Ups are up and the downs are...quite a bit lower

Okay, it happened. The loan actually funded and there is now thousands of dollars in our savings account where less than 24 hours ago there was but six dollars and change. We've got to set up a couple of accounts, one for emergency reserves and one to fund an offset each month for the additional payment we'll be making. And a few more bills to handle personally. and we should be left with about $8K to play with. And that's not including the single house payment we get to skip that we would normally be making this month. We know the things we'd like to do but we've got to sit down and map it out--priorities vs available funds--but for now we can celebrate knowing that for once in over a decade and a half we do not have any major financial worries. We will be able to pay bills (on time! and and in full!) and still buy groceries at the end of the month. And all the while our credit will be mending as time passes.

Naturally, the wife and I figured we earned the right to go out and celebrate. We chose one of our standards: Macaroni Grill. It was unusually crowded for a Tuesday night, no doubt owing to the end of the school year for many folks, but we were seated reletively soon. The food was good, the wine passable and the celebration relaxing.

As it often does, the conversation turned to the church and this time on confession. I mentioned that the Jews believe that you must first confess and apologize to the one you've wronged before you can confess to God.

[section redacted]

Or maybe I'm just in denial and this will come back to bite me (and us) later. But as I see it, if there's nothing to be done about a situation, there's little point in worrying about it. What matters now is what is going on now. And right now things are good and look like they are going to get better.

Coming into the Light

Tomorrow could be the day. Could be. Could be. Could very well be the day. We've been strapped by debt and piss-poor credit for over 15 years and tomorrow could mark the begining of our climb out of it. Our re-fi should fund tomorrow. Okay, I know we're taking a big hit on interest but it'll pay off all our creditors and give us not only some cash out to finally fix stuff around the house but also, and this is most important, allow us to put away a sizable chunk of change as our emergency fund. Part of the money, too, will go into a special fund that we will drawn on to offset the increase in our monthly payment. That fund is designed to last for two years. After which time our loan will switch to an adjustable and we will be able to shop for a better rate with our much improved credit score. But most of the money, roughly 2.5 month's worth of our household income, will be banked away. Well, we might take some of that and invest it. Finally, we'll be able to act like adults and invest beyond my retirement account.
Still, this chicken has not yet hatched. We were burned once before with a promised re-fi but that one never made it this far. I mean, we've signed the papers with the notary so our end is good. Right? Then what did they mean when they said that it didn't fund today as expected because they had to clear up something with the title? Oh, please God, let this go through. Believe me, we have learned our lesson on this one.

Posting via e-mail?

Wow! Okay, call me a noobee if need be, but this is slick: to be able to update my blog via email and not have to go through the website.  Why is this so cool?  Because I work for a very security conscious State office and often the web-interfaces that are used to post stuff are not allowed through our firewall.  Such was the case with my previous blog, of which the entire site has since disappeared from the ether.  So, I and you can look forward to more active blogging experience than we previously imagined.

Alas, poor Blogsburg. I knew him...

Somehow, someway I got connected with a blogging site called Blogsburg.com and started my very first blog experience ever there. Not a whole lot of people there but I was one of the most prolific bloggers until "Jenn" started posting nearly every day and they tightened the security settings on the firewall at my work. So not only did I slip down in the rankings of post numbers, but my means of gaining ground was severely limited. And then, the site goes down! It's been down for about a week now and I have no idea what's happened.

The thing is, I was forming a sort of "structure" for my blog site and now it's gone. Granted, my topics were somewhat diverse and unrelated but that's me and what I'm into: theater, politics religion/spirituality, and blathering on about my life. So now I'm faced with a new blog mechanism: Blogger. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. This was one of the first ones and those johnny-come-lately's have nothing on these tried and true old vets of the Blog Wars. Fine. Whatever. What matters to me, now that I've got a serious case of the "gottablogs" is that I find an outlet for my blather, build up content and find an audience.

I grant you, this is not a particularly auspicious start. BUT, it is a start nonetheless.

The curtain rises...

Sure...shit happens. But all sorts of shit happens. Good shit. Bad shit. Shit you haven't figured out quite yet. Whatever. It happens and now it's done. Time to wipe our collective asses and move on.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my intro.