A week out (nearly)

The event is officially over when all the boxes are put away in the shed, and that finally happened today. With the closing and locking of the shed door, it is now time to look forward.

I still have a few payments to make due to vendors lagging in sending invoices, but it’s a small and manageable amount, so I’m finally able to do some real calculations and determine that yes, in fact, I can pay off my house this month. I submitted a request for a payoff quote which should arrive in about a week, and then it’ll happen. Money will be tight after until I release contest registration in February - I may have to dip into my loan - but I will be mortgage-free, hopefully forever if I play my cards right. Unless there’s some ugly surprise like a pre-payment penalty or something like that, I should be able to do it. This is significant also in that it officially marks the end of my New Orleans debt from when I bought a four plex in 2005 that got wiped out by Katrina; most of what I’m paying now is not my original loan but the $250,000 in debt I piled on to this house from that mess. Hey, it only took nineteen years. 

In a shocking decision, the hotel agreed to pay all of my overages from their double booking error; I never would have expected that, and I am extremely grateful. Maybe they’re not so keen to get rid of me after all. 

I still have some loose ends to tie up next week but mostly I’m done. The project I want to focus on now is upgrading the boys’ room. It’s pretty embarrassing that I have an almost 13-year-old in a room that still has toddler-sized furniture in it; their room has always been a hot mess, with junk everywhere and scrapes on the walls and posters barely held up with scotch tape. It really needs a complete overhaul, with new paint and a desk and new beds. They say they want twin beds rather than a bunk bed, so we’ll figure out how to make that work; they also need a desk somewhere. Bobby has not asked about sleeping up in the attic, so hopefully that idea is on the back burner. I don’t know when or how we’re going to do all of this, but I plan to get it done before the end of the year. It’s weird to think this new bedroom setup could be their final one in this house, and that in as little as six years Bobby could be on his own. My how the time flies!