Budgeting for the new reality.

I’ve spent the last few days working on a budget to see if I could really maintain my lifestyle on my current wages.

It really isn’t bad. I was even able to tuck away a shekel or two for vacation. Yes, I could afford to drive to Mosier, have a beer and drive home two times every year! Well, I could drive most of the way home. I'd have to stop at the Odell Highway intersection and hitchhike from there.

And don’t worry, I tucked some money aside in the budget for essentials, like water and cat food.  And, of course, for kitty litter there is a separate journal entry, and it is a big journal.

Sometimes, you curse your life choices, even though they were right at the time, and then…

Oregon PERS calls. I knew that Richard had an account with Oregon’s Public Employees Retirement System, and I knew that I was going to get his benefits for 103 more weeks. And trust me, that $250.00 was firmly planted in my budget. But there was another side to PERS, that while I was aware of, I wasn’t sure how it worked and if there was any benefit for me. Well, apparently there is something in the neighborhood of a really big amount of cash in this account, and they are sending me paperwork so I can claim it.

Okay, when I say a really big amount of cash, we ain’t talking the sums that would impress most of my sisters, but it is, by the skin of its teeth, five digits, (before the decimal.)

Okay, I think Richard is paying for his funeral, and sending me to Europe one last time.

I will carry him with me, through every street and nook and cranny, even if it wouldn’t have been his first choice of destination. Or maybe I will go to Italy in his honor. Or maybe I will go to Estonia, or perhaps Croatia, or maybe explore Iceland more completely. Whoa, anyone up for a couple weeks in Albania?

And yes, a previously unknown picture surfaced.

He is so handsome!