The DOW in April was off -5.29%and DOW YTD -9.25. Our retirement is less than a million the first time since a year ago January. I upped the value of our business condo by 10% being that we had it 18 months and real estate in the Ames area continues to climb. Emilie came the first weekend in April so she could get her ring resized at Joseph's and BEW's came for Alyas' BD and Lydia's Volleyball game in DM. Brandon and Philly bought Alyas an E-bike at Erik's in DM. Very nice. The second weekend in April I had a two-day online Spring Bowen Conference on Bowen Theory and the Elderly. I ended up with 10 CEU’s, so I’m about done with that. Easter weekend we went to Brandon and Philly’s from Saturday through Sunday and went to Easter service at their church. On Saturday night Brandon fixed pork carnitas tacos by putting a pork shoulder in the crock pot. It was really good and he gave us some of the mixes he’d bought on Amazon. Mary Sue spent a lot of time this month getting ready for camping a month in May and packing for her cruise with Philly and Emilie the 21st of April. We picked up the camper: Easy Camper had put on new tires and fixed the tire skirting and put in a new CO2 monitor and winterized it and de-winterized it and put a new plug on our Lincoln as the old one was not letting the plug from the RV stay plugged. All of that was around $1,500. I also decided to fix the Toyota Camry with its leaky power steering for $1,600 at Wilson Toyota, after find out with 171,000 miles on it and a 2005, it was still worth $7,000. Unreal. Marty and Amanda went to a Warrior’s playoff game against Denver in San Francisco, which the Warrior’s won handily. Jeff and his girlfriend went to Las Vegas for Jeff to learn from a chocolatier as he’s opening a chocolate shop. He also went to France with her. Emilie interviewed for a principle position in Minneapolis after she was able to sub a few days in her high school in St. Paul and really enjoyed it. but the Minneapolis admin position fell flat. She's pretty discouraged about that and thinking of working as a sub in the Grand Rapids School system and learning to sell real estate on the side. We agreed to pay for Marty and Amanda’s groom’s dinner and sent a check for $2300 or so to her dad as her father had already paid the deposit. MS and I went to Men's Warehouse in Ankeny for me to be fitted for a tux for Em's wedding. MS went on Emilie's cruise and she took $1000 extra in cash for that. I also ordered a couch for the CR office and that was $1,200. We are starting a 401K and health insurance for our staff and Emily Gregory and I have been working on that. I continue to write supervision materials and this month wrote the Bad Habit Cycle and updated my parenting paper. Brandon hired 5 new therapists for CR to start between now and September. He also fired Alyssa after repeated warnings to come to work on time, something she was not able to figure out. We left for Galveston, TX on April 28 and stayed at Joplin KOA one night and at Texarkana, KOA two nights enroute. Balances on credit cards reflect the above including buying new furniture and furnishings for the new office in Cedar Rapids. I hired Shannon Haus as a therapist in Ames. He'll start in July and has school counseling experience. I spent one Saturday training him in the first two sessions with a couple.
I increased the value of our vehicles because of shortage used vehicles are up in price: 2017 Navigator L ($41,000), 2005 Camry XLT ($7,000); 2008 Miata ($20,000), 1986 Honda Shadow 500 ($3,000); 1995 Kawasaki Vulcan ($4,000) = $75,000. Ad our 2012 Jayco FB22 at $15,000 = $90,000. I upped the value of our business condo by 10% also because real estate has gone up in the last 18 months in Ames. |