Holy Holes

I need to start patching up the wall in the Master Bedroom. It's been sitting unfinished way too long. I found this great tutorial on how to patch holes small and large and thought I'd pass it on.

Storms: we cannot handles them

So, it's good times here in DC this morning. Since I grew up in New Hampshire I am pretty accustomed to winter weather, but DC is not. Most people shoveled the inch of snow of the sidewalks last night - leaving the freezing rain to form an interesting walk to work. Walking in the street proved a little less hazardous. I shoveled this morning and found a nice clean layer of brick underneath. That's how you do it people!

Monday = Big day

Most Monday's are, well, meh. Yesterday was a whirlwind. I had to scramble to get the rest of our refinance docs in, faxing and typing and all that jazz. Dan was on MSNBC last night (seriously!!!). Then, we raced to close on our refinance (yeah! money saved!). And... the apartment across the street caught on fire and firemen lined our street and brought out all sorts of gear (ladders, hazmat crew).

There was never a dull moment at DC Rowhouse yesterday.

Renovation Confession

So, you know how we re-did our fireplace in...June?. Remember how I used the wrong paint to paint the metal portion of the fireplace? Then, I ordered some tile in October?

Well, it still all looks the same. No tile, still painted in primer. It's pathetic and embarrassing.

Finally, last weekend I re-painted the fireplace with the right paint (extreme heat safe). Since I was missing my lovely fires so much, I started one in the fireplace even though it isn't completely finished (or completely safe? hey, we have extinguishers). I laid down the tile on top of the ripped up space in front and after 5 or 6 attempts I actually got one started.

Why has it taken so darn long to finish the fireplace? Well, putting in the new tile requires the wood floors to be filled in first, meaning the floors need to be refinished, meaning we need to fill it in the kitchen, to do so we need to rip out the cabinets and re-do the kitchen. So, yeah, it's taken awhile and probably some more time before its finally done.

It's that time . . .

I can't tell you how many magazines I have received giving the message to slim down in as many ways as possible: physically, environmentally, economically. Over at DC Rowhouse, we are doing our best to make an effort in these areas. We rented a storage unit and have slowly been hauling things over - granted this is more of a declutter than a slimming down, but we certainly took tons of bags of goods to the Salvation Army. The main effort we are making is to slim our finances, more on the outgoing side than the incoming.

We saved money by bundling our phone with our cable and internet - $50 a month to be exact! That was a pretty nice savings! We now have a "digital phone" which means when the power goes out - so does the phone. This worried me a little, but we both have cell phones and can use those if we need to. But, an annual savings of $600 makes us really happy.

In an effort to slim down physically and economically we have been bringing our lunches almost everyday. Which, makes the grocery bill go up a tad though saves in the long run. At around $8 a day for lunch, $40 a week, $160 a month . . . times two. . . we save $320 bucks a month! Wow. That's some serious dough. If you think about annual savings, it makes it $3840 - that's a nice little vacation if you ask me. I'm sure we will occasionally still buy lunch, but it all helps.

We have also been cooking our meals more often for health reasons and I think that should save us another $100 a month., or $1200 a year.

Oh, and here is the biggest savings of all: we are refinancing!! Refinancing the mortgage will save us $400 a month, $4800 a year. Yeah, pretty nice!

All in all, here is the savings breakdown:

$600 (phone)

$3840 (lunches)

$1200 (less meals out)

$4800 (refi!)

$10,440

It is pretty amazing to see it written down on paper! But, I am sure we will feel the savings soon enough.

Inauguration 2009

I went to the concert on Sunday, saw Obama on Monday, went to the Mall and watched the swearing in on Tuesday - it's been a busy few days. I have so many pictures and stories to tell, but it's going to take a few days to compile, and hopefully it will be worth it.

Stay tuned . . .

OBAMA CAME OVER!!!!!!!!!!

This morning (well, 11:30ish), I left the house to drop Dan and our friend Pat off at the train station to head downtown. On the way out we noticed there was a van blocking our street and a news truck nearby. We assumed it was about the traffic and continued on our way. I was suppose to continue on to run errands but came back to the house as I forgot something. As I stepped out of the car I heard chanting of some kind, or yelling. I went into the house, grabbed a camera and went out the front to see what the excitement was. As I opened the door I saw the street was filled with vans, cop cars, and an ambulance. I first thought it was something terrible happening and felt terrible I was taking my camera.

I approached the crowd and asked the closest person what was happening. She told me, "Obama's in there" and pointed to the large United Way house on the corner. I almost peed my pants. I had stood hours in the cold to hear him talk yesterday and here he was, 50 feet away. No way. I saw the amount of secret service and thought it could be true, but deep down expected Biden to walk out. After 25 minutes of waiting. . . Barack Obama, our new President (as of tomorrow), came out of the building smiling and waving. I could not believe it. I was almost too much to focus on taking pictures.

Here are the mediocre pictures I was able to get (they are in reverse order):