I realize I usually only write about my debt payoff goals, so here are some other money-related life updates.

I've been happy to have about a $1200 surplus in my budget, because AS will want to switch jobs soon, and while she'll almost certainly be making as much as or more than she does now, there might be a lag in paychecks and I'd love it to be painless.

But our refrigerator sprung another mysterious "leak." It does this thing where periodically a mysterious puddle of water appears in front of it, usually in one place. Yesterday it showed up in two places. NT's tried to find a way to fix it but we can't even tell what's wrong. I think it's the seals on the doors, but whatever it is, I don't feel like it's worth trying to get repaired. It's an old fridge, we don't like its setup (side by side doors), it's insanely loud (humming and rattling), and we knew we'd have to replace it anyway. AS and I got off easy for the first 4-odd years we lived in this condo; the only repairs we had to pay for were a new rubber stopper in the toilet tank and a fan replacement in the heating/AC unit.

So, we'll be using about half our surplus to get a new fridge. Worst-case scenario, we cut back on spending money and a couple other luxuries if there's a gap in paychecks. NT gets a fair amount of OT pay most months, so it may not even come to that. I was going to put this surplus toward debt if we didn't use it, but I still will, just not as much.

In other news, the trip to England is coming soon. Finally! That's the only bad part of reserving tickets early, the waiting and waiting. The good part is that prices are only going up on airfare, so we probably did OK even though $900+ per person didn't feel like a bargain. We leave next Thursday. Dave Ramsey on his TV show last night was talking about taking a vacation that doesn't follow you home, and this will be the first vacation since college that is fully paid-for in advance! We can't wait to see friends and family and maybe do a little sightseeing. We've been watching a lot of antique-auction shows on BBC America and would love to visit an auction house while we're there, just to watch in person!

In other other news, we had friends over yesterday for brunch, and they brought their adorable sons. I'm afraid they made my parenting urge even worse! Well, I've promised myself I can start trying as soon as we're credit-card debt free, so that will push me even harder to pay off this debt early. I've decided to talk to my doctor at my next physical (December), to see if it's feasible and safe for me to try. I have a great big scar across my belly that doesn't seem like it would be flexible, and I've had a broken pelvis (about 12 years ago), but I'm hoping it's OK. It's not going to break my heart if I can't have my own kid, but it's an experience I don't want to miss if I don't have to!