house on blakemore

Renovating our 1990's home on a budgeT

Rainy day activities with the girls inside today was a success. We made potatoes chips, sweet potato chips, chicken jerky for the dogs and soup for dinner. I started listing the rooms I need to declutter and I gave up mentally already. 😅😅😅 But really, aside from drinking more water & jogging again, I want to work toward paying down the mortgage more this year and to contribute more toward retirement. Cuz I am shameful to say I haven’t done much of that in the last few years. The kids were on their scooters so I told Jen to get in the Bunch Bike so we can keep up. She said this is the laziest way to exercise. Then of course Henry came home from work and caught us at the intersection. She was so embarrassed and it made for the BEST MEMORIES!!! Our living room double-curtains are finally up & working correctly. I forgot until last night that I made a proposal to Henry back in March 2025 to have wall-to-wall curtains. The purpose is to give the illusion that we have wall-to-wall windows when we don’t. And to let more light in since the plantation shutters block off so much natural light with the thick framing. Who knew that it would come to fruition since: Do this when you have dog pee (or poop) in the house: Rules for 2026 What happened last year!ll Happy Halloween, everyone have fun and be safe tonight!!! With Henry injured from pickleball (tore his calf muscle) and not being able to move at all, it’s been super hard being a single Mom. I want to cry most nights after a really long day of doing it all. So here’s a little “relief” I found. Crafting is so calming and makes me feel so happy! When we got this house, we didn’t have a lot of savings. I just wrote a check for $21k for the 3.5% deposit. We didn’t use any equity from the old house but instead dumped all of the equity gained into the new one so the monthly payment won’t be too high. We also had to pay $34k to pay off the solar loan at the previous house since it just got installed 2.5 months prior. (We had no plans on moving so that’s why we got solar.)