Monthly Archives: April 2020

A different kind of Easter & Unity Quarantine Quilt

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Easter felt very different this year. I’ve spent almost every dinner Easter with my in-laws since I was 16 – thats 41 years. My DH has spent every one of his 61 years with his parents for Easter. Its the one time  when everyone in the family comes home.

When we were younger we would all go to Easter mass together – the late night service which is really beautiful – lighting the Easter candle outside in the darkness, all following the priest inside and then one by one lighting each others candles so that gradually the whole church filled with candlelight. I’m not a Catholic but this was my favourite church service. The church was a very old, little country town church made of stone, filled with atmosphere. I have many happy memories of Easter with my in-laws.

Even though we talked on the phone it felt quite odd not to be there. Usually they would be getting prepared to go away for the winter months but they cannot leave due to the lockdown travel bans, so they will be having their first winter at home for many years. Hopefully we can get together for Christmas.

So it was a different kind of Easter for us, but I am just grateful that so far everyone is safe and well.

On another note I am enjoying having more time to sew. I’ve been doing Bonnie Hunters Quarantine Mystery quilt – Unity  I’ve finished clue one:

 … and I’m busy working on clue two right now…

I just love being able to have the extra time to sew, crotchet, read blogs, weed the garden and potter about. I am really looking forward to getting more sewing done – lots of UFO’s for me to finish and so many quilts I want to make.

Happy Easter everyone, stay safe xx

Mortgage Milestone!

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Good news!

We’ve just hit another mortgage milestone on our amoratisation table – we’re now paid up to Year 20!

Our new balance is $97,773

This is Year 5 of our mortgage so we’re 15 years ahead and another step closer this mortgage paid off. Only 10 more lines to cross out on that chart and we are done!

Because  the mortgage interest has gone down so much since I started this blog ($572 to $260), the balance is going down much faster now. I can’t wait to have it gone completely.

One thing working from home has shown me is how much I am ready for retirement.  I just want to be able to slow down and in the last week I’ve been able to do that. I’m not sure how long it will last but it does reinforce to me that I need to do my best to stick to my original retirement date for the sake of my health and happiness.

Paying off the mortgage before we retire is a key part of our plan. To have a mortgage in retirement we would need to have an extra $360,000 in savings using a 4% withdrawal rate. If we do need to access the aged pension it would be even more important that we didn’t have a mortgage.

We’ve been discussing and doing calculations on changing our plan to move into our rental unit for a few months now and we’ve now made the decision that we will be staying here. But I’ll write more about that another day.

The sun is shining here so we’ll go walking later. So far our town has had no more coronavirus cases for almost two weeks so that is encouraging.

Weekend Walking

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We’ve had lovely weather here. Steady rain every night, sounds so lovely on the roof and soothing to listen to when I can’t sleep. Followed by lovely Autumn sunny days. After the smoky dry summer of bushfires the air now smells fresh and clean, the birds are well and truly back and everything is green again.

On Saturday we went for a walk just after lunch. Saw people pulling up their cars to pick mushrooms which are popping up all over the place. This creek is usually very low, you can jump over it but its full again now.

This little turtle must of been washed out of his usual spot.

Saturday night we had cottage pie with a cheesy potato top for dinner – great comfort food and some leftovers for during the week.

This afternoon we went walking in a different direction. This magpie was happy to pose for a photo in front of a small dam that has been empty for months and months – now filled up after all the rain. Isn’t that blue sky beautiful…

We turned off into the streets behind our place, beautiful colours everywhere with the trees just starting to turn. There were quite a few people sitting out the front of their houses, kids waved, people smiled. Everyone seems to be more friendly in this time of being locked down.

So now we’re just making home made pizza for an easy Sunday night dinner. I’m feeling grateful for the rain, the bright colours again after months of brown everywhere and that we’re all safe and well at the moment.

How has your weekend been? Are you able to get outside where you are or are you confined due to the various lockdowns, shelter in place etc?