Mid January 2023!

We blew through the holidays.  The boys were out of school for 2 weeks.  Jacob had a few days off from basketball games/practice, so he enjoyed a few days of skiing, working out and hanging with friends.  Joseph got some time in with JR at work.

I am still enjoying work.  Working close to 40 hours a week.  Definitely more than I want long term. The boss and I are hoping to maybe hire a third person in March or April.  I told him I need a good handle of the invoicing side of things (our A/P, A/R person just left - she worked about 15 hours a week).  That way I can train someone coming in in all aspects of the office.  We have hit a glass ceiling, so to speak, and need to either stop saying yes to things or we need to bring on more crews to do more work.  I think he is leaning toward the latter.

Some big things have happened over the last several weeks.  Probably the most impactful, several days before Christmas it was bitterly cold, like -40.  That kind of cold can reek havoc on vehicles.  So, Ben's heat wasn't working so he couldn't drive it to work in the bitter cold and Jacob's car would randomly die so he was selective when he drove his car.  We were all kind of sharing 2 cars and making it work.  Then on the 20th, our nicest car, Subaru, was totaled in a wreck.  The unnamed individual rear ended a truck in 5 o'clock traffic.  We had a fiasco getting the car towed.  Once it was towed, Jacob went with me to get everything out, take off cargo box etc.  

The crazy thing about the evening of the wreck, within an hour of the wreck, we had left the scene of the wreck and saw one of our vehicles pulled over by cops.  It was a minor infraction, so no ticket.  But then about 10 minutes after that pull over, the other male in the house was also pulled over, for the same minor infraction.  The joke of the night was that the Morales men represented well on the police scanner that night!

The biggest lesson learned for me from the wreck, was insurance.  We have always carried just liability, because none of our cars are that nice and they have always been paid for.  What I paid in towing fees, would have easily covered the full coverage premium on the Subaru.  So, totally rethinking the car insurance.  The other thing, if you look at the pictures below, the car crumpled exactly as it was designed to do.  Both of the front doors still open properly, so the front end took the full brunt of the wreck.  The air bags went off but the inside is fully intact.  Crazy!  There were only very minor injuries - seatbelt bruise and friction nose burn from the air bag.

We got through the cold and all vehicles began functioning normally.  Just a few days ago, we found a new work truck for Jose, so hope to pick it up this week.  Although we are paying cash, I will get full coverage!  

Jacob's basketball season has caused some frustrations.  The district sports teams are still struggling to keep up with the larger schools in our district.  They current record is 2-6.  The last few games he was struggling with some minor injuries, but his broken finger, from football, had been bothering him.  We went for an xray last night and sure enough, the same break again.  Thinking it never fully healed and then got re injured.  We will see a hand specialist this week.  The school's athletic trainer seems to think they might do surgery.  There are probably still some tendon issues too.