What a weird-feeling day. One week from my due date. One day from my 36th birthday. I have the day off and just feel like sitting around, but I set myself a number of tasks so I'm going to have to get going here soon.

But, one of the things I wanted to do was update my financial info, so this counts toward the day even though I'm still in my bathrobe.

The UK mortgages hit, with $379 total going to principal. $751 to go on the March repayment goal.

There was about 300 pounds left in the UK checking account, so I decided to leave most of it there in checking to put toward our UK trip. (I won't note it in my sidebar, because the $3000 I'm trying to raise is for plane tickets which I'm going to pay for with US funds.) It will be used to rent a car when we visit England. I'll probably keep more out of savings so we can also have a couple of dinners out while we're over there, and buy our own groceries (we'll be staying with various nonvegetarian friends and relatives).

I only have three things to do outdoors today: mail some thank-you cards for the shower and a care package for a sick friend (waiting to get some addresses before I go), pick up a gift certificate for another friend, and get my license renewed. Sucky timing: It expires tomorrow, and I was just going to leave it until after the birth, until I thought that maybe I'll need current ID for hospital, pediatric clinic, etc.? Sigh. So I'm going today and I'll at least have the paperwork that I've applied for a new one. And I'll have a round pregnant face on my driver's license for the next five years. Ah well.

The (controlled) spending continues: We had our birthday meals out, bought a bunch more groceries, and ordered the sewing cabinet this weekend. (AS is moving her sewing operations out into the dining area, and since we have an open kitchen/dining/living room area, we needed something that closed up and looked very neat and tidy when it wasn't in use. About $670, but it came from her business account, so it won't affect us. She had $900 to spend so she did pretty well. She can buy some other minor things if needed to complete the transition out of the nursery into the dining area.

We also started checking for price quotes on a good thorough floor cleaning and/or polish. The floor is just kind of grimy and dull; we haven't done a deep clean on it in years. Plus there are some spots with minor damage from furniture, sun, and in one spot an old stain from a spill of a very sticky substance that got into the veneer before it was detected. No real hurry on this, but we kind of want it at least clean before baby starts crawling around. I got an $85 quote for just a floor washing, $1250 for a "renewal" including polish, but we'll keep looking and see if we get wildly differing quotes from the ones we've got so far. If not, I think just a cleaning; after all, the floor is just going to get worn out again, so I'm inclined not to get it completely fixed and polished until we're ready to move out (years from now). I'd much rather focus on getting the stove paid for and the balcony screened in for next spring (probably can't raise the money in time for this spring).

On the income side, AS got another freelance check. She checked her records and saw that including the one she just got, she's expecting over $2000 in checks in the next week or so. That will all go to the travel fund; rounding out the UK airfare and giving us some spending money for Va. (for food, possibly rental car, maybe a night in a hotel to ourselves). Oh yeah, I should deposit that check today; another thing to do while out!

Another bit of good financial news: We found out that NT's job automatically enrolled him in flex spending last year and this year! We thought you had to opt in, and since he tends not to have any medical expenses we stopped enrolling after 2008, but they kept him on it anyway. $150 for 2009 and $150 for 2010. Why is this good news? We found out just in time to scrape some receipts together and claim the $150 from last year, and now we know to keep receipts for random over-the-counter stuff this year and we'll easily get the $150 back. So we won't lose any money and in fact I can replenish the medical expenses fund for almost all of the cost of the diaper service. Neat!