We should refinance every week

Consolidating two loans (a mortgage and a HELOC) from the same bank into one mortgage from the same bank turns out to be considered a "cash out" refinance, which as far as I can tell means they screw you for a whole lot more origination fees and paperwork, including requiring a walk-through appraisal.

Being the cheery, happy-go-lucky guy that I am, I tend just to see the bright side of all of this - and I mean on top of the $350/mo in interest we'll save with the new rate vs. the old. Yes, we've actually cleaned up the place. Vacuumed the whole house tonight, we did. We even got two vacuum going at once - I did the upstairs and first floor and half the basement with the fancy-shmancy Sebo X4 Automatic, while The Mrs. Slowpoke did the other half of the basement with the Hoover Fusion Cyclonic (a vacuum which, oddly, is almost to the penny 10% the cost of the other vacuum (and it shows)).

In addition to that, I got to clean all four of the toilets. It went like this:

Me, CherkyB: "Which rooms should I vacuum?"

The Mrs.: "The rooms aren't ready to vacuum. You should clean all the toilets."

Me, CherkyB: "I didn't ask if I should clean the toilets. I asked which rooms I should vacuum."

The Mrs.: "Here are some sanitizing wipees. You'll probably want to put on some vinyl gloves. The toilets are really disgusting."

Me, CherkyB: [in a whiny voice] "I didn't ask for wipees. I asked what rooms I should vacuum."

The Mrs.: "Make sure you get all four toilets."

Thank god only one of the toilets is black. That one needs to be buffed after cleaning in order to prevent streaks. It's almost like it needs a couple coats of carnauba wax.

I also got to fix some of those niggling little problems. Like, I patched a hole in The Childrens' bathroom wall that resulted when the little stopper that's supposed to keep the doorknob from crashing through the wall if you fling the door open broke and let the doorknob crash through the wall (not the first time, upon inspection). And I patched another hole in the master bedroom door that resulted from when that little stopper that's supposed to keep the doorknob from crashing into the wall if you fling the door open did not break and instead punched a hole right through the door (and thus, the doorknob only made a small dent in the wall instead of punching right through it). I've replaced those hinge-mounted things with ones that are on the baseboard and contact the wood frame of the door, not the crappy veneer panel.

I also got some grout caulk to temporarily patch the missing grout in the kitchen. There are some slightly loose tiles in the kitchen due to shoddy workmanship, and all the grout around them is coming out. I took a piece of grout to the store to match the color to the grout caulk (which has sand in it so that it dries looking a lot more like grout than normal caulk would). The one that matched the piece in the store did not match when it was in the floor (I would say the color on the tube was a very loose approximation of the actual color). So I went back and got another color. That one didn't match either. So I mixed the two together and got pretty close to the right color. Close enough that you wouldn't notice if you didn't know the spots I patched, which you don't.

I also re-attached the trim around our attic hatch that got knocked off when we had a giant wind storm and the attic hatch started flying around. Plus, I cleaned the ceiling in the master shower.

Yes, it's like some other fambly lives here. Some fambly that isn't a bunch of slobs.