DD and I are going to a family reunion with my mom later this summer. I bought our plane tickets this weekend, to the tune of about $560 for the two of us. Not an expense I was planning on, but it's good that we're going.

We still have a lot left in the way of food from my shopping last week, so that money that I spent will go farther than I thought it might. We had lasagna two nights and still have leftovers!

I need to go through recent medical receipts and put some together for DH to take to work for reimbursement. (done) I also need to submit 1-2 months worth of PT receipts to our insurance company. Come to think of it, I have a check to deposit as well from the hospital. (done)

We could have gotten ten dollars back in the form of rebates for paint, but the receipts are nowhere to be found. Lesson learned - put them in my planner right away, instead of leaving them in the bags. We also have two products to return, but without receipts I think the best we can hope for is a store credit. (Update -- I found the rebate receipt - yea!)

DH and I spent all day stripping paint in the kitchen. We have at least another day ahead of us. My hands hurt, my arms hurt - I'm tired all over. The new cabinet doors look terrific - my dad really did a super job, and it is going to look so nice when it's all done. The aches and pains will be worth it, and the overall price for new looking cabinets will be very low, especially compared to the quotes we were getting for refacing nearly two years ago. My dad even took us all out for pizza tonight, and my mom entertained DD all day while the three of us worked. A good day all around.

Tomorrow is DD's dance recital - can't wait!!

Groceries: $200.34
Restaurants: $12.55
Sbux: $14.85

I did some shopping at Smart and Final today, and Vons, so that combined $110 ought to last at least a little while. Otherwise, at this rate, we're looking at $600 this month just in groceries! I don't think so! I also bought my dad a box of Smartees, which he loves, so some of that money can be considered gifts given rather than groceries.

We're going to take the spot at the private school for DD. I called and left word with the admissions director today, so this coming year will mean taking care to rebuild the savings account.

I managed to get DD's hair into a pretty nice bun, after two attempts. The rehearsal was long, but most of it was standing around waiting. I think her grop was only on stage for 5-10 minutes tops. The girls were so excited - I can only imagine what the energy level is going to be like backstage this weekend. :O One of the mothers took charge this year and got things extremely well organized behind the scenes. I'm thinking of writing her a thank-you note at the very least. From what I've heard, it was a chaotic mess last year.

I've got sheets in the wash right now, and once they're done I'll make up the guest bed and that room will be ready for my parents. Still need to go get food and drinks. Three dinners, two lunches, two breakfasts, and snacks.

Things are going well at DivaTribe these days. Busy, but fun. There's going to be a 15% off sale starting this Monday, to celebrate the store's one-year anniversary. The code for that is ONEYEAR15. Feel free to stop by and take a look - great opportunity to do some birthday shopping or early holiday shopping and support some talented women at the same time!

DD and I went to the 99 cent store today to see if they had bobby pins. They did, so we got those, along with hair gel and hair spray. If I can't get her hair into a nice, neat bun with all of that, then I'm hopeless, lol! I can do a decent bun if I braid her ponytail first and then pin it, but there are still wispy pieces of hair to contend with - she still has some fine little girl hair. We got a three-pack of Jergens soap for the extra bath, and a 33 cent triple chocolate Kit Kat, too. Yum.

I need to go grocery shopping tomorrow, before my parents get here. My mom's bringing produce from her garden, and some homemade granola. Both will be tasty, and appreciated. I also need to get another paint stripping product - the 'after' product for this line of stuff, I guess. It's supposed to take off the residue. Years ago it appears my kitchen was lime green. Yowsa. What a sight that must have been.

DH and I have an annivesary coming up. We have talked about going out of town for an evening, but so far we haven't made any plans. I think we need to get going on that. We've never left DD with anyone overnight before, so this will be a first for all of us. I think she'll have fun with her grandparents, and they completely dote on her and would enjoy having her stay the night with them.

Spent about $12 today on lunch for DD and I. We have half of it leftover, so it ends up being about $6/meal for the two of us. Fair enough - it was nice to go have lunch with my daughter after visiting the private school today. We are seriously considering enrolling her there for the coming year. It will mean dipping into savings and then working to rebuild those savings. We've done it before; we can do it again. I think if I commit to working in the classroom once a week we may get a tuition reduction. I need to follow up on that if/when we agree to enroll her.

Listed one more book today at half.com. Looking at what I have, I think there are still more that I can part with.

