Out of Town

This week went by pretty fast. Toni went to Midland Texas for a few days for her job and I stayed home with the girls and worked. I was on call this week but thankfully it wasn't too busy. I still ended up accumulating 5 more hours of comp time which is kind of sad considering I took 3 hours off on Monday but oh well. My comp time balance is nearing 50 hours at work and I've built up quite a bit of vacation time since the pandemic started. Needless to say, when the pandemic is over, I'm going to take a much needed vacation! We'll see what happens. The number of deaths from the pandemic in the country passed the 200k milestone this week. I don't see an end in sight either. There's talk of a vaccine being close but I'm not holding my breath. The stance being taken now by the government seems to be just ignoring the problem and hoping it will go away. We've been told that hardly anyone is affected by this virus which is ironic considering that it's currently the 3rd leading cause of death in the country. I'll just continue to be safe and take care of the family. We're doing well and continuing to stay home as much as possible. I've been listening to a lot of Dave Ramsey and Chris Hogan audiobooks.  If nothing else, it's been a good distraction from the pandemic to focus on early retirement. We'll see how it goes but I think 60 is the target right now. I've been considering taking some classes on financial planning and maybe looking into getting certified and becoming a Certified Financial Planner. I'm still kind of toying with the idea but we'll see how it goes. I'm making really good money right now and would hate to have to start over with a new career. I've always enjoyed finance and I've been investing for over 20 years and decided to really start pushing hard a couple of years ago toward the goal of retiring early. Speaking of careers, Toni began her refresher course to get her real estate license yesterday. That will be a few weekends of work and then she'll take the test. After she gets the license, she'll probably start selling real estate part time and if it's something she enjoys, we'll plan accordingly and she can change careers. We'll see how all of that goes but I'm proud of her for pursuing her dream. :)

I'm so over 2020...

 To say that 2020 has been a bad year would be an understatement. This week, aunt Sarah fell and broke both of her feet! She'll be in a wheelchair for the next couple of months. Everything here was comparatively quiet. Work is still busy but the new person started on Tuesday and I think he's going to help take a lot of the load off. I had to work yesterday and will be on call next week so I'm going to be pretty busy. I'm really starting to accumulate a lot of vacation and comp time so I hope things will slow down and at some point I'll be able to take some time off. Not sure where I'll go but just not having to work will be nice. I'm going to keep this post short but I hope everyone is staying safe. 

Painting is done!

This week was short but productive. Monday we were off for Labor Day. I dropped off the truck to have the oil changed and to have the AC fixed. From time to time the cold air wouldn't blow on the drivers side. They were able to track it down and fix it under warranty so that was good. I also got them to do the state inspection so I can get my registration. During the week we also had a cold front come in and the average temperature dropped by 20 degrees which was nice. To get into the fall mood, I setup my laptop next to me on my desk and let a fireplace video run. :) 

Yesterday was quite eventful. Toni had to go to work for a little while and on her way home her van started acting up. She dropped it off and I went and picked her up. They called today and it looks like her alternator went out again. We had it replaced a year or so ago but unfortunately while the part is covered, the labor alone for the alternator is going to cost $240.. We're also going to need to replace the battery and have some work done on her AC as well. Total cost is going to be close to $700. After getting home we finished painting and are really happy with how the downstairs looks. We're definitely going to have to paint the kitchen next since it clashes with the living and dining rooms but we'll get to that soon enough. Other than that things are going ok. The girls are doing good with virtual school and we've settled into a good routine. The longer this goes on, the less I want to ever go back to how things were before the virus. I keep debating selling my truck and if either buying a cheap car or just waiting to buy a cheap car if I ever go back to the office again. We've been saving a ton of money not going out much and I'm really excited about paying off the house quickly. Right now, we're on pace to pay 23 more payments and be done. Hopefully we'll be able to stick to this pace. :) I hope everyone is staying safe. With the fall coming I'm hoping that the 2nd wave of the virus that is being predicted isn't as bad ad some of the estimates I've heard. 

 

Painting!

 

This week was a fairly quiet week for us. I took Friday off of work and Toni worked from home so we just hung out at the house while the kids did school. Virtual schooling seems to be going pretty well for the girls and we're getting into a good routine with me working from home that really seems to be working. Yesterday we went to Lowe's and bought the paint to paint the downstairs. We're not done yet but should be able to finish by tomorrow. The downstairs looks so different all gray. Our colors before were a little bolder and not having the dark red accent walls makes the space feel a lot more open. The girls helped with the painting and the hardest part by far was covering over the red walls. It took 2 coats of primer just to cover them. So far we're very happy with the results. As we finish and get everything cleaned up, I'll post more pictures. Tomorrow is Labor Day so we'll all be off. I have to take the truck in for an oil change and get my inspection done. I also need to get the AC looked at. It sometimes won't blow cold air on the driver's side unless I crank it up to 90 and then back down to cold. I think it's a flap that diverts air so it shouldn't be too difficult to fix.