It’s fully fall and our six-pack of skeletons from Home Depot are dressed in costume as trick-or-treaters on our front lawn (yes, this purchase will continue to make me happy every single year. Tempted by that 12-foot skeleton…). They can all be seen here, in their debut last year:

We’ve also had our first snow, so I did what any reasonable human does and went to the library to check out ten Rom Coms and I’m plowing through reading them in my cozy new wearable sleeping bag (hygge, right?!).

Addition update: The drywall is DONE and painted! Now we’re working on fun stuff like our birch plywood ceiling in the bedroom and starting the flooring. The contractor still hasn’t finished up his outside portion, but the longer it takes him, the longer it is until I owe him a final check, so c’est la vie. He’ll get around to it eventually, I’m sure. AND he let us borrow all of his fancy drywall tools, so we’re not too upset with him. Maybe we’ll be moved in to the new bedroom by the next plan update, but I’m guessing probably not because we’ve got quite a few upcoming trips.

Work update: It’s been a RIDE since last quarter. We were told in July that our team was going to be let go. Then the entire company literally changed from being a research company to a tech company, but we weren’t let go. So, the COVID research stopped, as did most other research, and our team became technical writers…? It’s not a place I thought I would land, being in research and all, but here we are. I applied for a few jobs that I got excited about, but didn’t get, so I’m still rolling with the current company for the time being (until it becomes unbearable or I find something better, I suppose). Though reading all the Rom Coms has me wishing we can just jump to the early retirement part where Mr. T and I write books together (it’s def on the list of things we want to do and Rom Coms have been floated. Though Mr. T wants to specify that ours would NOT fit the standard mold). Since we haven’t been let go, my boss has indicated I may be up for a promotion in the near future… which is, by all accounts, totally crazy and may not end up happening since my boss was also allegedly going to be let go just a few months ago, so… I can’t count on anything. But I do think the whole thing is definitely adding fodder to my future novels… workplace Rom Coms called “Endless Redundancy”? or “Under Threat of Discharge”?… uh, yikes. Nevermind. Forget I said anything. Better keep workshopping. Or working.

Also, I started Adderall for my recent ADHD diagnosis this summer and it has been life-changing. I can accomplish SO MUCH in so little time. Of course, now there’s a major shortage on Adderall, so I’m rationing through some of my PTO this month. So that’s fun.

The Numbers:

The numbers don’t matter right now because we all know they’re bad, but I still love tracking them, so this continues. Our mortgage is down to $271,500 and I think I’ve finally gotten over the desire to put any extra toward this because this month, our savings rate at Ally Bank just jumped to 2.25% which is MORE than our mortgage interest rate of 2.125%! So I’m keeping the mortgage for the full 15-year mortgage length (just 14 years left!).

At the end of September, our investments had fallen to $605,000, which is down 20% since December, but remarkably higher than our last update, so not all bad. Probably because we managed to max out our Roth IRAs with this year’s $3,284 PFD, but while we thought the market was bad, we put in 12k on a Tuesday and by Friday, it had all disappeared… just shows you can’t time the market.

We continue with the Year of Yes (minus quitting my job to write Rom Coms, I suppose). We have a trip to the Midwest planned this month to see family and enjoy visiting pumpkin patches (UPDATE: had to cancel last minute because the family we were visiting testing positive for COVID). Then we’re off to Australia and New Zealand over the holidays! I have purchased tickets to Mexico for Spring Break. Last week, when a flight deal popped up, I said to Mr. T: “We’re going to Spain in April, right? Just kidding” to which he responded: “I’m not sure you ARE kidding.” I’ve started to make him nervous with the amount of travel I’m planning, so it might be just the right amount. (Note: I did not buy tickets to Spain, though I was certainly tempted.)