I've been stripping paint off the cupboards in the kitchen last night and this afternoon. What a lot of fun, ha ha. I found a product that doesn't have bad fumes - it smells like oranges and cleans up with soap and water (the brush, that is). It's taking longer than I thought it would, but it will get done. I think I need to buy their other product that removes the residue.

I ordered a book from an Amazon seller today - a math book that sounded interesting. With shipping it came in at about $4 under the list price, and it's supposed to be brand new.

I don't know why, but today feels like Friday. I have to keep reminding myself that it's actually Wednesday. Weird.

I sold another book today for $10, which made me happy. I love those "You've made a sale!" emails from half.com.

We've spent about $84 this month so far on food - groceries, dining, everything. I'm still not 100% over whatever was troubling my stomach/GI tract last week, which is a bummer but does lend itself well to frugality where food is concerned.

DD goes out tomorrow to spend half a day with one of the classes at the school we're looking at. We'll see how it goes. We'll make it work if that's the route we go, but it sure is a big chunk of change.

Returned a huge pile of library books today, save for 5 that DD wanted to renew. They were due today, and I'm glad we didn't forget and wind up paying fines on 13 or so books.

The guest bathroom is essentially done - we want to replace the toilet, but that's about the last thing to do in there. I bought a few extra things at Target when I went there for a new curtain rod and shower curtain - little things like a new soap dispenser, soap dish for the shower, a white toilet bowl brush/holder. It looks really nice in there, and I am looking forward to the time when we redo our own bathroom. That was sort of our practice area, figuring if we made mistakes here and there at least we wouldn't be looking at them several times a day, every day.

Next to do is start stripping paint from the cabinets in the kitchen. My dad gets here this Friday with our new doors!! We still need to figure out new fronts for the drawers, but I know my dad will make it work. He's pretty crafty.

DD's dance recital is this weekend. I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm feeling better, although last night DH and I had beef ribs at a party. Now, we strive to be vegetarian and never have meat for dinner. I never buy it for us. But, if we're at a dinner party and that is what is served, we're not going to leave it untouched. It's a waste of food and seems disrespectful to the hosts. So, we had these ribs, and today we both feel kind of lousy. Seems our bodies just don't want to handle beef anymore. I'm not unhappy about that. It's not like we were going to start buying meat again anyway, but it's nice in an odd way to see how our bodies have moved away from being meat-eating entities.

Dh and I were talking about when to next reevaluate our budget. We wrote the current one last December, so I think we'll plan on looking at again this winter. Make it a yearly sort of thing. Things are going to change if we do indeed send DD to the private schol we looked at. There is a spot for her. We'll make it work.

It's easy to be frugal when you're sick. I haven't eaten anything all day, and we haven't gone anywhere either. The bad news is that I can't bear to even look at the leftovers from last night's dinner, let alone eat them, given I *ahem* vomited last night. Hopefully DD and DH can eat some of them so that it doesn't all go to waste.

I need to go out with DD and help her pick out a birthday gift for a friend. The party is tomorrow, so either she goes out tonight with DH or we all go tomorrow on the way to the party. I hate doing things at the last minute like this.

We've had a couple of no-spend days during the last week or so, which is nice to see. Dh and I were talking last night about maybe setting a goal for ourselves of going out to eat once every two weeks. If we're feeling tired and uninspired some evening, we can give ourselves permission to go to the store and buy something easy that appeals to us. It will be cheaper than $25-$30 at a sit-down place.

A new month, a new opportunity to keep building new habits to replace the ones we want to replace.

DH got the bathroom tiles and it looks great. I'm so happy that he took on that task. We painted but there's more to do still. It's going to be so nice when it's all finished. I commented to him that it made me feel good to know that we were making these improvements for ourselves, to make our home feel more like we want it to feel, rather than doing it because of some event or some people coming to stay. It's just for ourselves.

We need to get the paint stripped off the kitchen cabinets before the tenth, when my dad gets here with the new cabinet doors.

I stoppd by the grocery store today and picked up some fresh fruit and sandwich fixings for DD and I. Picked up some more milk too, so that I can make some more yogurt. Fruit, cheese, bread, rosemary tortillas (sounded good!), milk, plain yogurt (1 cup) - about $25. Seems too high, but part of that is buying organic when possible. It adds up, but it's worth it to us, for our own health and for the wider reaching effects.

Thought about going to Starbucks today before picking up DD from her grandparents' house, but elected not to. Thought about it again while at Vons and again, chose not to. I'm glad I passed it up both time.

