Sat 051609

Last night I dreamed this place had a facelift and was sporting a new skin. I don't remember the theme, just a vague image of taupe/brown colors.

A put some pix of my new car on Facebook, here are a few:







I'm having a lot of fun driving it; getting used to a stick again. I'm definitely trying to relive my youth as this car is very, very similar to the Mercury Tracer I drove in my 20s - practically the same color, a deep red.

In other "me" news it looks like I might have another trip this summer, a reunion of college girlfriends in VA over the July 4th weekend. It's always nice to have something to look forward to, don't you think?

The house looks sooooo good. You guys did a great job with your renovations. The car ain't too bad either!

Thanks. We still haven't painted the front door/porch and the cream really clashes with the white, lol. Rob wants to do the porch in vinyl which requires replacement of all the bannisters which is why no painting yet there. I have no excuses for not doing the door yet, other than undecided on a color.

I would really liked to have had the grand touring pkg on the car - the interior upgrades were sweet - but with another car to buy we couldn't justify the expense. Goodbye seat warmers; auto lights, wiper and air; sunroof; gps and leather seats. Actually I prefer cloth seats - leather is hot and sticky in the summer and cold in the winter. I can already see how this GA clay is going to show horribly on those black floor mats, tho.

Have you guys put your house back on the market yet? For sale signs are popping up all over in my small corner of the universe, including one of our next door neighbors.

No, we decided to wait for a rebound, and instead have decided to refinance.....taking it from 6.62 down to 4.67 percent. I'll get my cost back within a year, and if the market rebounds, we may put it up for sale in 2012.....just before retirement. Basically, we've lumped the first mortgage and, the second mortgage we took out for Angela's education, plus a small amount on home equity line of credit.. In total, it only comes out to about 75,000, which if I had to, could just write a check for.....but this way, I get the tax deduction, which saves a coupla thou a year, plus the consolidation factor. The house dropped about 20,000 over the past year, which considering, ain't too bad. It's in a good and desireable neighborhood, so I really don't forsee too much trouble when it does come time to sell, and the Louisville housing market is pretty cheap compared to most of the country, so getting something smaller at a reasonable price definitely won't be a problem. Houses that sell for 200,000 in Louisville go for three times that in other places, so we feel fortunate that we haven't taken the hit that other people have taken. Employment figures are realtively stable, with not too much of a hit on the job market, so unless things just crumble economically across the country, things should work out.

That sounds like a good plan. Especially the retirement in 2012 part. We had refinanced a while back and combined the home equity credit line we used to remodel the kitchen with our mortgage so our rate is 5.37. We now have another home equity credit line used for the siding and windows but according to Rob refinancing at this point isn't going to help us all that much, if any.

Even with the falling values our house is still worth a good bit more than we paid for it and we feel sure that sitting tight things will only continue to improve. Our trouble will be finding an affordable place to retire to. The plan was to have already purchased a place on a lake we could use in summers and pay off before retirement but lake front property within 100 miles of Atlanta is outrageous.

What we need is to take advantage of someone's misfortune during this downturn and buy cheap....but then there's the two cars, Deanna going to college in a year and a reasonable doubt our 16 yo central air/heat system will outlast this summer. It's always something, eh.