Extremely useful day -- but I'm glad it's over!

First thing this morning (heading out at 7 AM) I took Rocky over to a new dog grooming place -- right next door to the place where we get horse feed regularly, that's how we came across it.  Then I drove back up to drop off my Ridgeline to have that front bumper replaced.  All I wanted originally was the bumper fastened in correctly, but they said it would have to be replaced completely instead.  But I didn't mind all that much anyway because I had a few scratches on it so getting a whole new one seemed like a fine thing actually.  

See how that front bumper is sticking out from the rest of the side?
That's what I wanted fixed to begin with.
But getting rid of all those scrapes on there is pretty darned good as well!  .

Then once I said I'd have it replaced, they also told me that those front bumpers only come in black so I would have to pay an additional $600-$700 to have it painted white! Well, forget THAT!  Given that all the lights and things on the front of the truck are trimmed in black anyway, and given that each time I get it scratched the black sticks out anyway, well . . . I just told them to install it in black the way it comes and NOT paint it.  And given that, it not only was significantly cheaper, they also didn't have to keep the truck for three days either!  . . . instead I dropped it off about 8 or 8:30 this morning and it was ready to pick back up at 2!  Terrific!  

And I really like the way it looks now, too!  I really prefer the black front bumper to the white one anyway.  I think it looks really nice.  The front bumpers on the Ridgelines run all the way up to the hood so the entire front is black now.  And as I said -- I really like that!  And now if I get any additional scratches, they won't be noticeable.  A black scratch isn't going to stick out at all on that one, that's for sure!

Then today a new maid came as well.  She came at 9 AM and she said she would probably be done by 11 or 11:30, but the poor girl ended up there until 2 PM!  I guess the place was both bigger AND yukkier than she thought, huh?  But it's nice that everything is tidy again now.  

And while she was cleaning we made all the dogs stay outside -- something they're not used to.  So when they finally came back in this evening at supper time, they all ate and then every one of them dropped down to sleep instantly! It's VERY quiet in here tonight. Nice!

But we also spent about 3 hours over at the Social Security building today, too.  We had to sign some papers and prove that we have our own health insurance until the end of March so that we can get Social Security beginning April 1 (instead of the usual January 1).  So that's been taken care of now -- we can get proof of that online tomorrow, then we can go ahead and get our "F" portion insurance from USAA once we have that. 

Oh, and Joey brought us another 75 bales of hay yesterday, too!  He now has a huge enclosed truck so he can deliver hay whether it's raining or not.  In the past, if there was any possibility of rain he couldn't drive down here (over an hour that it takes) so it was a lot harder to arrange for hay delivery. Yesterday there was a possibility of rain all over the area, but he came on down anyway and with the truck right next to the hay building it probably wouldn't have mattered if it WAS raining, but at that time it wasn't.  So we have enough hay now to make it through to May or early June.  Then we can get NEW hay.  

So with all those things done, we can enjoy our nice clean house, and just kick back and relax with virtually NOTHING else we have to accomplish at the moment.  Excellent!  

Life is good!