May spending totals:

Groceries: $277.11
Restaurants: $182.32
Starbucks: $34.55

Goals were $296 for groceries and $153 for dining/sbux combined. So we came in under on the groceries by about $19 but were over in the other category by about $64, putting us over our goals overall by about $45. The goals were 10% under the average of our past four months' spending totals. Based on our averages over the past four months our totals were under in groceries by about $50 and over in the other category by about $46, which means we were just under our averages. Not bad - we'll try again next month and see how we do.

Dh has finished tiling and is now taking down the wallpaper border in that bathroom. He has been working so hard! I wish I'd felt better yesterday and today. I'm going to do the painting in the bathroom and the room/hall/passageway that connects to it. I think I'll get two colors - paint the walls one color and then rag with a second color.

I have a promotion going in my store - enter code MEMORIAL10 at checkout for 10% off your purchase. Ends 5/31/05 - www.divatribe.com/catalog/index.php

DD is organizing her change right now. She has her pennies in stacks of 5 and has about 24 stacks, she says. She is saving her money for a house for her Polly Pockets. I don't know if they make a "Polly house" but she sure wants one.

Sold another book for another $4 today via half.com. Of course, I got the notification after I'd been to the post office already today. Oh well. I'll go on Tuesday - maybe I'll make another sale or two over the long weekend.

The visit to the school went very well, and DH and I have some talking to do this weekend.

We're hoping to finish the tiling and painting in the guest bathroom this weekend. I wanted to go look at paint this week but never got it done. I'd go this afternoon but am dealing with a migraine and feel pretty wiped out. All I want to do is relax here at home. DD and I are watch The Aristocrats.

I sold a book tonight at half.com. It was only four dollars, but four dollars and one less book that I don't need anymore is better than a book sitting on a shelf, collecting dust. I will mail it out tomorrow.

I found out today that posed pictures of DD in her costume for the ballet performance will be $20. That will include 2 5x7s and 4 4x6s, and two poses. They will make nice gifts for the grandparents.

Tomorrow we go check out a private school. I am curious to see it, and find out more about how it is run and what a typical day might entail. The possible scenarios that might ensue?

1. We all love it, and they offer us a spot for her.
2. We all love it, and we are offered a spot on the wait list.
3. We don't love it, and they offer a spot.
4. We don't love it, and they offer a spot on the wait list.

Until very recently I have been 99% sure about hs'ing. I still love the promise of hs'ing and all that DD can get from it. The one thing that is lacking is any real sense of community. But maybe I am making more of that than I need to. In any event, I am looking forward to tomorrow's visit if for nothing else more food for thought. If we did go the school route, I think I could do some tutoring during the day for students at the junior college and make enough to pay for the first few years' tuition. I would have to adjust my rate slightly and work a few more hours each week, but it seems very doable. If I could do all of my tutoring during the day, I would be available to DD every afternoon. And by tutoring, I'd have breaks when she did. I do not want to even consider daycare of any sort for her. It works for others, but it isn't what I want for DD.

I think DD and I will go look at paint chips today. I need to track down a piece of our floor tile, so that I can try to pick something neutral to coordinate with the floor. Some sort of sandy color, or a taupe - something like that. The shower, toilet and sink are all bright white, and the floor tiles are mottled sand/white/brown colors. Hard to describe, but nice looking.

We went out to dinner last night. DH and I were both tired, and I've been holding a migraine at bay every eveing since last Friday. I suspect that I might have some success in sticking to the food budget if I used the crock pot a little more. Right now I barely use it at all. But if I set it up in the morning, we'd have a home-cooked meal even if we were both tired or not feeling up to cooking. I'll do some looking for vegetarian crock pot recipes.

I won an eBay auction for a leotard for DD - $0.99, and $1.25 for shipping. It's a shame the seller didn't make more for her trouble, but it's a great deal for me! I haven't sold any of the books yet that I listed last week at half.com. But that's why I like half.com - it doesn't cost anything to just leave your inventory up there.

DH did a lot of work on the extra bathroom this weekend. He's got it almost all tiled, and it is going to look great. He's doing a good job. We've spent about $400 on this job so far. I'm going to go look at paint this week. Other than that, we want to hang a new mirror and get rid of the medicine cabinet, and replace the toilet so that it is bright white to match the sink. We have a contractor's store that is open to the public, and the prices on tile were much better than the prices at Lowe's. That was good to see.

