Stoopid repairs

Our front stoop is terrazzo, as are many of the San Francisco houses of its time. It was cracked when we moved in and of course, it's only gotten worse over the last 12-13 years.

Our homeowners' association has somewhat-high dues, especially for what we receive. (I can totally say that: I've been doing the budgets the whole time.) That's in part because we started with very low reserves and needed to build it up. Now, however, we're over 90% funded. Time to spend some of that money fixing the place up! Which is why we didn't flinch from replacing the border fence, and why we're talking about redoing the upstairs yardlet to make it more of a party* space.
But first: fixing the front stoop. I e-mailed a bid acceptance yesterday. It's not cheap, but what the heck. It's like taking care of the broken sidewalks out front: more than I'd like to pay, but removing a potentially-negative first impression.

One could argue that the prudent thing to do would be to continue accumulating reserves. That's true, but I've also lived in too many places where you never fix anything until you're selling. None of us are anticipating being able to sell any time soon, but the logic still applies.

*For our values of "party".

ETA: Work starts Friday.

(no subject)

One of the smartest things my predecessor exchequer did was to take one night a week as date night. That is, to not deal with the office that day and instead have couples time. It never would have occurred to me but having had it suggested, I try to keep to it. Tuesdays are date night* and once I get home from work I do not answer e-mails unless it's urgent.

Naturally, there have been some of those. And I had to do a bunch of office-related things Tuesday. That's okay though; tonight we're going to see Star Trek so Tuesday and Thursday have swapped. Given the week, today is a good day for me to be incommunicado anyway as a recovery.

*Which often means I take care of the bills and then we watch Netflix over dinner together. But hey, it's something.