This letter came in the mail a couple of months ago:

From Pleasant Valley Mutual Water Company
To Shareholders/owners of properties having more than one dwelling

"Please be informed the Directors of the Pleasant Valley Mutual Water Company has adopted a policy requiring every dwelling in its service area to have its own water meter. ... equitably distribute the costs... New services and meters will be installed at Company expense [yea!], it will be the responsibility of the owner to connect the dwelling to the new meter [WHAT???]. blah, blah, etc. Very truly yours, "

I've been in denial for a couple of months about what this means. Then today crews came by and started cutting holes in the street in front of my house. So the time for denial is over. What I think this means is that I have to connect two water meters to the duplex behind out house - 300 feet from the road, through our front yard, through our side yard, through our back yard, through the duplex parking and finally to the duplex, which as of now only has connections for one water inlet.

Any idea how much this is going to cost??? Me neither.

Thanks water company. Wouldn't it be easier just to tack a monthly charge onto the bill for extra residences.

(by the way, if you have a rental on your property that shares your mail box and other utilities I'm guessing this won't apply. Unfortunately the duplex already has its own electric & gas meters and their own mailbox numbers.)














Am I going to have to move my fence also so that 2 more meters will fit?

I think the baby is only going to have one nap today. He's been steadily shortening his 2 naps from 3 hours down to 1 1/2 each. Its still nice to have 2 though. Last night he slept from 7 to 7 (with a feeding at 3am) and then he didn't take a nap until 11. He's usually done with his first around then. He's still asleep at 2:15 tho so not too bad. I don't mind feeding him during the night if it means he'll sleep longer, but he's gone all night quite a few times without waking up, so I know he can do it. He has until his first birthday to shape up! JK.

We are so ready for school to be over. I talked to Sharon today and her kids are done next Thursday. I'd go for that. We have a month left.

Marjorie, if you see this I sent you some books. Sorry about the chicken book, but it cracked me up.

Does anyone have fun plans for summer?

I've been downloading all my video camera tapes to try to get caught up. Remember this one from July 2002.

OK, I was going to make it private, but its too much of a pain, so the whole world gets to watch it... if they can find it.

I was going to post about how I was trying to decide whether to replace our old van with a new one. The old is a 1997 Chrysler Town & Country with 140,000 miles and no A/C -- which is the biggest reason it needs to go. The repair bill for the A/C will be at least $1,700, and it needs another $1000 in other stuff.

We've lived the last two years without A/C by tucking into a smaller car for vacation. But that is no longer an option. The girls all grew a foot taller last year, and we added a baby to the mix -- so no possible way to travel without a large car.

Then I was trying to decide if we wanted to get a new car or another used car. We've always bought used and I know it's recommended by all the stay-out-of-debt gurus. We bought our last van with 40,000 miles on it and its done OK. Unfortunately, it was a Town & Country and needed lots of expensive repairs. We've spent over $9000 in repairs in the last 8 years. and that was with a warranty that covered some of the early repairs.

So, anyway, I took Avarie over to look at my dream car -- the Odyssey. OK, my dream car would not be a mini van, but you get the idea. Of course the price was way more than we were looking to spend, but guess what? We ended up with one anyway. It was new, It was shiny, It had A/C!!! It has a little hole to plug in your ipod. (no, we didn't get the one with the DVD & GPS and leather -- I'm not that crazy)

So come see it. It's sooo pretty.

Other news: Micah sang with CineMagic at the Celtic fair this morning. Their number was so cute. (not cute like my new car, cute like a gaggle of little girls.)

I found a really funny book at Borders last night. I'm going to order a couple of copies to share.

Carsten is also cute and getting huge. Prunes really took care of his problem. (prune juice didn't work.)

Well my 15 minutes is up. Or Carsten won't be so cute. bye, debbie