We're over on our food budget. The grocery budget we're still OK with, but we went over on our dining out budget this weekend. However, just because we already went over doesn't mean we won't still try to stick as close to it as we can for the remainder of the month.

So far it's been another frugal day. DD and I went to the park as planned, and then we came home and had lunch. I helped her make some play doh this afternoon, and I think we'll head outside in a bit to enjoy the sunny afternoon we're having.

I transplanted some basil and catnip seedlings yesterday, and so far they seem to be doing OK. DD and I had been growing them on a windowsill in our kitchen. She likes pesto, so I told her that once the basil grows big enough, I will show her how to make her own pesto. She thought that sounded like a good idea.

DH wants to do something fun this evening. We're not going out to dinner, so we'll see what he comes up with. He worked a lot last night, and despite staying up later than usual, DD was already in bed when he got home. I suspect he wants to make up for that.

Will probably work some more around the house this week, both inside and out. The laundry needs to be done, but hopefully this warm weather will continue through the weekend so that we can hang everything to dry.

Another frugal day around here. All three meals were eaten at home, and DD and I spent a grand total of $2.12 at the 99 cent store this morning. Walked there to boot! I let DD decide what we would have for dinner (within reason) and she chose pancakes, so pancakes it was.

Our electric bill is up, despite not using the dryer nearly as much as I used to. I think it's because we have an air filter now and we run it quite a bit, including all night.

Tomorrow DD and I drive out to the headache clinic to pick up my records. I think we'll go hang out at a nice playground that's nearby while we're out that way. I need to remember to bring along some water and snacks.

Speaking of dinner, I did add to my list of possible meals, having gone through our food some more.

I decide to go look on eBay for a new (or used) black leotard for DD. I found one with fair shipping and a starting bid of $.99, so I went ahead and placed a bid. We'll see if I get it or not. DD's current black leotards are either running too small, too big or too itchy.

I didn't get my filling today after all due to some overscheduling at my dentist's office, but my crown replacement was officially NO CHARGE. Awesome. I go back in a couple of weeks.

Didn't spend anything today so far. Dinner will be at home, and as far as I know we don't need to go out tonight for anything. We might want to go out for ice cream, but we don't need to.

Dh and I have started tossing around the idea of sending DD to a private school. We are in the very early stages of even thinking about this, so nothing is at all decided. It would mean a big change here, as I would need to return to work (but that would not be back in the classroom, unless it was at the school we're looking at in some way). I won't cross that bridge until we get to it, if we get to it. There is more we need to learn, and then there are many, many pros and cons we need to weigh in our minds and hearts.

Saw two students today, after having none on Monday and Tuesday. There are only 2 more weeks of school here, and then finals. I might have a bit of summer school tutoring, but that remains to be seen.

Today was a pretty good day in terms of spending only what needed to be spent, but an expensive day overall. DH had a $240 visit with the periodontist, and we went out and got a couple of gifts for his mom's birthday this evening. I go back tomorrow to get my dental work finished, and that will be around $150 or so, I think. We had leftovers last night for dinner, and ate at home tonight as well. DH is talking about taking his lunch to work with him one day a week. He doesn't spend much as it is - maybe $4 a day - but it would add up over the weeks and months.

I jotted down a quick list of meal ideas based on what we have here at home, but it isn't done. I need to take a better look at what all we have and come up with a few more. I think I listed out 5 or 6 dinner ideas. With leftovers that will stretch out to at least 7 or 8 dinners, but there are 14 nights left this month! I'll see what I can come up with. Having a budget in mind sort of turns this into a challenge, and I find it helpful.

DD's spring ballet performance is next month. One of the nice things about her school is that it isn't all about the costumes. They reuse costumes from year to year, so the only costs we parents incur for performances are new tights and a small performance fee to help cover the cost of the stage rental. Oh, and new shoes only if the current ones are really yucky looking. I know things will get more expensive if she continues on with this in terms of more classes and wearing through shoes more quickly, but for now it's nice to know that it isn't a massive expense. I've heard stories of families spending $200-$300 a year on costumes for their girls' recital. Crazy to ask parents to do that, if you ask me.

I set a goal to spend no more than a certain amount of money this month on groceries, as well as a certain amount on dining out/Starbucks combined. I averaged what we spent on groceries over the past four months, as well as what we spent on dining out and Starbucks combined. I subtracted 10% from each of those averages and set those as my goals for May. After grocery shopping today, I have about $49 left for groceries for the rest of the month. As far as dining out goes, we have about $11 left. Wow. Seeing it broken down like that is illuminating. I do have a stash of cereal now, as well as tortillas and bread in the freezer, and some cheese, so we have certain staples covered. And, $10 of my bill today was on glucosamine chondroitin for our dog. Maybe technically we have $59 left for groceries, if you count that as pet care and not groceries.

