Birds chirping

You can laugh, but you would not believe how nice it is to just hear quiet and birds chirping in the morning here.  No trucks crashing and bumping along the pot-holed 6-lane road outside the townhouse window anymore!  People actually taking morning walks on the sidewalk in front of our house instead of slouching by with random rusty grocery carts!  It is pretty amazing.

I actually cried at work yesterday when I got the bill for all the drying/dehumidifying services for the flooding last week - much higher than I thought, and they won't even throw in a few square yards of new padding for the price, so whatever - back to Lowe's again.  I'm going to blame the emotion on the hormones, though.  My favorite personal finance columnist, Michelle Singletary at the Washington Post, is forever preaching the value of paying off debt, budgeting, creating an emergency fund of 4-6 months in the event of illness or unemployement, and creating a "life happens" fund of a couple of thousand dollars (if possible) for the random car breakdowns, dental procedures, and so forth that always pop up that you shouldn't have to dip into emergency savings for.  I know the water heater was a "life happens" thing and that's what our savings was there for.  It still made me cry.  But, you know, the house is so nice and I'm so grateful to be here that I think I just need to let it go.

Back to drafting - I'm working on a lease at the house this morning while waiting for the City of Richardson inspector to come check the water heater for code compliance.  Yay!