Another month has passed, just about.

July was fairly calm all around. I was off for most of the first week because I was supposed to be in St. Louis for a conference that didn't happen.

We celebrated our 28th anniversary on the 12th with dinner at a local Italian place we like. They had 2-person tables set up along the sidewalk out front which was nice. Well spaced and the sidewalk is covered. Plus it faces east so by dinner time, it has been in the shade for a while so not terribly hot.

Work has been picking up slightly but still low compared to normal. Not too many COVID suspects but still a handful every week.

Financially, all is well. I just paid 3rd quarter property taxes. I get paid tomorrow and my take home jumped $500 because I maxed out the SS tax for the year. I wasn't expecting that so it was a nice little surprise.

Nothing else too exciting to report. I hope everyone is doing well, staying cool, and staying safe.

I'm on a conference call and decided to take a look at our portfolio. As of market close today, we hit $1.4 million for the first time. Barely, but we hit it. And it could drop back below that mark tomorrow given the volatility of the market these days, but I'll take it for the moment.

So I posted that last night, an electric circuit tripped and wouldn't reset. I scheduled the electrician to come out this afternoon.

I checked the circuit this morning before I went to work and it still wouldn't reset. When I got home around 2pm, and the electrician was on his way, I tried one more time and sure enough it reset and everything worked.

When the tech came, I told him the story and my theory that during the storm, some moisture had somehow gotten into something, most likely one of the outside light fixtures. Once it dried up, everything worked again. He agreed with me and explained that there was really no way for him to trace where the problem had come from.

The "overkill" solution would be to take apart every connection on that circuit, check the wires, and rewrap and seal everything, but he did not recommend doing that. If this happens again, I should call them and at that point they would start tracing everything but if it was just a fluke from a severe storm, it might never give us any trouble again.

I'm okay with that. He charged nothing for coming out since he never got past our front step and a 5-minute conversation. So crisis averted, at least for now.

We had a violent tropical storm move through the area this afternoon. High winds, heavy rain, even some hail in the area. Our lights flickered a few times but never went out. We did get a bit of water in the basement, which isn't unusual, and it was pretty minor. We thought we had escaped the worst of it.

Then a short time ago, DD went into the family room, turned on the TV, and the power went out. It only affected the family room, half the living room, and part of the basement. I checked the circuit box and one circuit is tripped but I could not get it to reset.

It's a GFCI circuit so I'm thinking water must have found it's way into something on that circuit, like maybe one of the outside lights. I can't see anything obvious but something tripped that circuit.

I put a call into our electrician. I didn't see the need to pay for an emergency call tonight since the rest of the house is fine so they're coming out tomorrow afternoon.

Hopefully, they can trace and fix the cause and hopefully, it won't be anything major/expensive.