Oil/Kerosene Prepay Price OUCH

Opinion Polls & Market Research

We just received our prepay price for the winter. It's the first time I've felt sick over charges. Well, I take that back. The first time was when we received a phone bill from Frontier Communications several years ago for $1,900,221.51: $221.51 for overdue charges and $100,000 per monthly commitment times 19 months of contractual period we had not fulfilled.

All I can say is, thank God we had never signed that contract and were only liable for the $221.51, so the nearly 2 million dollar bill was an error. But this prepay price is not.

$5.079 per gallon!!!

This is for kerosene since our tank is outside. Crap. And the fully prepaid price. The budget program runs $5.129. And I thought $4.67 for regular oil my dad quoted us was bad. Now I'm just wishing we could get an indoor tank. Maybe it's cheaper if we box in our tank with an insulated shed! If we can build it for $184 or less, then yeah. It's cheaper. That's how much we'd save.

My first instinct is to say, "Heck no--I refuse to pay!" I can't in good conscience pay this wretched price and let these price gougers get away with this. On the other hand, I'm looking at our situation saying, "Crap! What else can we do?"

My friend is looking at buying a pellet stove, and even the person I just spoke with at the fuel company about prepay bought one, but in our tiny mobile home, I can't see how we could even think of doing this. There is simply no space.

We considered using an outdoor stove to heat our house when done--it sits outdoors and hooks up to the internal system and runs off wood, stocked once a day. No need to worry about losing power and therefore heat. Maybe we need to look into that for this year since we'll already have to pay at least half the startup price for that just for fuel that will burn up and be gone.

Have you gotten your prepay price this year? How does it compare with ours? I'm curious what they're running across the country, and what kind of alternative fuel sources you're looking at, if you are. Please take two minutes and comment!

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Tech Tags: fuel heating winter prepay heat sources alternative dilemma economy inflation

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Nontoxic ant repellent for home interiors

Last year when I posted about our ant problem, a friend of mine posted her suggestion for ridding our living area of ants. Baby powder.

Baby powder? No way. I was so skeptical, I never tried it. But this year rolled around and the boys had so many ants crawling on the ceiling and walls around their beds, the big black yucky ant kind, that I needed a nontoxic repellent to eradicate ants since it was in their sleeping area. I remembered her suggestion and decided it was worth a shot. The worst it would do is make the house smell like a clean baby's butt.

So I went around and puffed baby powder along the wall, floor, and ceiling cracks where we had ants and beyond, and watched and waited.

Within 24 hours, we saw a 99% reduction in ants! The day before I applied the powder, the kids counted the killing tally and within an hour were in the 30s. The next day I saw one ant on the wall.

I wondered if it was a fluke or just a dramatic answer to prayer, so I asked God to show me. The next day I happened to look at the doorway threshold and saw an ant writhing in the powder like he's eaten ant poison. Amazing!

Thanks, Kelly, wherever you happen to be, today. Your suggestion reversed the ant invasion on our family!

Check out more Works for Me Wednesday posts at Rocks In My Dryer.

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Tech Tags: ant ant killer house natural ant killer nontoxic bugs infestation remedy solution

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BYB Sunday: No Debt Load

Welcome to Blog Your Blessings Sunday.

I've been reading a lot lately about how people nationwide are struggling financially as gas and food prices rise. The stimulus payments that will start to flow to Americans tomorrow will, by necessity, go to help fill the gap these higher prices are causing. I realize steep inflation is forewarned in the Bible, but living through it doesn't make it easier.

When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, "Come!" I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, "Two pounds of wheat for a day's wages, and six pounds of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!" Revelation 6:5-6 TNIV

Complaining (again) yesterday about our tiny home and how hard it is to keep clean when it seems gremlins follow me to mess up what I fix, my understanding opened. Many people right now carry vehicle loans and mortgages, and as prices skyrocket, it becomes harder to pay for them.

