Day 10 (yesterday) Day 11 (today)

A very dear friend of ours is staying with us for a couple days. Silly me--I thought he was coming on Saturday. When he called yesterday morning and said "I'm on my way" I laughed long and hard at my stupidity and thanked my neat-freak personality for keeping the house clean. I was proud of me, because it would have been way too easy to run to the store and grab fancy ingredients for supper to have on hand during his stay. But I stuck to my meal plan and we ate a nice simple meal together. He later thanked me and said it had been a while since he'd had a home cooked dinner. Now that warmed my heart!!! I spent a little more time in the kitchen than I would have liked, with dinner, dessert, and getting homemade cinnamon rolls ready for the morning, but it showed me once again that not spending money really comes down to planning ahead. I had all the ingredients on hand for everything we needed--I just took the time to make it all come together.

This morning I was at the kids' school library volunteering, and the librarian (who is a close friend of mine now... she anticipated Zinabu's arrival almost as much as we did) broke the news to me that she has to go on a long medical leave. It's possible she may not be able to return to her job at all. I'm devastated and sad and sick about it. I'll see her again next week, but I want to give her a gigantic, enormous going-away present. I want to shower her with flowers and gift cards and books. But I can't. I can't spend the money. So I'm going to have to be very creative (note to self: what can I make out of pine cones?) and write her an extra long note in a card and hope that's enough. Of course, I know it's enough--she's not asking me to give her presents for Pete's sake. But the fact that I want to give her presents but can't stings a bit. Then again, maybe she'll really understand how much she means to me because I'll tell her with words and not with "things."

Tomorrow is Zinabu's birthday. He will be 6. I have cried about 50 times already that I will never have a 5 year old again.... it's killing me. I told David I want more--more kids, more boys, twins, triplets, everything. He pretended not to hear me. I'll post tomorrow about Z's "free" party.