Halloween 2008

Ryan and I are officially boring, old fogies. I've suspected this for awhile now, but today I can say without a doubt that it is true. The final symptom manifested last night, Halloween '08, when we declined to celebrate the holiday. No candy, costumes, decorations, carving pumpkins, haunted houses, scary movies...not even a steaming cup of hot chocolate. You have to remember that I am experiencing technical difficulties with my body and have no energy to plan or execute such activities. And that we have become frugal to the point of boring (and proud of it). Looking back to all the raucous parties (Beth and Miles :) we used to attend, I just got a little nostalgic for old times.

But, in spite of it all, I think yesterday was the best Halloween I have ever had. I should say the best day that fell on Oct 31 that I've ever had, because obviously Halloween had nothing to do with it. For one thing, Ryan and I got out and VOTED and it felt so good to get it done! We were worried a bit about moving counties so soon before the election, but found it made no difference since it was so close in time. Thank goodness!

After voting, we decided to reward ourselves with lunch at Macaroni Grill. I forgot how much I love the food there! I could eat their Chicken Toscana soup everyday (I've been craving cream based soups lately), and of course we ordered the Penne Rustica. Delicous! I also indulged in a glass of Dr. Pepper, which as you know, isn't great for pregnancy, and I paid the price. I had to empty my bladder literally every 15 minutes for a few hours afterwards. As if I'm not peeing enough already! (Sorry if that's TMI)

Our next stop was at a maternity consignment store that had caught my eye. It was a dissapointment, though. Used clothing and misc. for about the same prices as new stuff. Alas, we didn't buy anything there.

A few hours at home, reading and relaxing (and me napping, of course), rejuvenated us and found my stomach growling. Darn this ravenous baby! We were trying to decide what to have for dinner (leftovers, again?) when Ryan checked the mail. We had a letter from our old apartment complex that we dreaded to open.

*Explanation* When we moved out, we left a bit of damage. Chewed up molding, stains on the carpet, holes in the walls from hanging pictures (although we patched and painted them as best we could). And Ryan has seen some hefty move out charges since working for the company. We were thinking a couple thousand...and hoping it wouldn't be even more. And on top of THAT, we were given one month free of rent when we moved there and they have every right to charge us for it if we break our lease agreement. So...we were scared to open the envelope! We'd been setting money aside for the potential charges but only had about $1000 so far (plus our $1000 emergency fund).

Ryan opened the envelope and read the letter. He looked at me and asked IF I wanted to see it. Of course not! I told him "Just TELL me!" and he said "Three."

I'm thinking: Three thousand dollars?? We don't even have that much to pay them! Where are we going to come up it? We should never have booked that hotel for Christmas! Moving out early was a bad idea!

All of this went through my head in just an instant and Ryan could tell that I was stressing, so he finally stopped being a jerk and told me that we only owed $300. I was shocked and amazed, and even now I have no idea why they didn't make us pay more. We KNOW they replaced the carpets and the molding, but all they charged us for was the automatic cleaning fee, the keys that we didn't turn in, and our last utility bill. Wow!

All I can say is pay your tithing. Time after time things like this have happened to us and the only explanation we have is that we pay our tithing and literally, we don't have room for all the blessings.

We now have several hundred dollars with which we can get some things we've been needing, make a HUGE car payment, and maybe do a little baby shopping :)