Beltane Closing Moon
We celebrated last night at the Prague in Evergreen, wiener schnitzel, reminiscent of our honeymoon’s late night dinner on the Ringstrasse in Vienna. We’ve traveled a long distance since that red checkered cloth table across from the Hotel Astoria and we’ve traveled it together.
The house in Andover will close next week, the funds from the sale wired into our bank account. This means we can replenish our emergency fund. The emergency fund served us well during the move, providing our our 20% down payment to avoid mortgage insurance, paying the movers and the many miscellaneous expenses of an inter-state change of homes. We did drain it though, almost to the bottom, with all of our non-IRA cash then effectively tied up in the Andover property.
With two mortgages and two sets of utility bills we’ve had a tight budget in Colorado for our first five months and little reserve. So, yippee!
We’ve also confronted, unexpectedly, a serious challenge to our life together. A cancer diagnosis may not seem like a reason to celebrate, but it was for both of us. As a couple, we work much better with facts, data. We can then make decisions, choose ways to move forward. From April 14th, the date of my physical, until May 21st, the day I got my biopsy results, we were in a zone of ambiguity. That was tough on both of us.
With not only a diagnosis, but actual data about the cancer, we can work together, suss out the most intelligent line of treatment. That removes the anxiety of the unknown and helps us see a way beyond vague fears. It helps a lot, of course, that this particular cancer is usually caught early and has good clinical results for treatment, in many cases a cure.
Kate started our dinner with a toast, “To our future.” That was why we were celebrating.
