I got a surprise phone call from the local place where i dropped my broken snow thrower off...it was ready to be picked up. (They told me initially it'd be "a week to 10 days.") Maybe they took pity on me, a single woman facing the imminent nor'easter with just a shovel, I'm not sure, but i ran to go get it ahead of the storm.

I asked him if it was one of the belts that went, and he said, no, it was a pulley that had slipped off. He said sometimes if you hit a stone or piece of ice that can do it, or if, when you shut the power off, you do so while it's sitting in snow. Better to pull the snow thrower out of the snow and let it run clear before you turn the power off. It could've been either scenario in my case cus my driveway's in bad shape with lots of little pebbles and what not. I will be more careful using it tomorrow after the big storm. In the meantime, i've cleared my driveway from yesterday's storm, by hand. I am sore, and earned two calluses, though one, i think, is from leaf raking earlier.

But his comments made me think. As i mentioned, the driveway's got lots of 'alligatoring', or cracks, all over the place and i'm waiting til it gets really bad before i have to shell out oodles, and i mean oodles, of money to have them yank it all up and pave a new driveway. (Or maybe i'll have sold the house before that time, who knows.) My plan was to only pave the sloped portion of the lower driveway, then do maybe a 3 foot wide apron of belgian block which would then transition to gravel at the top of the driveway which is all level. The top of the driveway is a fairly large area as it widens out as you approach the house, and there's also an extra parking spot to the side of the garage.

The gravel would be better for drainage, and i'm sure cheaper than asphalt, plus i hate the look of asphalt. Plus the gravel would work well here because it would be completely surrounded by stone walls and the foundation of my garage, so none of it would get into the grass. It would all be kept nicely in place. But i was wondering how i would clear snow off a gravel driveway. I guess it would have to be by hand (shovel) as either the snow blower or a plow would throw up all that gravel.

After i picked up the snow thrower, i went down to the school to volunteer as a driver to deliver some holiday food baskets to the needy in town. My friend sounded like she might want to come, but later decided she'd rather go shopping with her other friend. They pretty much meet every Saturday and do any or all of these: 1. shop, 2. eat out and/or 3. see a movie.

Oh well. I thought this would be a nice feel good, holiday thing to do and i also figured it'd be nice to have a map reader in the car while i drove. When she said she wouldn't be going, i nearly decided not to bother going myself, as the guy on the phone had mentioend they'd gotten a very good response for volunteers from the newspaper story that ran, and i thought well, they probably don't really need me. But I went.

well, since i had the snow blower in the my front seat, i didn't have that much room. I had pictured holiday baskets as being, well, baskets of food, but actually, they had large boxes filled with wrapped gifts, and one single box was just too big to fit in my Honda trunk. We jammed it in the back seat, but that's all i could fit. They were so organized, they gave me complete typed directions so i didn't need a map reader after all. So I had just the one delivery to make.

The address was at one of our town's 2 trailer parks, and i knew where it was. Aside from those 2 trailer parks, the only other place i'd consider 'affordable' in my affluent town would be the several waterfront communities filled with tiny houses on small lots, what used to be summer cottages.

Anyway, if you think you've got gripes and complaints about life, this is a good exercise to go through. I drove up the dirt road at the trailer park and found the address, no problem. The condition of the trailers varied, but I would say the majority were in only 'fair' condition. I was greeted at the door by an older woman and a very large German Shepherd. Her adult son, who i could tell was mentally disabled, peeked around the corner. I wished them a merry christmas and was on my way, good deed done.

I made some really good raisin bran muffins and am eating one now with a cup of hot tea.

You may have read earlier posts where i've boasted of keeping the temps in here at 60 or lower (57 at night). Well, I'm still at it, but i'm finding the problem with this is, since i'm home all day long until i start my new job, is that even with the sweaters etc that i wear around the house, it's still pretty chilly, and the warmest place is under my bed covers. I have flannel sheets, 1 wool blanket, 2 quilts and a comforter, so yes, it's warm under there, so nice that i find myself huddled under there and not wanting to come out!

I've noticed, too, that the cat seems to be hungry and wanting to be fed around the clock. (She usually gets fed twice a day, but since i've been home, that often ends up being 3x a day, just to shut her up. She meows and meows and drives me nuts.) She seems a little husky, but it could be that thick fur she's sprouted. I will have to weigh her.)

So here we are at year-end 2007, and I see my mortgage balance is $75,000. If I continue my aggressive prepayment schedule, by this time NEXT year the balance will be down to $68,000. In a way, it seems like it should be even lower, but that's interest for ya!

Actually, I am hoping that once i start my new job, to increase the monthly prepayments from $400 to $500 extra a month. That's A LOT of extra money, but i managed the $400 a month on my much lower salary, tho i didn't have much to spare. If I do that, i'll call the bank again and have them rerun a new amortization table for me showing my monthly payments of principal and interst and the running balance. This serves as a big incentive to me to see that figure dropping each month.

The long-term goal is to have the whole mortgage paid off in 9 more years. That would mean i'll have paid off a 30 year loan in 20 years total. I think that's pretty respectable.