.. The dreaded chore is done!
I have $110.00 left in the bank now, but I managed to pay everybody!
CarMax does not accept credit cards, so I had to pay that out of pocket.
I paid AllState with the AmEx, but I have to do that manually.
They won't let me set up an autopay to a credit card, so I have to remember now to manually pay them on the 1st... because both the car and home insurance come due on the 3rd.
I then paid $50.00 to each of the credit cards.
My total credit card debt stands now at $1,253.00, but I haven't bought groceries yet.
I do, however have four cards whose balances are currently $0.00.
$300.00 of that credit debt went to pay off the useless lawyer, but now he's out of my life for good!
I Zelled $800.00 from checking into the zombie BMO account, to cover both the January mortgage payment... plus an overdraft fee of $200.00 which came out of nowhere in December.
But I have to pay that overdraft fee manually... and I'll wait until after they take the mortgage money to do that.
So... I'm out of danger now for January, as far as bills go.
But there is only $110.00 in the bank, and that PNC payment will hit exactly on payday... the 16th, to take most of the next paycheck.
This means groceries, gas, beer, and smokes, all have to go on a credit card.
And it will just keep going like this... with most of one paycheck going to BMO, CarMax, and minimum payments... while most of the next one goes to PNC.
So if I do nothing, I will max out all my credit cards in a matter of months!
Thus, as I said above, I need to deal with both BMO and PNC, before this all gets away from me.
And I'm giving myself two months here, to find some kind of solution.
So, I can relax for tonight, and start a new week of work tomorrow with food in the fridge, but...
It's gonna be a January of phone tag and red tape with BMO... possibly including early morning visits to the branch office.
In other news, I finally unboxed those garden lamps...
There's my foot in there for scale... they are HUGE!
They're also gorgeous! Rich Pat from summer 23 really got me a great Christmas gift!
They really do deserve to be out front where they can be seen.
And I can thank hardworking Pat from summer 2020 for the porch circuit and photo sensor I'm gonna be tying into!
And while I'm thanking Pats from the past... let's talk about the studio!
Of course, I have creative young Pat to thank for all the great songs I'm recording... and for getting them on tape, and labeling those tapes.
But as of yesterday, I now have the backbones of eight songs together in FL Studio.
I spent my Saturday doing, Live It Fast, and Sunday doing, Clue Phone.
And I just love it in there, with that big monitor.
It's so nice to just sit down with coffee, first thing on a day off, after coming in from the morning dog walk, and sit in that room working on music!
When it's time to stretch my legs, Yvette and I just go for another walk.
And if I'm hungry, I just eat something on the walk!
No mess, and no time wasted.
Usually by the time I'm on my 2nd beer, the song is done, and I can just relax and listen to it a few times, before getting on the phone with Tim, Colleen, and/or Sheila.
So if I can just work out my sustainable survival plan here... I think I'm gonna have a pretty great year!
Just vibing with the pets... recording on the weekends... and doing whatever small home improvement projects I have some time and money for.
I've taken care of a bunch of other little things tonight.
First, I changed the pink bulbs out on the stoops back to white ones.
Then I went down into the basement and got my 12V wire, and a pack of smart plugs, and brought them upstairs... both things having been bought back when I had money.
I have a crap ton of wire, so I'll have no problem putting those garden lights wherever I want them.
And I configured a smart plug back here, for the space heater... to turn it on and off at certain times of day... which was Colleen & Tim's idea last night.
So now on weekdays, it'll turn on at 9AM, and back off at 2PM, when I leave for work.
Then it turns on again at 10PM to heat up the back room before I get home, and turns off again at 3AM.
On the weekends it turns on at 10AM and stays on all day, until 3AM.
This is a compromise to keep the room warm, but also relatively safe. It'll only run for two hours completely unattended, on work nights, before I come home.
And it will run while I'm sleeping upstairs, but not all night.
After that, I got into the studio and worked on bringing, Closer To You more in line with the songs I've been creating the past few weeks.
Last night, I spent an hour going through all the drum and instrument patterns, and adjusting the dynamics... the way I've been doing for the newer songs.
And tonight, in MS Note, I copied down all the RGB numbers for the colors I'm using with the newer songs... and I also copied down the file names for the drum samples being used.
And then I changed all the color coding in, Closer To You and updated the crash cymbal to the same one being used in the rest of the songs.
The rest of the drums were already the same samples.
So now, Closer To You is officially part of the album, and in the same folder as the rest... looking like all the rest.
And when I played it!.. oh my god!.. with the tweaks to the dynamics and some volume tweaks on the different instruments it just sounds fabulous!
I cried as I played it through... not just because I was happy with the sound of it... but because it's come to represent so much, here in January.
That was just a little clip of an unfinished song, with no lyrics, that I accidentally discovered on an ancient tape cassette last summer... looking for a way to pass the time after dark, when I couldn't work in the yard.
I was so caught up in the struggle to take care of everything after Dad's death... and I never thought I'd ever record music again.
But six months later... that little clip inspired the whole studio, and lead me to the other lost songs that will make up the album... and is itself this amazing composition.
And the trolley themed story in the lyrics, were inspired by Dad's love of trolleys... and the swelling orchestra at the end... just had me thinking tonight about his arrival in the afterlife.
And after the Christmas ritual... and now that I'm safely into January... I could almost hear him saying... you know... Transitions like this are difficult for everybody, and there's a lot of work to do, but you've done a good job of it so far.
And maybe that was just my imagination, but there's still truth to it.
After such a crazy year of damage control, it IS good to be taking a break this winter.
And it's good to be using that break to create music.
Okay... time to order the groceries for the morning... and then wind on down for bed.
That's my New Year's Day for 2024.
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