March 30 & 31 Nate is visiting friends in Tucson and I get to spend some solo time with the kids. We take a walk downtown along the river (some of the cherry blossoms are still blooming) through Saturday market, and to a new bubble tea place ($21). We visit the Sellwood food carts for a sushi dinner ($60). Is it just me, or wasn’t the initial attraction of food carts partly that they were slightly less expensive than their brick and mortar counterparts? Well, no more.
April 1 It is a gorgeous, sunny & breezy spring morning. Driving my daughter to school, I have an allergy attack that has my eyes burning and itching so severely I think I may have to pull over. I consider driving to urgent care at Kaiser 25 minutes away, and then likely waiting another 30-60 minutes to be seen, and easily decide to go to ZoomCare (only 6 minutes away) to see if they can provide some relief. While I am waiting to be seen, the receptionist has me do an eye exam (good news! I can still see 20/20 even when my eyes feel like they’re on fire!) About 20 minutes later, the PA puts some novocaine drops in my eyes (who knew there was such a thing?) and examines my eyes. I am overwhelmed by the intensity of having so much pain & discomfort in my eyes and begin to cry. It may be the novocaine, or my tears flushing out the pollen, but I finally feel better. And, completely exhausted from stress. I fork over $250 for the exam (not covered by Kaiser) and $14 for some antihistamine eye drops.
April 2 Another all-day training at work, this one about Mental Health First Aid. Breakfast, lunch and coffee provided.
April 3 & 4 I pack my lunch, and have Work Coffee. In the mail, an envelope from the DMV: by May 22 we have to register our electric car again, for $422. Ugghhhhh. At least I have enough to cover it this year in our savings. Most years we charge this expense because we don’t. Hence, our current predicament.
April 5 I spend some time taking stock of our March spending wins and losses:
Win: We put $2,084 towards our total debts
Win: I paid one of my 6 credit cards down to zero! One less monthly bill.
Win: Nate sold 2 banjos last month for an additional $2,100
Win: We made $500 in additional income through our Airbnb in March
Win: We made it through another month without using credit cards
Loss: We spent over $1200 on our weekend at the coast, which seems a bit much
Loss: We exceeded our budget in nearly every category
April 6 Nate and I walk down the block to an estate sale. The small beige house is so nondescript as to be almost unnoticable. It appears very busy, and there is a line to get in. You may well ask why would a person who is not buying stuff attend an estate sale? I’m not really sure… except to get out of the house, and to satisfy my curiousity. What could possibly be so great that people would wait up to 30 minutes to get in? And it turns out, there is something strangely compelling about the contents of this house. It feels more modern and colorful than your typical, brittle and dusty estate collections. If I were buying things, quite a few coffee mugs and some glassware might have made it into my already bursting kitchen cabinets, so it’s a good thing that everything is priced exhorbitantly high! The coffee mugs are a hefty $15, a wooden cutting board is $40, and umbrella that catches Nate’s eye is $15. We might as well be at the local shops buying new.
As I poke around the house at the attractive belongings of these cosmopolitan strangers, all I can think is: I don’t want to ever have this much stuff. And my next thought is: I already do.
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