It's free

I am living without a personal credit card at the moment. We went out to eat Saturday evening. Sharon was going to leave her purse at home but I said "you are going to have to have a credit card with you because mine is locked." So Sharon is paying all the expenses till this week Friday when I will receive  a new card. Till then I am living free, cause I am sure Sharon will pay the bill when her card is due. 

It is a good thing that our cards on the same account have different numbers on them. Someone tried to buy over $600 of liquor on line Thursday morning with my card number. That means they also had the security code off the back of the card. CapitalOne was quick to contact me asking if I had made the purchase. It probably tripped their system as I try to keep my alcohol buys under $500 if it's before noon. 

We buy everything with credit cards so for the last couple of days I have been finding out how often I buy stuff. I had to ask Sharon to pick up a loaf of bread because I have no credit card. I was going to buy some socks, nope, no credit card.

The kids that shovel a path for me to the door of our storage building did a lot more shoveling on Friday. They made ramps and a curved run for sledding.

I asked if I could take their picture. I should have asked if I could borrow a sled for a few runs. A lot of kids who did not have school on Friday were inside with their computer games. It made my day to see these guys outside having free fun in the snow.

I stopped at the lumber yard to buy a 2x4 this week. I was replacing a bathroom vent fan and needed a couple of 14 inch pieces to make the new fan fit. As I was driving away, I was asked if I wanted some trim boards for our rentals. They were going to throw them in the dumpster.

Oh yes I did. I am not sure how many hundreds of dollars of trim wood I loaded up and took to storage. I was wondering how much it was going to cost to trim out the basement ceiling in the house we are working on now. When I built the budget on the house I did not include that trim work. (Yea, I know bad move.) Now I know how much the trim will cost $0.00. Hey, that puts me back in budget.

It was time to get the water turned on in the house. The water line came in behind sheet rock in the basement. I thought it might be prudent to tear off the sheet rock and look at the pipe as the heat had been turned off in the house for a couple of years. The pipe was split for about 4 feet. That would have made for an exciting few minutes as the water was turned on.

After I replaced that pipe there was only one other water line break. Usually it is worse than that. I did find they had removed the drain line under the vanity in the bathroom. I had all the parts I needed in our collection of odds and ends and was feeling pretty good about fixing it for free and using up some of the parts out of the box of stuff we have. I did wonder why there was a piece of tape on the copper line in the basement. Now I know. The copper line had a hole in it and the previous owner had "fixed" it at no cost with tape. Yea, that didn't hold water. Time for the saws-all and new schedule 40  pipe and elbow up to where I had put in new under the vanity. Wasn't a free fix after all.

I am not sure why anyone would paint the wood in a bathroom dark brown (house we remodeled last year had it painted black, also not a good choice.). I put on the first coat of white. That will take at minimum another 2 coats.

When it was time to wash out the paint brush, I thought "I could use some hot water". The fuse box needs to be replaced with breakers and at this point there are a lot of wires not hooked up. I checked earlier when we turned the current on that the water heater was shut off. You don't want a water heater running if there is no water in it. I was going to put the fuses back in to start up the water heater when I saw one fuse was wrapped in aluminum foil. That means they blew the fuse at some time and with the foil had a direct connection. As Tom told me, "that is an infinity fuse." you can run as many amps as you want through it. Course it will burn your house down too.

So I checked the Air Conditioner fuse. Yep, another infinity fuse. Makes one ask why this house is still standing. The owner thought he had found a way to have free fuses. 

I do have the ceilings that fell from the roof leaks fixed. I hate working over my head.

I loaded up partial paint cans. I think they multiply in our basement. 17 cans of paint. I mixed 4 of them together with a can of miss-mixed paint I bought at Walmart.

For starting with a gallon of pink, I think it turned out a lovely tan color. Painted 1 bedroom

and the kitchen. So now I only have 13 partial cans of paint left. Anyway, that is how many I had there Saturday afternoon, probably be 17 again tomorrow morning when I get there.

When I look back at the week, I had a lot of "free" fixes and I saw some kids having some free fun. They say the best things in life are free. 

I do know the very best thing in life is free. My sins are all paid for by grace, the free gift of God. It did not cost me anything. Jesus died for me and all I have to do is accept forgiveness and I get eternal life with God.

Now, once I accept that forgiveness, God wants me to live my life for Him and give up my own desires. I am still working on that, while I rejoice in having eternal life paid for by Jesus. 

Come join me in getting salvation for free!!