Well, just a little. Still not feeling 100 % since my bout with a cold this past weekend I guess --but, I've lolligagged enough. There are things to do and people to see. Pets to be taken care of and cages to clean. Laundry to wash and hang and dishes to clear. Children to educate. A checkbook to balance and a mortgage to pay. A community garden plot to reserve. Floors to be swept. Email to answer. Sheesh, I could go on and on (and ON and ON), but you get the picture....

DH has been paid (finally), so now I need to push money around into their various accounts, including some $300 I will be transfering to savings. Yay to that. Still have some catching up to do, but I think I'm feeling the frugality of the past several months beginning to pay off. It's all very worth it in any event -- and encourages me to stay on track....

My house is fragrant. I have apples slowly stewing into applesauce on the stove as I type, from a big bag of apples generously given to me for free from our friendly neighborhood asian grocer. Some were a bit bruised, or slightly dried out -- nothing a little picking over and cutting around couldn't cure. My kids love homemade applesauce, so it will all be put to good use. I think I may throw a stew in the crockpot for tonight's dinner to go with it -- and perhaps some bread in the machine to make things easy, since I'm not in a huge cooking mood. I've been preparing meals out of my pantry these last few days though with good results. For example, lunch today will likely be leftover homemade chili (made with beans I batch-cooked and froze in meal sized quanitities some time ago) -- stretched with a little added tomato juice, and a can of corn. Mmmmmm, speaking of tomato juice, my mother has some in her freezer from my father's garden tomatoes, that she juiced in her Champion juicer last season and froze. I called her this morning to beg her for some of it -- I've had such a taste for tomatoes these last serveral days, and her frozen tomato juice tastes so fresh and delicious. WAY better than anything you can buy in a can from the store. I think I may run over there to pick some up when I'm doing errands here in a few hours .....