DH's freelance work has been busy this past month. One client alone will take care of our property taxes for the year, once that payment rolls in. That is a good feeling. Dh has been writing checks to me to put into savings, in our effort to build it back up to where we want it to be. It's getting there. I'll be getting an extra bit of money tomorrow too, with my new tutoring student coming.

This coming week is going to be expensive. We are actually taking a 4-day vacation!! Two of the days will be spent driving, but the other two days are ski days. I can hardly wait. This is through DH's work, and he has already paid for some of our expenses (condo that we're sharing with four other people, two days of lift tickets at a discounted price), but we still need to pay for DD's lift tickets/ski school, all of our rentals and food. I'll be packing up food to bring with us, but I know we'll be buying food there as well, both to cook at the condo and while we're out. I'm excited. I haven't been skiing in about ten years, and DH and I have never been together. It will be DD's first time. I can't say enough good things about DH's company. It does good work for the environment, and it treats its employees extremely well. Ideal, really.

The last vacation we took was in October of 1993, and we stayed for free in a house some friends of ours own in the mountains. The cost of that trip was basically gas to drive there and food for the week, and we would have had to buy groceries regardless, so really it was nearly a free vacation.

Our last gas bill was about half of the previous month's (about $64 versus $132). Shows how much it costs for us to run our gas fireplace and furnace. It's been much warmer lately compared to January. I'd like to think that dropping the thermostat from 68* to 66* during the day during the week has helped, too.