FIRE: Day 15 (7/13)

The days are starting to feel like they are just blasting by, and I’m not sure what that is. Today felt like it was about six hours long, and maybe it’s just because we’re busy with various things.

I continued with intervals of applying mud to my drywall patch, scraping, sanding, repeat. By the end of the day the texture was sprayed and we’re ready to paint. In the down time waiting for mud to dry I continued working on my 401(k) to IRA conversion. That’s going to be critical to get that consolidated to live alongside my Roth IRA so I can start performing conversions. It will not only build a Roth ladder that we can start using in 5 years, but it will also allow us to dial our income to the ideal subsidy level for our ACA health plan.

I called my 401(k) provider to ask them questions about their form to wire the money to my rollover IRA. The guy I talked to basically said “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask your IRA provider”. That answer was just dumb because it’s their form I’m filling out.

After that I just emailed the help address instead. I sent them screen shots of the wire instructions provided from the receiving side, along with how I planned to enter them on their form. Their response was helpful, telling me that the values I entered were correct, and that I could proceed with submitting. I had JC double check me as well, and then submitted the form. It makes me really nervous having high six figures of money turning into electrons going through a wire. We’re relying heavily on routing according to numbers that if even one digit is messed up it won’t route correctly.

FIRE: Day 16 (7/14)

I bought primer and paint today, and applied primer over my patch and texture. Once I got some of the old texture and the new under the same color, I could see the new stuff needed a little more. I applied a medium coat of texture over it, and primed it again after it dried. It looks pretty good now from what I can see, so we’re going to paint it tomorrow.

I bought a pull handle for the subfloor door in the basement. It sits flush and I put it in place of the existing handle which is raised. It required cutting out a spot in the carpet and chiseling down to seat it flush. Now I just need to confirm the carpet guys will leave it exposed or provide some way to get to it.

My 401(k) company sent me an email saying they have received my request. Hopefully these funds will quickly get processed and show up on the IRA side.

I had to email our insurance guy yet again to get our auto policy corrected. He now has the right limits for bodily injury and property damage, but he thinks we want to decline uninsured/underinsured, which we don’t.

My mood has been pretty low today, and I think it’s because I’m physically beaten down from the last two days of lifting, HIIT, and core exercises.

FIRE: Day 17 (7/15)

At the gym today I hurt my elbow doing dips. Through the day it just randomly started having a really sharp pain when I’m not even moving it.

I worked on pulling quarter round off of our baseboards most of the day. JC and I made a run to Lowe’s because I had to get some end cutting pliers to pull some stubborn nails.

Received a call from my 401(k) company to verify the routing number and account numbers for the wire to my rollover IRA.

FIRE: Day 18 (7/16)

I thought we were winding down on activity around the house to prep for the hardwood refinish, but that still managed to fill my day. I pulled the nails from the baseboard and hardwood. Also I removed quarter round from the little front door patch of hardwood, and from behind the fridge after we pulled that out. The baseboard has a line of caulk and paint where it met the quarter round, so I started cleaning that up.

With it being hot and a couple days since our sprinklers ran, I mixed up some weed killer and sprayed weeds. The extent of how overrun our lawn is with weed wasn’t obvious until I started looking and spraying. Our grass is the thing that took the biggest beating from turning our house into a rental.

Despite my elbow being pretty messed up and swollen, I went to the gym because it is leg day which requires minimal elbow.

JC and I had an impromptu happy hour because both AC and BC were occupied with friends. BC had a sleepover at a friends house, and AC was bouncing between different friends, playing volleyball and having a sleepover in our basement.

FIRE: Day 19 (7/17)

Today was the hardwood refinish day, and the crew showed up at the very last minute that they could still be within the window they gave us. It was an 8:30-10:30am window and they showed up at 10:30am on the nose. I’m not sure how in the hell you refinish a floor with sanding, stain, and finish coats in one day.

The day was pretty uncomfortable for us, sitting in the back yard mostly just hanging around while they did the work. In the early afternoon we had to go in to pick a stain color, which turned out to be a difficult task. None of the stains looked like the samples from the website. Our top pick from the website was heritage brown, and we ultimately went with that despite it looking much darker. JC liked a lighter color one but we ultimately thought the gray color would bleed together with the cabinets.

When we got a good look at this as they were nearing completion, it shocked us how dark it was. I really liked it but was feeling down because I was seeing it through JC’s eyes, and she didn’t initially like it. Later in the evening we went back to the house once we could walk on it with socks. It is very dark but JC likes it, or at least says she does, same with AC. I actually like it but keep doubting it’s the right color because I’m wondering what JC really thinks.

We went to JC’s mom’s house to stay the night since we can’t cook at our house.

FIRE: Day 20 (7/18)

We intentionally took a down day today, and forced the kids to as well. Theirs was a break from their recent abundant social activities. Fatigue is starting to set in for JC and I on everything we’re working on and enduring related to the flooring in our house.

FIRE: Day 21 (7/19)

I didn’t do anything productive today. JC had a busy day running the kids and herself around to various things, but my day was mostly leisure filled. I watched Obsession, the horror movie on Peacock, as well as the world cup.

The one productive thing I did was mowed the lawn at our house.