What I need to do now is go through the pantry, frig and freezer and plan out some meals, or at least make a list of what we have, so that (a) food doesn't spoil before we have a chance to eat it, and (b) we don't fall into the trap of thinking of eating out because we don't feel like making dinner, or don't want to think about it. Maybe if I get a list together of potential dinners and go over it with DH, he can agree to do dinner a few times too. That would be nice.

There are times when I wish we could afford to hire people to do the weekly/monthly drudge work, like weeding/landscape maintenance, or house cleaning. I wish we could afford to hire someone to redo our kitchen and bathrooms for us. This afternoon has been spent working outside (me) and working in the guest bath (DH). We just got back from Lowe's with backer board for the tub/shower and new bath fixtures. Spent about $200. The tile will probably cost us about $125-$150, plus grout which isn't too expensive, and we already have the tools. It's going to be nice when it's done, but it would be nice to let someone else do all the work while we go out and play. The work I did outside wasn't difficult or even particularly strenuous, but it seems like there's always so much to do that I feel overwhelmed. I guess I do what I can and try to keep up with it. My parents told DH that for his birthday they will pay for half the wood for our new kitchen cabinet doors. That is a really nice gift, and one we both are grateful for. Speaking of the kitchen, I need to order the hinges and pulls and have them sent to my dad. In our kitchen we know there is particle board underneath the linoleum. DH is thinking that there might be some good wood subflooring under all of that, so that's on our list of things to look at. If there is, we'll finish that flooring and let the natural, original wood show, rather than tile over it.

Yesterday I made a handbag and a tote bag - both are reversible and turned out pretty cute. Once I got the logic of the pattern figured out, it went pretty quickly. I think I got the tote bag finished in about two hours, including cutting out the pieces. I may keep that in mind when it comes time to think about Christmas gifts this year. It doesn't take much fabric or interfacing, and the pattern was a gift, so it would make for stylish, inexpensive presents.

I'm getting ready to make some peanut butter cookies. Comfort food after a frustrating afternoon fighting with my serger. (If anyone has a Huskylock 901, please let me know!) Just letting the butter soften as I type - though I will probably stick it in the microwae to speed things along.

I think we're going to go to the zoo tomorrow. We were thinking of inviting DD's friend from across the street to go with us. Should be fun - the weather was beautiful today.

My serger...I spent some time today making up a pattern for a skirt and was pretty excited to try and sew it up. Didn't think it would take too long, given how simple a design it is, and the fact that it's stretchy and hence requires no zipper. And then my machine refuses to cooperate with me. Argh. I got fabric for $2/yd a couple of days ago and was going to do some experimenting with knits this afternoon. I'm trying to figure out what to do net. I may have to take it back to the place I bought it and see if they can give me some assistance. I've tried rethreading it three times and can't see what I'm doing wrong.

DH brought home the medical reimbursement check yesterday. There was only one bill that wasn't reimbursed, a $49.90 bill. We incurred the charge in 2004 but weren't charged our portion until 2005. DH is going to ask about it and see if that's why it wasn't reimbursed. Otherwise, we got back about $465, and it's going straight into savings.

I got in to get my tooth fixed - temporarily - this morning, so that's taken care of, thankfully.

I was talking to one of the other moms at ballet today, and she mentioned that she had picked up something ballet-related to give to her daughter after the spring show. I thought that was nice and started looking online for ideas. One site led to another and I found some free

Hello Kitty ballerina cross stitch patterns. I saved them as pdf's and now need to figure out what exactly to do with them. My first thought was to stitch them both and them sew them to the front and back of a tote. We'll see. I'm going to have to work on them while she's in one of her classes, or asleep, so that it's a surprise. I have tons of cross stitch fabric and embroidery floss, so that part will be super frugal. I got a bunch of supplies from my grandmother after she stopped doing cross stitch. I've barely used any of it and don't do much cross stitching these days, but it's nice to know it's there when I want it.

Tomorrow we have no plans. I told DD we could paint our nails tomorrow, and that's about the extent of our plans!