I may never like this sardine can of a house, but it's time for me to once again count my blessings that we fully own our vehicles, land, mobile home, and house under construction. And because we followed what God showed us and did not get a loan or charge credit for building supplies to get in our house sooner, we don't have debt making it even tougher to pay the essentials.

Living in 800 square feet with eight people and a Great Dane may challenge us and make me want to scream at times, but at least the added stress of losing the little we have does not exist like it has for us before and does now for others.

Thank You, God, for this. It is a blessing indeed.

But what if you have that mortgage, loans, or car payments choking you? Is there blessing you can find when you're feeling strangled by gas and food prices?

I believe there is, but like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so are blessings. These you must search out and find yourself. (Try asking God, first.) In the mean time, take heart. Spring is upon us and there's no finer time to learn to plant a garden or manage indoor vegetable-bearing plants to help ease the cost of food. And to look into hydrogen powered cars fueled by water... (Jim's new hobby)

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Tech Tags: food ~ gas ~ price increase ~ inflation ~ stress ~ blessing ~ finances ~ struggle

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Costs of a Severe Winter

Posts have been sparse the past few weeks due to a hectic schedule including preparations to attend a writing conference next week in California and my Grandmother who almost lost her life from serious infection and congestive heart failure. She has recovered miraculously and I feel better now about leaving for the conference.

During my absence here we've had snow and ice upon snow and ice and a nearby tree fall on our trailer roof over the living room. Fortunately, it was a small tree and rested more on its branches than on our roof so there was no damage. Jim was able to cut it down fairly quickly, but the kids and I packed up and slept at Grampa's for the night since just after the tree fell, we lost power. It turned out to be completely unrelated to the tree and was back on a short time later, but with high winds on the heavy-snow-laden trees threatening to take down others, we felt safer at Grampa's house for the night.

We haven't seen this kind of accumulation for twenty years in this area. For the first time since I can remember, the ground has been covered with snow all winter. I actually am not sick of snow, but I'm ready for spring. (NOT mud season, though--ack.) So is Jim's tractor. Plowing in the last snow storm broke both the plow mount and cracked a plastic fuel filter on the tractor so the tractor won't stay running. Jim spent yesterday fabricating a new plow mount out of steel.

Next year one thing is certain: we have to budget more for fuel. We just got our gas/diesel bill. We had no idea plowing so much snow would quadruple our bill!

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Tags: winter ^ snow ^ plowing ^ storm damage ^ tractor ^ cost

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Rebuttal to public flame of The Building Brows

It's time to take a break from my regular posts to address a recent situation that has emerged thanks to an anonymous commenter who took it upon him/her-self to flame my family not only in my comments to my last post, Energy Audit for Weatherization, but also on a public scrapbook message board. (Why there, I have no clue.)

Here's the general gist of the accusations from that commenter and others following the board's thread: Jim and I are irresponsible parents for making our six kids live in a tiny home in filth. We should change our careers, get loans, sell part of our land--anything at all costs--to "do our duty" and provide our poor kids a larger space and more things. And we never should have had so many kids if we are living here.

There are a few major points I want to make about these accusations:

1. My kids are well cared for and provided for. They do not lack what they need. Each has a bed, space to be, places for a few things, clothes, food, shelter, warmth. We love them and keep them clean. They do chores and attend school, and do very well at it. They are learning the value of waiting for something they really want, and choosing the thing they want most since there is not room for everything. They are learning to value family above things and to treat each other with respect and courtesy.
   
2. Our house is clean, and though deteriorating and not the prettiest, it is safe and functions. Soft spots in the floor are covered over with solid material. Mold and/or mildew is removed. The bathroom is clean; floors swept and vacuumed and mopped; we have a couch and recliner to sit on though I personally prefer the floor. Our appliances that were hazardous have been removed. Filters sit in the floor registers to filter air. Fresh air vents work to bring in outside air and remove stale air. Pests are fought and cold drafts stopped with new insulation. It works. Period. And we trust God to make it continue to work for as long as He deems necessary for us to live here.
   
