Monday, September 13, 2004
luck doesn't even begin to describe it - now with pictures
I honestly think I am the luckiest girl in the world. There are three things that have happened in the past few days that support this theory.
First, I looked out the window on Sunday afternoon, and discovered a hawk in my zen garden taking apart a pigeon. That may sound gross, but I was completely fascinated! I've never seen a wild hawk that close, and I frankly don't miss the pigeon. The hawk hung out in the yard chowing down for at least half an hour, while I took pictures that I will post later. The downside of this close encounter is the pigeon remains in the zen garden. I think I'll shovel it up and bury it behind the fence to decompose - out of sight, out of mind.
**Hawk pictures**
http://www.emilyskinner.com/temp/hawk1.jpg
http://www.emilyskinner.com/temp/hawk2.jpg
http://www.emilyskinner.com/temp/hawk3.jpg
http://www.emilyskinner.com/temp/hawk4.jpg
http://www.emilyskinner.com/temp/hawk5.jpg
Second, as promised, R* took me to the Herbfarm. I think I'm going to do a separate entry about the menu and so on - it was really to die for. Almost too much, in fact. The one thing that saved me from being overwhelmed was that the people who own the place and the people who work there are totally normal, down to earth types, who didn't fuss and curtsey and make me feel like a weird rich person. I don't know how to act around people behaving that way - I always want to whisper, "I'm not rich, either, please act normal". At one point during dinner, I went to the restroom, and one of the waitstaff was putting out fresh towels and stuff. She commented to me while I was washing my hands, "Wouldn't it be great to have mirrors like this at home?" and I responded, "For real, I love this faucet, too" and she said, "Sure would make getting ready for work more fun." Whew! I don't give off an I'm-so-rich-I-don't-have-to-work vibe, even if I am having the state's fanciest dinner.
Thirdly, we went in to discuss refinancing our house this morning. Our mortgage broker, Mark, is such a cool guy - not to mention good at his job. I called him asking if we might be able to increase our home equity line of credit in order to pay off our credit cards. He looked over the numbers and said that not only can we pay off our credit cards, we can refinance our mortgage at a lower interest rate and save about $800 a month. I am in shock. It's not a done deal yet - the deal is predicated on the assumption that our house will appraise for a certain value. If it doesn't come in that high, we'll have to reevaluate. But if it does... buying this house will have actually gotten us OUT of debt. Which is amazing.
First, I looked out the window on Sunday afternoon, and discovered a hawk in my zen garden taking apart a pigeon. That may sound gross, but I was completely fascinated! I've never seen a wild hawk that close, and I frankly don't miss the pigeon. The hawk hung out in the yard chowing down for at least half an hour, while I took pictures that I will post later. The downside of this close encounter is the pigeon remains in the zen garden. I think I'll shovel it up and bury it behind the fence to decompose - out of sight, out of mind.
**Hawk pictures**
http://www.emilyskinner.com/temp/hawk1.jpg
http://www.emilyskinner.com/temp/hawk2.jpg
http://www.emilyskinner.com/temp/hawk3.jpg
http://www.emilyskinner.com/temp/hawk4.jpg
http://www.emilyskinner.com/temp/hawk5.jpg
Second, as promised, R* took me to the Herbfarm. I think I'm going to do a separate entry about the menu and so on - it was really to die for. Almost too much, in fact. The one thing that saved me from being overwhelmed was that the people who own the place and the people who work there are totally normal, down to earth types, who didn't fuss and curtsey and make me feel like a weird rich person. I don't know how to act around people behaving that way - I always want to whisper, "I'm not rich, either, please act normal". At one point during dinner, I went to the restroom, and one of the waitstaff was putting out fresh towels and stuff. She commented to me while I was washing my hands, "Wouldn't it be great to have mirrors like this at home?" and I responded, "For real, I love this faucet, too" and she said, "Sure would make getting ready for work more fun." Whew! I don't give off an I'm-so-rich-I-don't-have-to-work vibe, even if I am having the state's fanciest dinner.
Thirdly, we went in to discuss refinancing our house this morning. Our mortgage broker, Mark, is such a cool guy - not to mention good at his job. I called him asking if we might be able to increase our home equity line of credit in order to pay off our credit cards. He looked over the numbers and said that not only can we pay off our credit cards, we can refinance our mortgage at a lower interest rate and save about $800 a month. I am in shock. It's not a done deal yet - the deal is predicated on the assumption that our house will appraise for a certain value. If it doesn't come in that high, we'll have to reevaluate. But if it does... buying this house will have actually gotten us OUT of debt. Which is amazing.
