The (Beancounting) Queen is an accountant. She trusts me (wrongly) with all things enginerding, and I trust her on all things accounting. So the Queen did my taxes, and I got a little refund back. Nothing too much, but this was my first year of paying a full mortgage so I wasn't quite sure how big of a rebate check Uncle Sam owed me. It turns out that my employer made a boo boo on my W2's, and that I SHOULD BE GETTING ANOTHER $3,400 DOLLARS. Booyah!
Of course now that money is coming in I think for 5 seconds about how this can help me pay off debt, and 5 hours about all the cool stuff I can do with this money. While the bathroom upstairs requires some major love, I'm thinking maybe the backyard could be redone too? It is currently a 34'x13' slab of concrete, just waiting to be turned into a zen garden paradise. It just doesn't know it yet. I'm going to meet with some concrete guys to go over my fancy pants plan, and see how much they want to gouge me for. :)
While dreaming of a back yard I'm also hunting for houses with yards - I just can't give up on the idea of moving to a place with a pretty green yard. We have a conundrum of whether it's smarter to buy a house with a yard, or throw money at what I've got. Since we have to redo the upstairs bathroom before selling anyways, we potentially have time to redo the yard. It's just a matter of figuring out if this is worth throwing money and time at.
You know the hardest part about redoing a house? Knowing when to stop. Apparently I haven't learned yet.
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Also, this last weekend the Queen had a meltdown. After saying things like, "we'll never finish" and "I'm glad we didn't get the cottage" she pulled herself back together and got to work. She later rescinded both comments. Things get a bit overwhelming at times, but we're slowly making progress... I was proud of her for getting back in the saddle quickly.