3. We seek God's plan for our lives first which can put out of order what may seem logical for raising a family. And if it were not for following God's directions made clear to us in several ways (which no one except us and few others can confirm), we would be fools to live in this manner. There is a fine line between faith and foolishness and that line is whether or not someone is following what they believe with conviction is God's will because they received confirmations through something or someone outside themselves. To assume something is God's will without confirmation, and live in sheer faith that that thing will come to fruition when there was no assurance it was God to begin with, is dumb. This is not what we have done. We (I in particular) fought long and hard about moving here. But I could not escape that God was asking us to do it, so I bent my will and complied, with much heartache. It is only through much work God has done in my heart through living here that I have come to peace with it for as long as God sees is necessary for us to dwell here. Those without a lifestyle of submitting to God cannot understand this.
   
4. This trailer is temporary and we've been here only 3.5 years. When we started having kids we were in an apartment and eventually bought a different house which we remodeled and sold for a $100,000 profit (how we bought this place and do not have a mortgage). Had someone told us we would end up in a mobile home with eight kids, we would never have believed it.
   
5. You don't get a loan or rent an apartment or house when you know you cannot pay the bill year-round and would have to file bankruptcy. Now that's irresponsible.
6. You can change careers, but you cannot change your purpose in life. Each person was created for a special purpose and everyone should search out what that is. We have. Jim's has to do with building trades and mine with writing. God forbid we should ever walk out of our purpose to get a different career for more money. Money is a much lower priority than following God and walking in our purpose in Him.

There are more points we can make, but I won't bother to waste my time or yours. If you want to read more of our responses, including one from Jim which is rare, then visit that scrapbook message board, but do it soon because the whole thread might be deleted since that anonymous commenter shouldn't have even posted it there.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled blog...

P.S. I understand our blog often locks up people's computers so we're working on a template redesign and hope to install it soon. Please bear with us.

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Technorati Tags:  family ^ parenting ^ kids ^ flame ^ lifestyle ^ mobile home ^ rebuttal ^ hot topic ^ controversy ^ scrutiny

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Energy Audit for Weatherization

Today a regional weatherization crew came to begin weatherizing our house. About four weeks ago they gave us an energy audit per our request and turned up interesting results.

1. The trailer floors are cold and a lot of cold drafts come off the windows and from the kitchen and bathroom vents despite the weatherization tests indicating our house is too tight. (They used a fan in the door to test tightness, but I forgot to turn off the box fan exhausting air from under the house, so the two fans were fighting each other.
   
2. Our wall oven is emitting high levels of carbon dioxide, and it is away from the stove top venting fan so the gases cannot be sucked out of the house.
3. There are too many of us in this size home, so the carbon dioxide levels are higher per person than they should be. This was something we never considered being a large family living small.
   
4. Eight people in 800 square feet produce too much moisture. This has contributed to excessive mold in all colors: green, black, white, and pink.
   
5. Carbon dioxide also feeds mold, so our air quality is the largest concern.
   
6. Our venting fans in the bathroom and kitchen are insufficient for air flow and have no closing flaps.

After the audit, the weatherization team decided they needed to do the opposite of what they usually do to houses, which is tighten them. The largest concern is increasing air flow and decreasing moisture to increase air quality by reducing the molds and carbon dioxides emitted by the stove and too much breathing. (Perhaps we should hold our breaths.)

To do this, they are installing closeable fresh air vents, replacing the vent fans--one with moisture sensor, and replacing the wall oven and stove top with a regular all-in-one kitchen stove so it will all sit under the new kitchen fan.

These alterations mean cutting the cabinet and counter top to accommodate the new stove. As soon as I get pictures off my new camera (Did you hear that? I have a new digital camera that actually works well!) I'll post them and give you more detail. In the mean time, I have to go make sandwiches since we have no stove until tomorrow. :-)

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Technorati Tags:  weatherization ^ energy audit ^ carbon dioxide ^ air quality ^ mold ^ health

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Stop the Plague of Stuff

I love the holiday season, but I'm frustrated. With all the giving in the air, we've suddenly become inundated with good will and are drowning in a sea of books, videos, shoes, and clothes in so many sizes we could outfit a store. But we still need some things, like a size 14 pair of snow pants. Instead we have sizes 3-6 months, 12 months, 3Ts, and 7s which are useless and taking up space.

