I know, I know. I'm posting my weekly (which technically is supposed to be daily but...) blog post. I'm late, but there was a good reason. We were somewhat lazy today. Laid around drinking coffee, eating breakfast and , if you can believe it, watched some old Loony Tunes Saturday morning cartoons. Once we dropped Rubic off at his job we went to a local city festival to see what we could see. Some cute booths. It gave me some ideas of how to set up my own booths one day soon. We ate totally bad; a corn dog each, lemonade, and we shared a funnel cake. I know. It's bad, but we were at a fair! I mean that's the norm for a fair right. We were tempted by deep fried Oreos, but stuck with a funnel cake cause its what you eat at a fair. I have accomplished a little house maintenance, but it required very little. We are also having homemade pizza for dinner so there is that.
One other thing we did today was to head up to Lowes and pick up some mulch for the yard. This week, with the house pretty much under control, I have turned my focus to the front yard. I wish I could have a picture of what it looked like before, but lets just suffice it to say it was bad. I have two flower beds in my front yard. Both were so overgrown with weeds you couldn't see the flowers underneath. The first bed took me 5 hours of digging, pulling, turning under, replanting etc. I literally could not move by the end of the day. Day two was about the same, but since this bed was smaller it only took 3 hours. I have also put edging (that I already had on hand) around both beds and am putting mulch down to hopefully keep the weeds down next year. My rose bushes have been freed from weeds, fertilized as an apology, and watered. My knock out rose bush has had all the dead blooms removed, pruned some, and is happy as a clam. I trimmed back around the base of the house, shed, and fence. My house no longer looks abandoned. This past year my only time had to be spent in the vegetable garden which left the poor flower beds neglected. With more time, I can now focus on my yard. No longer am I mortified for someone to come over. Joy! I told Dh I am bucking for the cities "Yard of the month" sign. (Smile). I still have more to do in the front and then my attention will turn to the back yard. I really want to get things cleaned up before the temps get too cold. Right now it's beautiful weather and a joy to work outside.
There's a method to my madness. We are able to refinance our home and bring the interest rate down to 4.125 from 7.9 %. This is awesome. We have never been where we could refinance our home because we live in a mobile home. The newest company that has our mortgage does refinance mobile homes! We are going to keep the payment the same and pay this bad boy off early. Our Goal is 10 years instead of the 15 we have refinanced. That will coincide with DH retirement. As part of the process we are having the house appraised. I want everything spiffy so we get a good appraisal. It's a personal thing for me. It won't affect our refinance, but I want to have as much equity as I can get in our house. So anyway, next week will be a whirl wind. I have the appraiser to follow up on, a handy man coming out to estimate some repairs we need to have done, I am to follow up on a money market account for our emergency fund, as well as my other projects. I must say i'm not bored with being home yet.
So, I don't know if I mentioned this before, but we have been having an ongoing difference of opinion when it comes to our state tax man. Back in 2012 I failed to send in the Schedule A for our itemized deductions. Totally my fault, and that set in motion a "you owe us" and our response "no we don't" situation. I can now say that we have finally received the all clear and we don't owe. I submitted everything they said we needed and they are satisfied. It took HR Block to finally call them and say "Just what do you need". It's amazing how fast things get resolved when you speak to an actual person.
Frugality has not gone the way of the do do in all this activity. I have been able to keep up with bread making and other baking. Our only eat out escapade was today's fair. We have been keeping up with our budget and watching our power and water use. The cooler weather has helped in that we can now go without the air conditioner for a few days. I've been able to do some much needed mending which is great because it has just been accumulating.
So that's all the update from my neck of the woods. How are things with you? I would love to hear from you.
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