Pecuniarities

When our A/C went out two Sundays ago, my first reaction was panic. We live in the desert where we have been experiencing triple digit temperatures and we have esteemed air conditioning as one of the dire necessities of life. So when our central air went out last weekend, my first thought was that we [...]

Having a whole house to ourselves, Penelope and I often feel like a couple of kids when the parents are absent. We play fetch with the dogs in the hallways and let slobbery tennis balls bounce off the walls. We push furniture around and rearrange the rooms on impulse. We call every meal or break [...]

We received the following letter from our County Assessor-Recorder the day before yesterday. At first I was afraid to open it, thinking it was bad news. Well, it did turn out to be bad news … but with every cloud comes a silver lining…
Dear Taxpayer:
As a result of the decline in value of the local [...]

When we moved into our house, we were thrilled to find wild rabbits frequently visiting our yard. We’re animal lovers, so while many people consider them pests, we don’t mind too much that they come and eat our sprouting grass and leave giant rabbit pellets all over our yard; we figure it’s good fertilizer. We [...]

Lesson 1: When Not to DIY
In the past year, we only went out an average of 1-2 times per month to run errands and our garage door therefore got very little exercise. One day last month, when I was leaving for my monthly grocery shopping trip, the door wouldn’t close. I left it to Madoline [...]