I signed up for one week of Hello Fresh through a Swagbucks offer ($19 after a coupon, plus another 1000SBs) This weekend I made the flatbread pizza (didn't take a picture though) and tonight I made this:
Southwest Zucchini Bake
It used basmati rice which I'd never had before. I wasn't too thrilled by the rice, but the dish overall was really good! (I have enough for dinner tomorrow!)
If I had several recipes I could do the prep work for at one time, then it would make this meal take about 30 minutes. As it was, it took me about 50 minutes with chopping the different ingredients/figuring out how to scoop out the zucchini.
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I did bite the bullet and sign up for Culinary DX plant based cooking lessons for $50. It's a 60 day course, and it starts tomorrow. Prepping the stuff tonight made me hope for better knife skills ...
I do have a good set of Cusinart knives now though. Bought them from Amazon a few months ago when a deal site advertised them - I think they were $19 for six knives? Normally a $100+ set.
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I was so busy at work today, that I had oodles of time to look at different arrangements of cat wall shelving environments. Our cats will more than likely be our kids, so I may spend a little bit of an insane amount to make the house fun for them. (Hopefully eliminate or lessen territorial issues, and also give Kari a way to get away if she needs to.)
I also was looking at various contraptions to let cats be "outside", but not really have freedom. Our deck I think will be perfect for some of the ideas I saw. Eventually, we may build a sunroom off of the back door/deck of the living room. That's a ways off though.
I also spent time looking at DIY home decorating ideas. I really liked one for decorating the front stoop - Mr FT and I will have to discuss it of course, but I bet I can get him to go for it.
Can you tell just how busy I was?
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I woke up around 4:30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. Finally I got up and put some music on, and "danced" for about 30 minutes. I am now SO tired. I'm going to try to get to bed here in the next hour or so.
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I updated in the comments, but for anyone else ..
I talked to J today and my interest rate for the loan is locked in at 3.875% (30 years), and no escrow/no fee! I'm meeting him at his office on Thursday with the initial round of paperwork he's needing.
I asked him about taxes. He told me we'd not have to pay taxes at closing - but we'd get a tax bill in December which would be due in March. You know what I'm going to do right?
Look What I Made :)
March 30th, 2016 at 01:45 am
March 30th, 2016 at 02:22 am 1459304572
March 30th, 2016 at 02:26 am 1459304802
March 30th, 2016 at 05:48 am 1459316901
On your mortgage, you have a good interest rate. I am sure you know all the tricks for paying down the mortgage faster than scheduled. I add additional $$ to each payment which is applied to principal. I also make an extra payment each year and all goes to principal. This brings my actual repayment to 20 to 22 years.
Also check out if you get any discount on your RE tax if you pay early. Where I live, I get a healthy discount if I do. My town gives staggered discounts if paid by 10/31, 11/30, 12/31, 1/31 and 2/28. The earlier I pay, the greater the discount. You may be able to do that too.
Congratulations on the house and pending marriage. 🎉💘💑
March 30th, 2016 at 12:10 pm 1459339808
I will definitely have to check into discounts for paying early! How sweet would that be!
March 30th, 2016 at 02:25 pm 1459347913
March 30th, 2016 at 03:17 pm 1459351040
March 31st, 2016 at 05:03 am 1459400586
March 31st, 2016 at 11:53 am 1459425226
Thanks IMA, LAL