Today’s been even quieter if you can believe that! I did hear distant trains, sirens, maybe a car stereo, and a coyote or wolf howling. The coyote sounded cool. I didn’t hear dogs at all today. This would definitely scare most people. The only thing that scares me is the idea of losing this place due to some unforeseen crisis, though we’re doing everything we can possibly think of to cover all our bases in that area. We got renter’s insurance, signed up for AAA, and with the exception of a few goodies I felt I deserved after all I went through, I’ll seldom get new dolls. There’s no room for them here anyway, and as it is, I have no room to set up a 120-piece collection. Some of those pieces may be stuffed animals, but the fact is the same – I have a lot of junk! I’m going to focus on things I need instead. I could use a few sundresses and sleeveless loungers for this climate. I still have to deal with my ear and teeth once he gets us insurance, but those have been a little better lately cuz I’ve been praying about them. They still need to be dealt with, though, at some point.

Although I thought it was a waste of money, I let him spend $20 on a cell phone for me to give him peace of mind when he’s gone. “What if the water leaked or something? You’d need to get a hold of Jesse. You couldn’t just let it run for 6 hours,” he said. Yeah, I suppose he has a point. And it wouldn’t be like I could just run up the hill, especially on a moonless night. There’s a long, winding driveway leading up to where it forks off to each place. Ours goes down to the left, his goes up to the right.

Ok, now I’m hearing Jesse’s dog. You definitely only hear it when nothing’s running or there’s no music playing. Sometimes I couldn’t even drown out the canal dog with my stereo turned up sort of loud. I just hope it never barks a lot. Then it would get old. Up here, though, I don’t suppose there’s much to bark at. I wonder when and where Jesse works. Tom was under the impression he and Maryann had money. If not, maybe he just got home from work.

It was $117 to have the propane tank filled, and Tom expects it to last all summer. I’m glad we don’t have an electric bill. Those are always the worst of the utility bills. No water bill, of course, with the well and septic. The heater, which sounds like a plane rumbling in the distance, makes this weird tapping sound at times and the hot water tank sounds like popcorn popping but seems to work quite well. With these flimsy walls, we’re having to use the cooler during the daytime and the heater at night as we make the transition into summer. I remember we had to do that in Dennis’ trailer on the Maricopa land before the house was hauled in. This was in November when it was starting to cool down. This far inland causes much higher fluctuations in highs and lows, that’s for sure.

Jesse wants to name this road, but as we told Maryann, we’ll probably just get an Auburn UPS box. There’s even a road I didn’t notice the first time around in back of the property, but you can tell by how grassy it is that it hasn’t been used in ages. It winds way up the hillside between Jesse’s place and that little farm where there are actually two houses. You had to go way down to the end of the property to see them, and they’re huge, too. Goats and horses were out grazing in the pasture. We didn’t follow the entire road as we didn’t want the people to think we were nosy. I’ll ask Jesse sometime where it goes.

It’s now illegal to sell non-fluorescent bulbs in California, so we bought some fluorescents, which are brighter and last way longer, to replace some of these old bulbs.

I washed the front kitchen blinds in the shower since they were filthy. I’d like to do the living room and bathroom blinds too, but not until after Jesse replaces those windows. The rest of them look newer and cleaner.

Tom, who’s been making runs to storage, though we have until May to clear it out, pulled the wooden TV tray out today so I could put my laptop on it. We’ve got almost half the stuff out of there now. I’m not going to set up dolls or anything like that till everything else is set up and Jesse’s done with the inside work.

This ought to show you how much time we’ve spent in motels since knowing each other. He said he thought that the stand had been in the motel room, and I told him it hadn’t been. Then he said he was sure it had been in some motel room somewhere, and as I told him, yeah, 3½ years ago in Oregon it was!

We got an inflatable bed because we know it’ll be a while yet before we get to the bed, which is in the very back. I also picked up a cheap blanket at Walmart that’s suitable for this climate. My big heavy comforter is better for cold climates, though I’ll still use it at times here.

We decided a shed alone would be good enough, rather than that, plus a canvas garage as well. Instead, he spent the money that would’ve gone towards the garage on new tires, something he knew he’d need to get soon enough anyway. One was vibrating really badly and cupping the road cuz it was out of balance. They also left a message saying they’ve taken the truck to strip and kill, so there’s an additional $100 for us.