Enjoying some good news

I just love getting unexpected money.  In addition the the recent $1200 stimulus deposit (which I never planned on or budgeted for - EVER! Politicians are too flakey, LOL), I just got my annual escrow statement from the mortgage company. Our property taxes only update every 2 years, so, so far we had been paying what they estimated our property taxes to be, when we took the loan. After getting our assessment a few months ago I thought that my mortgage payment was going to go up about $100 a month. I open up the letter and the payment is going down $102 a month and there was a check included for $1519! Wooo! It's like 2 good news's in one :)

When I called my mom yesterday morning she was very chipper and had no problem remembering that they told her due to some Covid positive people (workers, from my understanding) they all have to stay in their apartments. DD called her in the afternoon and said she was still very chipper.

Helping my half sister with Quickbooks has given us a bunch of phone chat time lately, which has been nice. She's not working anymore, so has more free time during days, so I'm going to try to make a point that we actually talk on the phone more often. It's easy for me to take a break from work for a little bit during the day. Did you know you can't herd buffalo?! That's what I learned talking to her yesterday. They have a herd of about 150 bison and it's vaccinating time and it's a long process, because you just can't herd them into the coral like cattle. They won't do it. It's interesting. Her boyfriend has to put their feed in the coral area and not feed them out in the field. Eventually they will come in, but she said they are smart and stubborn and there's still about half of them that need to come in, haha.

The outdoor nativity manger scene I ordered arrived yesterday. I think it will look nice out in our front yard next Christmas. Dh had hoped it might store in this larger old bin he has, but the tallest wise man is just a bit too tall, LOL. I found a large bin at Home Depot that will work, so next time I'm in the city I will swing in and pick one up. Seems to me like it would just be easier to store it in the box (that is kind of flat) it came in, but dh likes things in bins and all the same, so they stack easy and are all uniform.

It's super slippery on the pavement outside this morning. I had to take some mail to go out. I ended up walking on our lawn as much as possible, then slowly crossed our street to the other side and walked down along the gravel to the mailbox.

DD is going to try and see if she can start making/selling some of those hall tree's like her and her dh just made. It cost about $60 to make, plus their time, but she saw someone was selling them for $250. She was thinking $200.

Now that we are fairly done with all our big projects (still have a couple, like carpeting for the bonus room, but not in any big hurry) and not spending all my extra money each month, I'm going to get started this month paying extra on my 2nd mortgage loan. I want to knock that out in 5 years or less. Since our builder kept adding on costs and the insulation ended up costing us 3x more than he estimated, we ended up needing to borrow more than the conforming loan limit, so we did a small 2nd loan through the bank. It's set up with a 20 year term. If I start adding an extra $250/mo to the payment it will be paid in 5 years. As soon as that loan gets paid I'll take that monthly payment and start adding it to the regular mortgage as extra payment.

One of my swag gifts from my employer was an insulated mug, so I tried that with my coffee this morning. Definitely kept it hot the whole time I was drinking it. 

A couple we are friends with, who live in another state, both have come down with Covid. They aren't hospital sick, but definitely fairly sick. I'm not surprised they got it, though, but he has some pretty major health issue going on the past few years and they really seemed to have not taken a lot of precautions, which is really stupid. They go out to eat, spend time with friends, etc. She just traveled the week before Christmas and from her Facebook sounds like she visited a bunch of different friends and family while back at her employer city for her job. He also posted on Facebook the week before Christmas that if there was anyone in their area who didn't have a place to go for Christmas dinner they were invited to their house, so I'm sure they had people there then, too. Hopefully, they will both recover soon (been sick since the day after Christmas).

In our state (not sure what others are doing) places like where my mom live are in the first phase for the vaccine and the email I got about it from her senior living place said when they are available they will be offered/given there at the facility, so hopefully that is soon.