Tedious Stimulation

What are you doing with your stimulus package? I hope it is fun and exciting. We did nothing of the sort.

• Getting a termite contract with extra insurance on the house. The initial set up for the contract where I live is over $700.00 with a $100.00 renewal every year. Before I decided to go with the bright and sparkly ONE MILLION DOLLAR add on policy (which is kind of a joke. You could rebuild my entire neighborhood with a million dollars, probably.), I called my insurance company to see if they covered bug damage. Of course they don't! (Silly homeowner, why ask such inane questions. Pfft. Homeowner's insurance...covering home damage. What a huge joke.) When the polite little lady on the phone told me they wouldn't cover any damage by termites ever, since I don't currently have termites, I laughed at her and asked her, "What exactly would you cover? I have to have separate flood insurance, there are rumors that the companies are no longer going to cover any wind or hail damage...so, what DO you do with all that money I pay you every year? She couldn't answer me. So, I bought the extra policy.
• Getting two turbine vents on the roof as the attic has no ventilation to speak of and in this heat, my 2.5 year old roof will be ruined in about oh, three more minutes. Also, it is hiking up our cooling bill.
• Speaking of cooling bills, another glorious purchase was getting the AC fixed, since it went kaput on us. It was just frozen due to a leak, but the repair guy politely cursed our builder as ours was the third house on the street he had been to THAT DAY. Of course, cheapest unit on the market...insufficient to cool the home...need to replace as soon as possible...blah blah blah. So he unfroze it and loaded up the Freon. Prayers to the chilly air conditioning gods that it holds out over the summer.
• Also, our yard is a miserable mudpit. Of course, it is done and this is good and I am glad and all. And it didn't cost nearly as much money as I had initially budgeted for, so that is yet again another good thing. But a heavy storm washed away all the grass seed. So I can't see that a green lawn is going to be in this summer's fortune. However, at least there is not much to mow!