There is nothing sexier than watching your husband do chores around the house.
Specifically, the stuff you don't want to do. Dishes, vacuuming, organizing shelves, that I know how to do. And I know how I like it done. Usually, I like it done "My Way." I am not very partial to "Other People's Way." Like my husband's way, for example.
But there are a huge number of chores that I have no interest in doing. Computer repair. Shelf building. Anything involving heavy lifting, power tools, or copious digging. And my husband is FANTASTIC at those chores. Masterful with his tools. Focused in his thoughts. I could have had sex with him in the backyard at that moment, that's how exciting I found his accomplishments. I told him so, as I described my observations of his sexy, tool-handling self. He said I read too many romance novels. But he smiled. He liked it.
Today's task was fixing the house. Our gate was thoughtfully attached directly to the siding by the cheap-ass bastards who built our house. Wind, weather, and time had worked their magic. The bolts were tearing the siding. Nervous about destroyed siding, I wanted it patched. So Kevin, My-Husband-Who-Can-Fix-Things, came up with the plan. We bought stuff at church (Home Depot). And today, with some dry weather anticipated, we (mostly he, but I helped a little bit) took half the gate down and patched up the holes. Later this summer, we'll paint it up. There is actually quite a bit of painting to tackle this summer: the porch, the trim on the south side of the house, and the front door (red, of course).
The day started on a rougher note. After much avoidance, Kevin and I decided we needed a money management computer program. Quicken or MSN My Money, not sure which (please leave comments with your thought people, what should we get?) This will involve daily receipt logging. We are not fond of daily receipt logging. But we will do it, because we like having money to do what we want, and we like getting our debts paid down. I just want to feel like I have more of a handle on it, like I know where my money is going. So we can work on the house and the yard, occasionally do some fun things, and save like we want.
David and Beth have finally picked a wedding date! Las Vegas, October 31st, Mandalay Bay. Yeah! Except Kevin and I will have to board the dogs, because Nancy will also be in Vegas!
6 comments:
Matt and I used MSN My Money, an older version, and easy to use. But I'm an idiot and couldn't figure out the budget part. I hear Quicken is really good but hard to use. It's complicted, but a lot of accounting offices use it so it must be good. I'm just a dumb-ass when it comes to practical computer programs. :)
I was going to offer you Quicken since I have it and it would be free - but then realized that it's for a MAC. Bummer.
You sound so much like me - it's scary. The reason you like your way is because your way is the right way. Other people's way is usually the wrong way!!! If only everyone could realize that our way is the right way - the world would be a better place!!!!
Quicken has a good thing going with many different companies for importing data which is very helpful. Its reasonable in price and comes with a lot of features (most of which you may never use). But I do think quicken can be fairly intuitive once you have fiddled around with it a bit.
I have Quicken and I really like it, it's not hard to use at all. Downloads from your credit card or bank are easy, and it's made to work with TurboTax, too. Feel free to come over and check it out.
I personally use Moneydance (http://www.moneydance.com).
1) Cause it runs on anything that runs Java
2) It's easy to use
3) It's cheap
4) I purchased my copy in 2002 and I'm running the latest version from 2006 because the author (yes, only one author) makes updates available free of charge if your willing to run the alpha version (granted that means I sometimes see funny things happen, but I don't lose data). If you only running the stable version you get the updates to the version you purchased only.
5) If something is just irking you know end you can subscribe the users mailing list which the author runs and actually sometimes responds to.
6) It's extendable, if your into programing Python ;)
7) It can import OFX (financial exchange format used by MS Money and others) as well as QIF (Quicken files) and OCF (a format I still haven't seen anywhere)
8) It can do online banking, if you've got an online banking account and your bank will let you use it (many will). Me I just download the OFX files and import them.
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