Thursday, July 2, 2009

A Good Time To Review The Budget

It's hard to believe the year is half over already!

I like to review our budget every six months and make any necessary adjustments. I wasn't surprised to learn we were way over budget in our Lawn & Garden category. In the past, that category has mainly been for things such as lawn mower maintenance, items like citronella candles or Tiki fuel so we can enjoy our time outside more, and things like charcoal that don't really fit in any other category. Since the gardening bug bit us this year, it seems we've gone overboard! Luckily, a lot of those expenses are either one-time purchases or things that won't have to be replaced for a few years.

I'm happy to say that most of our other budget numbers were still good or just needed minor tweaking.

I also took Kat to the doctor today. She wasn't feeling ill at all, but she'd found two small lumps in the back of her neck. They were under the skin and about the size of BBs. I remembered that a few days after our last camping trip, I found a tick biting her scalp behind her left ear. I'd missed it when I checked her earlier or she may have picked it up later. I didn't think it was a serious problem, but did suspect the lumps were related, so I wanted to have a doctor take a look. The doctor said the lymph nodes had some infection from the tick bite. She also noticed some infection in Kat's left ear, which she said was probably caused by the infection in the lymph nodes. The doctor prescribed an antibiotic, so hopefully the infections will go away before Kat feels under the weather or in pain at all.

Tomorrow Kat leaves for the weekend with her mom (and another birthday celebration), while Shane and I go camping again. Since it will just be the two of us, I've planned some foods that are a little less kid-friendly than usual. I'll post about them early next week.

I'll also try to get next week's menu ready for Sunday, although I've noticed (and read) that Blogger has been having some issues with their advanced scheduling options. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

That's it for me until at least Sunday. Hope all of you have a fun and safe weekend, wherever you are!

3 comments:

Tug said...

Have a great weekend away, & hopefully Kat will be infection free real soon.

Anonymous said...

Sorry about the ticks. Poor Kat, those things give me the willys!! Just the thought of it made me want to dance around and brush myself off.

A.Marie said...

Whoa!! I am glad that you took her to the doc and got her on antibiotics!

My teen son had a tick on his chest once, when he was about 3, and we were at a very wooded rest area. We had stopped and had a picnic, and he had gone into the edge of the wooded area to go "exploring," and I didn't think to check him. Later that evening, as I was getting him ready for bed, I saw this black bump on him. And, sure enough, it was a tick.

Yuck.

Thank goodness for on-call nurses. They told us what to do and what to watch for.