I lost my temporary crown last night and am not due for the permanent one until next Wednesday. I have a call into my dentist's office, asking them to get me in as soon as they can to fix this. Normally I would have PT this morning, but now that's in limbo until I hear from the dentist's office when they can see me. I hate stuff like this. Dinner last night was less than fun for me once that crown came off, and now today is looking to be a scheduling nightmare.

I'm being frugal though - I'm afraid to eat or drink anything.

15 days left on the credit card cycle. Going into summer, with far less tutoring income (if any), I need to buckle down and get the monthly bills down. It will be good to get the checks due to us for medical expenses and such. I have a couple of PT visits to submit. I'll have one more tomorrow, and then I'll need to figure out what I'm going to do.

Dinner tonight is on my in-laws, in honor of DH's birthday. That will be fun.

Yesterday was almost frugal...until we went to Ben and Jerry's for ice cream for dessert. Oh well. At least we clceaned out some leftovers from the frig for lunch and dinner.

I need to go to the store for milk and coffee filters, and who knows what else. I got a coupon from the grocery store for organic milk. It was nice to actually get a coupon in the mail that I would use!

I signed up DD for swim lessons twice a week for the month of June. I hope by the end of the month she is well on her way to being able to really swim. If she is, I'll figure out a way to get her into a pool that won't cost me $50/month for a mere one hour a week of pool time. I've had her in Saturday morning lessons for the past few months, just to keep her skills up. I'm also curious to see is, come June/July she gets moved up a level in ballet. It's a possibility, but not a certainty. If she does, lessons go to twice a week and up to about $69/four weeks vs. $37/four weeks.

I had a really bad day yesterday in terms of hs'ing and community. I can't seem to find like-minded hs'ers, and it's really getting me down. I started looking at the private school we'd consider if going that route and wondering if that should or could be an option for us. Tuition starts at $5500/year for first grade. Yikes. We have friends whose son attends - I need to pick their brain a lot and see what they really think about it, and about the kids their son has been meeting, the teachers, the curriculum, the individualism, the institutionalism, etc.

DD ha Spanish this morning, and I'll use that time to get some of my own stuff done. After that we have a play date planned at the park, and I'll bring food for that. Tutoring around 2:00 p.m. Dinner is going to be either chili or black bean soup, and corn bread. All in all it ought to be a low-cost day.

I've been thinking about my exercise lately. If I'm ever going to feel better physically and mentally about riding my bike witih DD in the trailer I have to get out there and do it. I have this vision of riding to the beach once we have good warm beach days...but it's all uphill on the way home! It's only about a mile and a half, but uphill? Ugh. But the idea of just getting on the bike and spending the day at the beach sounds so wonderful.

Both of my students cancelled for today. I'm tired, so it's not all that disappointing, to be honest. I stayed up until about 1:30 last night/this morning reading. This is what happens when I read fiction - I'm not content to read for twenty minutes or so. I start, and I just keep going until I look over at my clock and see how late it really is. It was a fun read - The Diva's Guide to Selling Your Soul. I'll be reviewing it for DivaTribe.

My dad took us out for Japanese food Saturday night and it was good. Tonight I think will be leftovers - I have yoga, so I'll eat after I get home. It's only been two weeks since I've been to class, but it feels like a lot longer.

I got some disappointing news - the headache clinic is closing. Apparently the location is too 'remote' for people. I'd drive twice the distance if I thought there was an answer out there for me!! Anyway, I go up Thursday for PT and will talk to the nurse about my next steps. The doctor will be available by email to whomever I go to to continue my care, so that's something.

Got my hair cut at Supercuts today. $17 total, and it's an OK cut. It's been 6 months since my last cut. Crazy. I wish I had (a) an awesome person to go to, and (b) the feeling that going every 8 weeks or so would be 100% fine in our budget. But I don't, and I don't.

My dad is here and brought two sample cabinet doors. They are going to look great! I can't wait to see our kitchen with all new doors and hardware. Redoing the drawer fronts will be a tad trickier, but it's all going to look awesome. I'm so glad my dad agreed to do this for us. The cost is going to be so much less than going through a company for refacing. It's going to have a carftsman/Mission look, which goes well with our dining and living room furniture. The hardware is really nice looking.

Dinner last night included the mozzarella cheese. I am so glad I bought it - very yummy.

No big plans for today. Dad's going to install the sample doors so we can see how they look and make sure everything's working out the way it ought to. Other than that, we haven't talked about what we'll do. Maybe I'll grab a nap while DD has her grandpa here.