All of this is not good will's fault. These things were already accumulating despite careful intake because I was trying to be a good steward and not squander what God had given to us. But there is a fine line between good stewardship and hoarding.

Several years ago I ran clothing giveaways in our church that had little storage room. It was constantly so saturated with donations, mounds of clothing bags fell out of closets and overflowed into other work areas. It looked horrible and made a bad impression on church members and the community. People complained, but the ministry head was afraid if we limited the donors, they would stop donating completely and we would no longer have anything to give.

But it became simple and clear to me after finally bringing it under control. God wanted us to be good stewards and we weren't if we accepted more than we had room to store--we had an abundance of women's clothes, few children's and men's, and keeping the abundance disallowed us to obtain the needed items. I got bold and asked for only certain types of clothes that were hard to secure. We actually got them, which made us better able to serve the community.

After tripping through my home in frustration tonight, I remembered this, realizing our needs are being drowned by the abundant extras.

We must stop the plague of stuff, and stop being afraid to let go of something we don't need now but might later and we worry we won't be able to t replace it. And we need to do it by trusting God to supply the need when it comes. And I know he does because He incredibly restored three lost wardrobes for ND when she was an infant. (BTW, happy birthday CJ, and ND!)

So, over the next ten days I'll be donating all kinds of excess stuff. This will actually make way for--gasp!--bunk beds in the girls room which they desperately need. Wowwee! It's Christmastime indeed. :)

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Technorati Tags:  family ^ stuff ^ giving ^ give away ^ donate ^ stewardship ^ holiday ^ gifts ^ Christmas

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Ways to stay warm to keep furnace heat off a little longer

I woke up and it was 66 degrees in the house. That was at 5:00. Now it's 9:10 and it's dropped to 65 degrees. What's wrong with this picture?

Since we haven't cleaned our furnace yet, and I'm cold, I'm finding ways to get warm and heat the trailer without turning on the heat.

• Take a shower. Since I already did this, and the youngsters are up, I won't be doing this one again today.


• Blow dry my hair. Or shirt, or pants, or... I can do this as needed and have fun with the kids at the same time.


• Wear layers instead of one heavy item. It helps keep heat in better and lets you remove outer layers as you warm up.
  


• Wear a hat. Tons of heat goes out our heads. I used to hate hats, but now that I've discovered how much warmer they keep me, I love them. No wonder so many guys wear caps.
  


• Do dishes. Or run my hands under warm water. Both heat the blood and make me warm from the inside out.


• Make a hot meal. I cooked oatmeal this morning. You know, the kind that requires a stove top instead of a microwave. Tasted good, too.


• Bake, make a roast, or slow cook a meal. Cooking something in the crock pot will also warm the room while making an easy meal. Complimentary biscuits for a stew and/or cookies for desert will further help and taste yummy. (Hey, this is a great idea!)
  


• Do laundry. I started this first thing this morning.
  


• Vacuum the house. Our vacuum blows a lot of hot air and always makes it hotter wherever it goes. I had planned to vacuum after lunch, but I might do it this morning instead.


• Turn on the TV. I don't normally like the yapper, but it does produce a lot of heat. So does the Xbox.
  


• Open the sunny-windows. We keep the blinds closed and a few windows have blankets over them to keep heat or cold out. Removing them on the sunny windows only will let the sun warm the room.


• Exercise. If I and the kids exercise altogether, we'll get warm and produce enough body heat to warm the room.
  

I'm sure there's many more ways to warm rooms and our bodies than I've thought of here. If you thought of something I missed, please share.

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Technorati Tags: warm ^ cold ^ tips ^ how to ^ furnace

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BYB Sunday: Mobile Home Holding Up

Welcome to Blog Your Blessings Sunday.

