Budget Friendly Birthday

   I know, it's been awhile since my last post. Not that I haven't been writing, I have, but it's been in the form of a book. The book is complete, but is now undergoing the 4th series of edits/rewrites. Folks who have said they would like to be beta readers probably believe I died. I think everyone else thinks so too.

Honestly the end is in sight.

   It will be my last set of rewrites (at least until an editor gets a hold of it) - my kind, loving, and generous husband has refused to read another update. So instead I am reading the changes to him! (Underhanded, but working quite nicely!)

   In addition to my goal of writing and publishing a book, my daughter started high school this year and I have been promoted to the position of taxi driver. Because I needed yet another occupation on top of the one million jobs I already have and don't get paid for! While I'm pleased my daughter is active at school, I am cursing the fact that drivers licenses are not distributed at the start of the freshman year. This is a serious oversight on the part of our education system and something which needs to be addressed.

Perhaps in a future blog.

This one is about budget friendly birthdays.

   Specifically, my budget friendly birthday.

My husband had been asking me over and over what I want for my birthday.

Surprise, surprise, I have no clue. Well, I have a little bit of a clue... 

   One of the things I don't want is to go out for dinner. My birthday is on Valentine's day. No one in their right mind goes out for dinner on Valentine's day. Especially not me! I would rather eat glass or nails or beets. So I had to think of something more tangible.


   Evidently asking him to read the current edition of the book is not one of my options. So instead I requested tires for one of our vehicles. (I know, romantic right?) I was tired of slipping and sliding around every corner due to copious amount of ice we seem to be accumulating this winter and I thought new tires might help the situation and keep me from running into the garage with our SUV... again.

Then I took a look at our budget.

   We can have tires in April or May.
 
  With our current finances in mind, I drastically edited down my expectations and decided what I really wanted was a pen. Not just any pen! A pen like the one I have to keep hunting down because my house is filled with thieves and it continually disappears from my work space. It is not only the perfect writing implement but it is also incredibly budget friendly!

      My husband informed me it is wrong to steal pens from church, no matter how well they write, how nice they feel in your hand, how much the ink doesn't smear, and how wonderfully long the pen lasts. Apparently there is a commandment forbidding one to remove pens from church. (To set the record straight, I didn't steal this one!)

   He also told me we couldn't steal pens from the doctor's office either. (Which is a bummer, cause they have really nice pens there as well and they keep them in a container right on the counter where they are easy to access.)

   Instead he suggested we go to the store and (gulp) buy a pen!

   Did you know they have a whole aisle of pens at the office store? Everything you could want, from gel pens to erasable ink pens. There are pens with different colored ink and even SPACE PENS. You know, just in case you're upside down and writing underwater over grease. None of which I have ever done. What does one write on in water anyway? Is there waterproof paper or something? I may have to investigate.


   It was daunting. I just wanted a pen. With black ink.

And I really liked the church pens.

   He said no church pens. We weren't going to the doctor's office either.

   So I started my search. It was harder than you might think, but I finally settled on one I thought would suit my needs. It was both comfortable to hold and easy to use. The ink was black and rolled right off the ball, no smearing on either the paper or my hand. It even had a clicky thingie on the top to retract the writing mechanism so that I don't accidently write on my tongue should I stick the pen in my mouth while thinking up some great idea.
(Anyone thinking of stealing my pen should really give this last part some serious consideration.)

   I was so excited when my husband informed me we could splurge and purchase a WHOLE PACKAGE of these wonderful pens I nearly fainted on the post-it notes. There are now multiples of the pen in each of my work spaces and to protect against the thieve lurking in my home, I have hidden a few for good measure.
 
We were nearly out of the store when I spotted the ultimate in pen theft deterrence. I poured over the many choices offered before sadly shaking my head and sticking with my original selection. I just couldn't see how they would be all that effective, after all, if they were such a great deterrent, they would probably have them at the doctors office if not at the church.