Procrastinating - February 1, 2026 @goldenoakfarm

Sunbather

On Sunday morning I was up at 5AM to tend stoves. I got my post up and decided to start the bills/budget. I’d actually made some progress on that when I went to work at the desk.

When I’d inventoried the seeds, I’d put the emptied packets on the desk. I file the packets each year so I know what it was I grew and where it came from, etc. So I went upstairs and dug out the albums needed and filed the packets alphabetically for the year 2025. That took plenty of time in the name of procrastination.

Apparently my town has decided to go to quarterly billing for water. I suspect so that the shock of the bills won’t be so much. I suspected the rates had gone up. So in the name of procrastination, when I found the water bill on top of the mess, I decided to find out if I was right.

I had kept track of the water usage when we had animals, but stopped when they were gone. So I had from 2017 to date to update. So I went to the attic and found the file bag with each year’s bills and brought them downstairs.

Then I sat and recorded the rate (which I had to figure out as it’s never on the bills) and my yearly usage to see if it had gone up. I spent several hours on this and found that yes, the rate had gone up, again.

Since I started keeping records in 2007 it’s risen 289%; since the pandemic 2020 it’s risen 160%. And that’s just water, not sewer as some have to pay.

And now I have a high unbudgeted water bill that just came in, so they can go to quarterly. Sigh….

Well, that took me to mid afternoon, once I’d put all the bills away in the attic. I’d had to keep the stoves going all day, but once I started on the water bills, I’d forgotten the wood stove.

It had developed a deep bed of ash, and as it had gone out nearly completely, I cleaned it out and restarted the fire. The andiron support for the fireplace tools had gotten loose so I fixed that while I was at it. And then I washed the stove door glass.

By then it was nearly time to pull the shades and figure out supper. I had decided I wanted to watch either Love Actually, or Four Weddings and a Funeral but discovered I didn’t have either. So I ordered those from the library and settled down to watch more Doc Martin.

I got the stoves going well and headed to bed at 8:30PM.

On Monday I have exercise class, a kitchen to clean up, laundry to do, and I should do something about bills/budget… It’s to be in the 30’s and sunny, so not too much stove tending until afternoon. Still bitter at night though.