Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



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   soon-to-be debt-free atheists
Thursday, December 15 2022
It was cloudy today and a storm was coming, but nothing had started falling from the skies by the time noon arrived. So I drove over to Ray & Nancy's house down in Old Hurley to get more of that silver maple they wanted me to take. This time I moved a few trashcans, a concrete block, and an old easle out of the way so I could drive through the just-wide-enough gap between the south wall of the garage and a small aborvitæ. This allowed me to drive the Forester right up to the pieces and load them directly into the back. Some of the chunks were so fat and heavy that I built a little set of steps out of other pieces to use as a ramp to help me wrestle them in. Doing things this way, I was able to take two loads of wood back home to Hurley Mountain in a little over an hour. There are probably two loads left to retrieve, but that will have to wait until the storm blows through and all the snow from it melts.

Every year around this time of year, Gretchen and I experience a five-figure cash windfall. It now comes so regularly that on some level we depend on it, even though we'd be completely fine without it. After it arrived today, Gretchen wanted to immediately put it in the bank, and somehow she convinced me to come along even though I was supposed to be "at work." While she was dealing with the teller, I went and fixed myself a celebratory cup of coffee from the coffee-making robot in the Mid Hudson Valley Credit Union lobby (which has been redesigned since the last time I was there). Gretchen and I still owe about $40,000 on our one mortgage (our only debt), which we took out on our Hurley house back in 2016 so we could buy the brick mansion on Downs Street. With the arrival of today's checks, we now had enough liquid cash to finally pay that mortgage off completely and be debt-free enough to scream "We're debt free atheists!" on Dave Ramsey's syndicated radio show. But the MHVCU teller told us we'd have to wait a week before the necessary funds would all be available. Even after paying off our mortgage (which will mean we will no longer have to pay about $800/month to service it), we'll still have a good five-figure balance leftover. But a good chunk of that will have to be earmarked for the roof on our Hurley house, which is nearing the end of its life. There are also roof repairs needed at the Downs Street brick mansion, which still has much of its original slate roof (which looks original, and would date to the 19th Century if it is).


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