When You Feel Like Things are Falling Into Place

We drove out to the city today before work.

When they called and asked if we could be there at 1:30 this afternoon I replied, "No ma'am, I'll be in the middle of some important state testing with my students then, can we do it earlier?". She replied with, "Sure, how does 8:00am sound?" and that was that.

I'm always reminded when we drive through, or back there, of the reasons I wanted to leave. As we drove down the highway headed towards our exit, an airplane took off from the airport and it was as large as life. I remember our first apartment and how it was right next to the train tracks. Often the sound of a coal train would awaken me in the middle of the night as it rumbled through on it's way to or from Maine.

We refinanced our mortgage; changed from a 30 year loan, of which we had 18 years left to pay on, to a 20 year, dropped 2.ish%, our monthly payment drops $100 until our taxes go up again, and we will save so many thousands of dollars (to the tune of 50-something if I remember right) over those remaining years that we couldn't not do it. I realize that the interest rates are higher now than they have been in recent years, but we weren't in a position then to be able to do anything about it. The time was right at the moment, so we jumped on it.

We're going to take the escrow money that we don't have to pay ourselves back with, and the extra money we aren't paying each month and start saving up for new windows. It's one of our bigger projects, in addition to the the dozens of other projects that need attention, but this is a pressing issue. We'll not only increase the value of the house by removing those hundred year old windows, but hopefully we'll see a fuel savings as well.