More home improvement stuff and time for me to get off the schnide.

Our driveway needs seal coated. I haven't decided if I'm going to attempt this myself or not, yet. I went out there the other day and sprayed weed killer on the vegetation growing through the cranks. I've heard that the cost associated with having someone else do it is worth it compared to the hassle of doing yourself. Angie's list says the national average for having it professionally done is about $385. That's not bad. Our driveway isn't very big (about 500 square feet, I think) and we live in the Midwest where costs are usually lower. I'm leaning that way, but I need to get estimates to be sure.

Our new vacuum cleaner arrived yesterday. It's a cute little thing I bought for $90 from Lowe's online. I usually don't buy stuff like that online, but the reviews were good. It's a canister deal that still uses the old dust bag technology. I wanted to go with something like that because I've gone through four of those bagless deals in the last ten years. Maybe this one will last longer. We don't have much area to vacuum so I think this is going to be adequate.

The next big project is going to be my wife's car. It's not really a home improvement deal in the traditional sense, but we own it and what we will do will be an improvement. My wife has hoarding tendencies. She's not real bad, but if she doesn't have me around to keep her in check it can get out of hand. She's been doing really good, lately. I can see a big improvement in her from when we first met as far as the house goes, but her car needs cleared out. We are going to do that on Saturday. We also think she may need new brakes and we are going to try to take care of that next Tuesday.

If you have been following my home improvement posts you will know that we've done quite a bit around here, lately. We haven't really been able to take care of the place like we should over the past four years or so because we've been in a hole financially. It's a really long story involving job loss, bankruptcy, and crappy wages. But we are back now. We both have recently gotten better paying jobs and we got a cash gift from my wife's parents after they received an inheritance that really helped us out. Instead of watching my bank account get drained every month we are now moving the other direction.

When you work hard, and I have worked very hard over the last four years, and you still don't have much to show for it, it robs you of your dignity. It's a very frustrating and depressing place to be. We now have enough to get what we need, maintain our home, and have a little extra to treat ourselves with. We do not try to live extravagantly. We have a two bedroom home. We have two cars, but they have some age on them. One is twelve years old and one is seven years old. They are both paid for and we plan on making them last as long as we can. We don't have any expensive tastes or hobbies. We mostly just buy what we need.

Oh, and that getting off the schnide deal in the subject line? One of my hobbies is writing, but I haven't been engaging in it much in a while. I don't know if it's writer's block or what the deal might be, but this post has been an exercise in trying to work through it.