An accountin'

This small composition book fits in my back pocket. I use to it to record everything I spend. This is an effort Lori and I are trying out to help us save money in the hopes of paying off some debts and starting a college fund for Molly. Yes, I'm a little ashamed that we haven't done that yet. Thus, the book.

Before this new method of accounting (which only just started last week), it was already well established that I am the spendthrift in the family. Want to go out to eat -- let's go! Should I buy the book or the CD? Buy both! Is that premium brand really better than the generic brand? Oh, probably!

Seriously, though, I really don't know how I spend all this money. And yet somehow the responsibility of keeping track of our finances has fallen to me. Yikes. I'll be interested to see what we find out.

Chapped

Molly LOVES lip balm. LOVES it. In the morning she will take it off my dresser and put it in her pocket. She loves taking the top off, applying some to her lips, putting the top back on and putting it back in her pocket. She will also take Lori's lip balm off her night stand. If we hide it on the mantle or on top of the bookcase, she can spot it from across the room, make us pick her up and carry her over to it, and then nab it before we know what she is after. When Heidi comes over and puts her purse down, Molly immediately starts rummaging through it to find HER lip balm. If I have managed to sneak mine into my pocket out of her sight, it does no good; she digs in my pocket until she finds it.

So in this season of very dry air, in order to sooth my lips I have to ask Molly for lip balm. She's very helpful. She takes it out of HER pocket, takes the top off, then hands me the tube while she keeps the top. When I'm done, I have to return it to her so that she can put the top back on and return the tube to her pocket.

That is how I have lost several tubes of balm recently. And that is what put me in the following predicament. Molly had obsconded with my balm for a few days and my lips were in pain. On the way home from work one day, I stopped at the store to pick up some beer. Since they had sundries for sale behind the counter, I didn't think it would hurt to ask: "Do you have any Chapstick?" The nice woman behind the counter tilted her head to one side and said, "Well, we don't sell any here, but I have some if you want to use mine."

Hmm.

Sheepish

I was just making the round of blogs that I check and I was carping about Portipont not updating his blog since October 12. Lori pointed out that I hadn't done much in a while either. Turns out it was October 27 for me. Sorry, Portipont.

Well now it is Winter -- a time for reading, for writing, for listening. I'll do better. I'll try. What I know now . . . it is not as cold as it should be, there is not as much snow as there should be, and we Minnesotans are getting crabby about it. There is the constant pang of hope in my gut that the big one will come tomorrow, but the forecast still says sunny and 35 for the foreseeable future. I hope, but I pessimistically tell myself it will never come. That would be expecting too much and it seems impolite to expect too much from someone who owes you nothing.