Things were going along too smoothly. That's the only reason I can come up with that I called Graham Hudson the Tuesday before Christmas. It was an innocent phone call. Just a minute or two to answer a question. Just something I saw on the news and wanted confirmation. Who is Graham Hudson you ask? Our most amazing Mortgage Broker. He's also really really tall. I mean, I'm short, so a lot of people I know are tall, but he's Tall. Anyway, in the body of that phone conversation I heard it, those magic words, "35 year low on mortgage rates". This was followed by something that probably squeeked out of my throat and then the words "locked in". We were in. Now to tell Mason our good news.

It went well. He was just as excited. We mapped out our course of action (refinancing means reappraisal means all those items on the everlasting ToDo list must now be done).

The sound of drills and power tools of all sorts can now be heard into the dark hours of the night after Mason's worked all day. The sound of garbage bags being stuffed with things that just need to be given to people who need them can be heard in tandem. It's like spring cleaning on steroids. Mason installed a new attic space with the aluminum pull down staircase (he's my hero - a handy husband is a sexy thing). Everything went up there. Now we're laying tile, painting, installing things that I don't quite understand and basically finalizing the upstairs area so that our guests can sleep in a bedroom now. It should have been done before now, but we didn't have a good reason to use our precious free time not at work, working.

We are in a full on push to get our house ready for appraisal for refinancing (please pray for us). Of course, we found out yesterday that the carpet for the upstairs bedroom and hall won't be able to be installed for another couple of weeks (crap, isn't Lowe's supposed to be the place where dreams do come true? In that case, I'm going to need it installed, ummm...yesterday). I'm trying not to hold my breath or become noticably rattled. Worst case, we finish the upstairs with no payoff except the mental task is complete. Best case, we lower our interest rate and insert a bit more financial margin so that we can breath easier when we experience a time of drought. Either way, I'll take pictures!