Austerity Project, Day 1

Here we are - February 1st. The beginning of our month of nothing.

And it is already hard. Two things happened in the last 24 hours to make this a more difficult project than it already was.

First, we received a letter from our homeowners association (also known as the Axis of Evil.) They've been jacking us around about our satellite dish for months. Seems the dish, which sits on the same wall as our air conditioner, electric and gas meters and all our vents, is an eyesore. Never mind that this is the place the home builder wired for the stupid thing. Never mind that we are the very last house in the entire development and you can't see the dish unless you are sitting directly in front of our home. ON A DEAD-END STREET.

In order to appease the HOA, we spent more than $900 (that we didn't have) on trees this summer to mask the offending dish. Unfortunately, the trees are not full-grown yet, so there is a sliver of space between our house and the first tree, and if you pull your car into that exact sight line, you can still see the dish. Therefore, we had to have my brother fabricate a trellis (cost: $100 for materials) to cover the rest of the view. The problem is, the ground has been frozen solid ever since we finished the trellis. Nevertheless, the HOA expects us to magically get this thing installed.

Long story short, we have to spend at least $50 this month to rent an auger to install the stupid trellis, buy concrete that will set in below-freezing temperatures and get it all done before the end of the month or "RISK LEGAL ACTION." So we are looking at about $75 in extra costs that we have to pull from the grocery/meds budget. And my level of rage at the HOA is building all the time. It hardly seems worth it to put up with these petty tyrants just to get city water and sewer.

Second, Mom started peppering me with questions about what Tony and I are going to do for our anniversary. February 9th is our three-year wedding anniversary, and neither of us have ever managed to stay married this long, so it's kind of a big deal. Not to mention that it will be our last anniversary as just a two-some, before the baby arrives. I had hoped we could do something nice - go out to dinner, maybe spend a night away from the crowd somewhere. But, we will be doing nothing. I will admit to getting a little teary-eyed telling Mom that, but I realize that the more important thing is that Tony and I enter our fourth year of marriage solvent rather than having a tasty meal or overnight getaway.

So, I told her that we would be writing each other love letters. To which Tony responded that he's not writing any stupid letter.

Good to know that the romance survives, no matter what.