Home Improvement

I'm on page eighty of writing a book.  A large part of the reason I'm not blogging so much.  And then I get a scifi book that was released yesterday on my Kindle that I'd preordered, which surprised me because I thought someone was misusing my account.  I entirely forgot I'd ordered it.  But I was excited.  So I'm almost done reading it two days later, despite some killer work hours.  And what do I find in this scifi book - one of my own scenes.  Not like sort of close...really close...DAMN close.  So close I find it hard to believe.  Now, to be fair, my scene differs in the King Kong movie referenced - I use the '76 Jeff Bridges version, not the Empire State Building version - but where they intersect after that, crazy.  I'm glad I have a dated copy, just so when a friend reads both, I can prove I wrote my blurb prior to the March 5th release date of the other book.  Maybe I should just be pleased my brain works so much like an author I really like.

On to the title story.  We had an appraiser come by to assess our home value.  I'm taking our loan from 30 years to 15 year at 3.25%.  It should shave over $100,000 off the total payout.  I don't think there's much else I can do that saves me almost $7K a year, even if I have to pay a bit more each month.  Ming asked if I was nervous my wife wouldn't be able to afford it on her salary if I lost my job.  I pointed out she couldn't afford it on the 30 year mortgage, so that was just bad logic for making a decision.  The appraiser showed up, took his outside pictures, and then looked around the house and took pictures.  This was our discussion:

(In the dining room)

Appraiser: Did you update this room since you bought the house?

Me: No, it's just like it was when we bought the house.

(In the kitchen)

Appraiser: Did you update this room since you bought the house?

Me: No, it's just like it was when we bought the house.

(On the semi-four season porch)

Appraiser: Did you update this room since you bought the house?

Me: No, it's just like it was when we bought the house.

(In the living room)

Appraiser: Did you update this room since you bought the house?

Me: No, it's just like it was when we bought the house.

(In the downstairs bathroom)

Appraiser: Did you update this room since you bought the house?

Me: No, it's just like it was when we bought the house.

(In the computer room)

Appraiser: You updated this room since you bought the house.

Me: No, it's just like it was when we bought the house.

(In the red room/bed room)

Appraiser: Ah, this room has been updated since you bought the house.

Me: No, it's just like it was when we bought the house.

Appraiser: It looks like it's been updated.

Me: No, we're just very easy on our house.  But as you can see (I point at the stairs we just came down), we are redoing this hallway.

Appraiser: oh...sure.

(In the upstairs bathroom)

Appraiser: Did you update this room since you bought the house?

Me: No, it's just like it was when we bought the house.

(In our bedroom)

Appraiser (less certain): Did you update this room since you bought the house?

Me: No, it's just like it was when we bought the house.  (Point to the very last room he hasn't visited).  But that bathroom, we updated that - the tile on the walls and the paint is new.  But the floor of the shower is the same.  We reused it.

Appraiser: Excellent!

I almost felt bad he was so desperate to find a room that I'd redone just to redo it.  Do people really just redo rooms all the time for no reason whatsoever?  I can see having to redo the parquet floors in the kitchen at some point - there are scratches and the finish is going.  But I'm not going to do it as long as the dog is running around on it and I still have nephews and nieces that like to drag things all over it and ride cars across it and a daughter who likes to roller skate from side to side.  The appraisal came in at about 20% over what I owe, so I'm doing better than the general market which is good news - we've only lost about 10% of what we paid - and that means my loan should go through.  Now I just have to stick around until Eryn is out of college to pay it off.