Clay and Seth have been hiking on a mountain somewhere in Colorado this week with three other dads and their sons.  They get home today and I must say, I kind of miss them.  I’ve been running around town buying school supplies and working on my real job and hauling pig food and watering the garden and avoiding all those projects I’ve started and…um…uh…I think it might be my turn to go to Colorado.

To make myself not feel so left out of summer vacationing I went and bought two new rugs for my kitchen.  It’s amazing how buying something like a rug  justifies the injustice I was feeling.  I’m glad I have a tiny bit of restraint because I also wanted to buy two bar stools, some new plates, shoes, more rugs, kitchen tools and clothes as far as the eye can see.  Please do not use me as an example of how to cope with your lack of summer vacation.

Oh and a pot rack!  Lord, how I shopped for a pot rack and wanted so badly to buy one.  The only reason I don’t have my pot rack and two new bar stools is because I ran into my friend, Nan, who is “The Damn Ramsey Queen”.  She and her husband have paid off over $80,000 in debt in the last two years.  Yes, I said $80,000.  The woman is hell bent on getting out of debt.  Her focus and determination radiate from every pore.  I really admire her for all her hard work.  I left the store empty handed and felt like I had smacked face first into a concrete wall.  Battered and bruised I got in my van and decided I could wait for the bar stools and pot rack.  DAMN RAMSEY!!

I need some new focus.  Yes, I’m still living on the cheap, but Clay makes fun of my rationalizations – I bought new fabric to recover the porch cushions that cost me $20, but new cushions would cost me well over $100- Clay thinks it’s funny that I tell him how much I’m saving, but in fact we would be fine without new cushions.  He sucks the fun right out of my shopping highs.

Now, take a look at his straw hat.  He loves that hat.  It’s one of many that he wears when working on our farmette.  He wants people to think he’s a farmer, bless his heart.  I’ll be glad to see him and that  scruffy face today.  Maybe he’ll tell me to go treat myself to a pot rack and two bar stools while he showers and shaves.  What can I say?  Fantasies are the only vacation I get around here.