Here We Go Again ...

I'm going to have to take another week off without pay in the second quarter, so sometime between April and the end of June. My first furlough was awesome, because I went to Hawaii to visit Missy – and it was relatively cheap because she was kind enough to let me stay with her. 

This time around, I don't think I'm going to be so lucky. I could go to the Dominican Republic again, because I have friends who are going in June. But I'm very, very hesitant to do that knowing that I'm probably facing a huge loss of income this year after I'm furloughed in the third and fourth quarters as well. 

Read more about the furlough fun here.

Lenten sacrifice

When I was a kid, I always used to give up either chocolate or candy for Lent. As an adult, I've pretty much given up on "giving up" stuff for Lent. I don't eat that much chocolate or candy anyways, so that would be pointless. And I'm not going to give up something that I really, really can't live without ... like Diet Coke or a glass of Cabernet every once in a while after work. 

So I'd resigned myself to not really making any kind of Lenten gesture this year, until I overheard a girl at Younkers talking about how she'd given up shopping for Lent. And I immediately realized that is the perfect sacrifice for me. Because A) I love to shop, and given that I'm still working part-time at Younkers, the opportunity to do so is ever-present, and B) Most of the stuff I buy when shopping is stuff that I really don't need. 

I've now gone almost three weeks without shopping, and it's a lot harder than I thought it would be. Younkers is having a really good sale right now, and I see people snatching up all these good deals and look wistfully at them walking around with their shopping bags filled with bargains. 

But I'm just trying to think how nice it will be not to have to pay any charge card bills this month. And how I can use all those savings to go on massive shopping spree on Easter Sunday :)