I feel like a slacker

Everyone who has ever kept a blog goes through dry spells, and they always apologise when they come back... so I won't bore you with another one. Consider it given.

There's really not a lot going on around here to warrant blogging, or at least not a lot that's shareable. Monkeypants had her awards ceremony for graduating fifth grade, and she was the last person to receive her awards because she got *every award it was possible to receive*. Well, except perfect attendance due to that very nasty flu we all got in November. But everything else from Bluebonnet awards for reading, to "Fact Frenzy Master" test awards (they never explain what these accomplishments mean, which frustrates me to no end). But her teacher made a point of mentioning that she got them all, which is very gratifying and not just a little bit scary. The word "brilliant" was used. I can't help feeling that we're making her into a big fish in a small pond by keeping her in public school. Are we doing her a disservice because we can't afford private school? Or is she better off being the most brilliant where she is, than the average somewhere else?

Other than the end of the academic year, there's not a lot to tell. We're trying to save up for a trip to Minnesota in July, but we're continually running out of money before the end of the pay period. Expenses haven't seemed to go up much, and pay hasn't gone down, we're just not making it as well as we used to, and we can't seem to figure out the cause. I've taken to making homemade pizza a lot again, and if you've been following my blog you know that's how I make the food budget stretch in times of crisis. We just can't understand how it's happening, unless some sneaky expense has been increasing so gradually we haven't noticed. For the first time ever we're cutting the cable TV for the summer... I know many people who do this, but for us it's always been a negligible expense. Now it seems a needless one. Between Hulu, Amazon Video on Demand, Netflix's "Watch it now" and DVD box sets, broadcast television seems like a luxury... and an unused one at that. Since my ReplayTV DVRs have been acting up, I may be less choked up about it than one might think.

Hubby has again attempted to quit smoking, and I think he might actually be serious this time. The true test (as always) will be to see if he goes back to it once we have money again.