Summer's Coming

Oh boy is it gonna be a busy one. Brian tore up the back half of the yard and put down seed and fertilizer. "It's all in God's hands now" he told me. It will take an act of God to keep those dogs out of the fenced off area, that's for sure. It looks like one of my tomato plants isn't going to make it. It's the Beefeater though, so I don't care too much, the Heirloom is looking good. I still need to plant my sugar snap peas and herbs. That's all I'm doing this year. We don't have much are for a garden and with all the big trees, no area in the yard that gets enough extended sunlight. So I'm planting in pots on top of the dog house.

I have this old china hutch that my mom gave me. You've probably seen it in pictures. I love it cause it holds so much, but it looks pretty dated, and not in a good way. So I have a plan. A rather ambitious one. I want to remove the glass and replace it. That part will be easy, it comes right out. But I want to find a specialty glass place that will make me new panes, maybe with something cool like a sparrow etched on it. Then I want to replace all the knows. Again, very easy. Here's the hard part. I want to sand it all down and refinish it. I want to stain it really dark, like a mahogany or something. I know it will take a lot of time, but I can work on it at night while Brian is at work. I've never done anything like this so we'll see how it goes. I'll fumble through it, like I do everything else grand that I attempt, I'm sure. Like that time I tried to sew Ashley an Easter dress. Never again, folks, never again. But anyway, when it's done, it will be stellar. And much more usable. And my mother-in-law gave me her china set and it's a really nice simple cream colored set. I want to display it in the hutch, but not the way it is now. And I need to get rid of all that bar glassware that I have. But I kinda like having martini glasses, margarita glasses, highballs, rocks glasses, champagne flutes, red wine glasses, white wine glasses, about fifty shot glasses, traditional Japanese sake set, traditional Japanese teas set, two french presses, two shakers, a jigger, kids, I got it all. And I don't use any of it anymore. But I like having it. We'll see. I just need to rearrange.

Also, I need to start on my church cookbook.

And I need to start on my cookbook.

I have a lot to do.

I went through an did up a budget for us. It turns out we have about $900 a month unaccounted for. That means, not going to pay any bills. That is unbelievable! We are hemorrhaging money! I've got to find it. So I sat down and made a list of every week for the rest of the year and who gets paid when and were. Then for the month of May I wrote down what gets paid each week, where all the money needs to go. So we'll see how this goes. It seems like we're always struggling at the beginning of each month, the middle is okay, but then in anticipation of the beginning of the next month, we're broke again at the end of the month. I really want to even things out and get everything under control. I want to know where our money is! And the problem isn't Brian, I know it's me. It's just, with double incomes, we have a lot more money, but we have double the bills too! So I'm getting used to managing all of this. I mean we have to budget dog bills, dog food, clothes for Ash, gas, car repairs, even the food I like to cook to take to our friends houses, hair product! Makeup! Color for my hair, color for Brian's hair! And I need to stop eating at Dean and Deluca a couple times a week. And he needs to knock off Chipotle. We can do this. I'll let you know how it goes at the end of May.

Today is my two year anniversary at Mario's.