We're completing year three in this mobile home and even though it is still small and things have broken down and fallen apart during this time, I'm tremendously grateful for the roof over our head and that the mobile home continues to stand up under the continual beating of six boisterous kids while we pray lots for money and building supplies and do what we can to begin building again.

(Boy, was that ever a long sentence!) This is answer to prayer that we walk in daily--literally.

Thank you God the roof is still up, the floors haven't fallen through, the ants haven't eaten it to sawdust, the bugs went away, the sink faucet works (yes, the handle is still broken), the roof leaks no more and some less, and we somehow manage to stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter (a miracle in itself in this trailer).

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Technorati Tags:  blessing ^ Sunday ^ bugs ^ mobile home ^ broken

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Running a replacement phone line

Our phone line has been buzzing for the past two weeks--ever since we got the iMac and hooked it up. Jim thought the iMac had screwed up the phone line since we plugged in our DSL to a router. I suspected a loose connection. I found nothing out of place, though, and a quick check revealed it wasn't an individual phone, either.

Jim determined it must be our line that runs 150 feet through a ditch from the telephone pole to our trailer. Since the line is exposed, and has been that way for the past 2-3 years, it makes perfect sense that an animal or vegetation might have compromised the line.

Running wires through an open ditch is highly stupid, so do not take this as a good idea from The Building Brows.

Our electric wires also run through the open ditch, but are more protected because we thread them through pipe and partly buried them. We opted for this temporary set up because we'll have to run larger capacity wire anyway for the house, which is the next step. In the mean time, under no circumstances are the kids to play near the ditch or the house.

So Jim bought new telephone wire and had IJ run it the length of the ditch. I wish my camera had been available for pictures because it was IJ's first time doing such work.

This is the hole IJ had to enter to crawl under the house. We have a box fan running under there to exhaust excess heat or cold year round. I heard IJ whining from all the way inside. Scared as he was, Jim made him go. And it was good for him despite what he found.

"There were spiders, and cobwebs, and dead bugs under there!" he said after it was all over.

"And bones from something were under there, too," added Jim.

I bet IJ's shower felt real good after that. And the phone line? Works like a charm. We should get another two years or so out of it. ;-)

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Technorati Tags: running wire ^ telephone line ^ phone ^ problems ^ kids ^ DIY ^ do it yourself

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A Vision of Hope

Welcome to another Blog Your Blessings Sunday.

On my hands and knees last night looking under the cabinet for a lost sippy cup, I saw a few pieces of cereal, a pencil, and a couple other scattered items. Suddenly, I had the sensation that I was checking under there in a final sweep through an empty trailer.

Yes--it was a vision of us leaving this small, ant-infested trailer!

Occasionally I have visions, and they always come true--unless they are warning visions for me to change my course so that envisioned thing does not happen. This one, however, was not one of those.

Now I don't know if it was of us leaving this place to move into our house, as I didn't see the house in my vision, but it was surely a vision of us leaving this place for the last time. And I did get the sense that it was for our permanent destination, which does strongly suggest the house.

Now how can this be when we've had no money to even work on the thing for the past year and a half? Well, all I can say is that as of last month, there is new hope on the horizon. You'll just have to tune in for what that new hope is. In the mean time, can you guess?

"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" ~ Jeremiah 29:11

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Technorati Tags: visions ^ moving

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Roasting

Last week this time it was snowing. Now we need an air conditioner. It's almost ninety degrees in this trailer!!!

I'm ROASTING.

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Technorati Tags:  weather ^ trailer

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Ant Popping

Spring is trying to come even though it keeps snowing. I can't tell by the ground or trees, but I can surely tell by the ants. You know, the big honking black carpenter ants that make a loud pop when you step on them. You can't really call the process squishing them. They don't squish. It's more like pimple popping which requires a certain amount of determined force.

It's not just one or two carpenter ants I'm seeing. That was two years ago. Now it's several.

These two ants on the counter at the sink were some of a handful I popped that night. They are showing up everywhere: on the counter, on my computer desk (I find them crawling up my arm and in my hair), on cereal boxes an