a long week!

For a 4-day week, this was a long one! Some random tidbits include:

I will be going to Keystone Science School with Ted's 2/3 classes as a chaperone. I didn't volunteer (because Ted very emphatically told me NOT to) but one of the dads couldn't go at the last minute and his teacher asked me. And Paul said he'd manage the younger two. I'm pretty excited. I'll be with the girls so I'll only see Ted at mealtimes, which is fine with him! My independent little man!


• Sylvie and I took our first Stroke Development class at Flatirons (the new home of TriBabes) and we loved it! Anna was very nice and very helpful and the drills were great. I was the fastest in the slow lane (story of my life) but I can do alternate breathing again without getting winded! This shows me that my overall fitness is much improved from my feeble attempts in May. Hooray! Anna may add a Tuesday night class too, which would be great. As it is, I run and swim both on Tue/Thu and it's easy to skip the swim if there isn't a class to force me to do it. Looking forward to getting into the swing of "winter maintenance."
  



• The basement is finished! They are working on the stairs now. We will need to re-carpet and perhaps some touch up painting, but that's it. Finances are tight (darn structural engineer fees) so we may not move as quickly as I'd hoped. We'll see.
  
  
• About a week ago (BEFORE we realized our financial situation was not what we'd anticipated after paying for the repairs), I moved us to the fabled "envelope system" for categories in which I tend to overspend. Mine are Dining (I could have labeled it Starbucks, but there is the occasional Larkburger...), Groceries, Clothing and Tri (for expenses related to my training.) A good case in point occurred this week. I have a 1/2 marathon coming up and I should have replaced my running shoes about 100 miles ago, but didn't. So I did - they were $109, $99 with my TriBabes discount. Since I had allotted $1o0/month for this category (seemed reasonable - most tri fees are in the $60s), I am out! Tomorrow I have my (complimentary, comes with the bike I bought months ago) bike fitting. I had planned to purchase clips. But ... methinks they are more than $1. So, I'll wait. Interesting feeling. Groceries are always an area we can cut back in, just by doing more from scratch cooking and truly using everything in the CSA share (not just freezing it for "later"). We'll see how it goes. So far, so good.
  

I'll be MIA Monday through Wednesday next week but hope to update when I return. Should be an interesting 3 days!