Health-o-meter

I wish I had a health-o-meter. You know, on some video games there's a meter showing how much "health" or "energy" your person has left. Then if you do something good, you see the health-o-meter go up, or if you do something bad, it goes down. (I do not actually play video games, but I have a 12 yr old son....)

I have been dragging lately. I want to get a lot done, but, I have zero energy. I feel like my health-o-meter is in the red zone. My mother has been anemic for the last 30 yrs, and on iron pills. I was anemic during pregnancy. Maybe I have whatever my mom's weird condition is and I'm anemic? Maybe iron pills would give me energy. Maybe I'm perpetually sleep deprived and just need some decent sleep once in a while. Maybe my diet is terrible and I need to lay off the cookies. Maybe I need to start taking vitamins. Maybe I could stand to lose 40 or 50 pounds. Maybe I need to force myself to exercise. Maybe I'm suffering depression. Maybe I'm just lazy. And cranky. Maybe (probably) it's a combination of all of these things, I don't know.

I guess it's time to start taking vitamins. Regularly, instead of the once-or-twice a month that is my usual. That would certainly be the easiest fix. If that doesn't cure me then I guess I need to work on the harder stuff. Exercise (although that might just kill me) and weight loss (ditto). Sigh...life goes on.

Refinancing!

We're joining zillions of other people taking advantage of super-low interest rates, and refinancing our mortgage. We're going from a 30 yr mortgage @5.25% (with about 21-22 yrs left) to a 15 yr mortgage @4%, a move that will save us tens of thousands of $$$. I figure that's worth the temporary aggravation of going through this process!

I had been watching interest rates for a while, and finally decided to take the plunge a few days ago. It has been a WHIRLWIND since then, gathering about a zillion documents they need. My advice to anyone considering doing this is to gather up as many documents as you can think of AHEAD of time. They needed the last 2 years of taxes, W2's, the last 2 of: pay stubs, checking account statements, savings account statements, stocks/bonds/whatever other liquid assets you have, retirement account statements, etc., homeowners insurance statements, HOA statements, & mortgage statements. We needed to sign a bunch of disclosures, the appraiser came (had to clean the entire house), and get everything overnighted to them - all within 48 hours of when we said "go." We are by no means done, but now is the easy part - waiting for them to do their part. They said it's currently taking around 45 days.

Every bit of interest you pay is money down the drain, money that lines someone else's pockets. I'd rather keep that money for myself!

Woops.

I have been lax in posting things. Got into that trap of "I don't have anything worth writing about" and "I don't have pictures" and "I don't have time." I have started a dozen different posts and just left them as drafts. I'm going to TRY to post more, regardless of whether it's interesting, well thought out, has pictures, or whatever. I forget things that happen around here and need to write it down or it goes down the brain drain. In that spirit, this post is boring, has no pictures, but I'm posting it, baby!