I took it pretty easy this weekend, and finally today I feel like I have most of my energy back. The aftermath of my illness was much worse than the thing itself!

I did my morning strength training exercises today for the first time in about two weeks, and AS and I walked 3 miles to work for the first time in over a month. While we were sick, the temperature went up and most of the thick coating of ice melted off the sidewalks. We hope we can get back to daily walking, because it's so nice to get 3 miles under your belt first thing in the morning. Come into work a lot more energized and clear-headed too, versus just taking the bus in.

Last week I didn't bother with my two days of no screen time in the evening and two days of no personal internet at work. Most of the days weren't my normal routine; I was out sick or working from home or leaving early for a work happy hour, so work and personal time kind of blended together anyway. I did achieve two days of no drinking, just because I didn't feel like drinking two of the days due to being so fatigued post-illness.

But I'm starting back on all those goals this week.

We really got sick at the best possible time during birthday month, after the first three birthdays and during the two-week lag before the other two birthdays. Now we have NT's on Wednesday, his celebration on Saturday, SL's birthday next Thursday and party next Saturday, and AA's makeup party the following Saturday (that'll be in April). So five birthday-related things still coming up. We're not as prepared as we would normally be, but we'll just wing it and try to make it as fun as possible for the birthday boy and girls.

Our shared spending deficit has been hovering at the $5K mark for the past few weeks, which was bumming all of us out. AS would get a payment or I'd apply a budget surplus, only to have some shared spending bump it back up again. I finally realized that we'd all be better served, psychologically, if I took AS's co-working membership ($1800) and planned to pay it off over the next several months out of the regular budget. So now I have $200 per month coming out of the budget May through January in the annual budget spreadsheet. I moved that $1800 on its own line in the tracker spreadsheet and will whittle it down a little at a time. Then I moved the roughly $1700 of prepaid summer programs for AA, and made a plan in the annual budget spreadsheet to pay back each portion during the actual months the programs are happening, July through August. So now that's on a separate line in the regular tracker too.

We still have the same deficit to float and will have to be mindful of that, but the shared spending deficit is now about $1500. Much more doable, even though AS's jobs have been much slower to pay than we predicted. But we know the money is coming. It might be in April but it will come.

Shared spending will still take some hits: The three birthday parties will all have expenses of a few hundred each, and AS and I will need new clothes for our spring/summer capsule wardrobe. And since we all went to the doctor at various times this month, those bills will likely be another few hundred total when they come in. But it's all looking manageable. I'm holding some money in checking that I would ordinarily put into savings, and I'll keep it in checking until the deficit is lower just to make sure we can float everything. But I know it's going into savings eventually so that's good.

Two of my annual goals are kind of stagnating: Getting my novel publishing-ready and working on emergency preparedness. But it's not to say they can't get done; the year is still pretty young. So we'll see if I can get those back on track soon too.