Spending money.

Catherine's parents sent us a check for Christmas. A lot of it is being spent on necessary--or at least practical--stuff. For instance, our printer has been giving us the "low on ink" sign for weeks, and today we finally went out and spent 33.00 on an ink cartridge. Some of the money went to buy a Christmas present for Marianne in Sweden. Some of it will go to mail out our last two Christmas presents out. Some of it will definitely go for groceries tomorrow, thank god.

But we decided to do some things with the money that will improve our mental health, too. It feels dangerous to spend money on things that aren't absolutely necessary, but on the other hand...we're both tired of being depressed and worried, and we just wanted to escape reality for a bit. So, we went out to lunch today, and then bought lunch to take over to Erika and Henry, since they're down with the flu. Neither were necessities, but they made us feel better. So did the coffee we had later.

We spent $20 on art supplies for me--paper, a couple new brushes, some drafting tape. Absolutely not necessary, but then again, it's getting to the point where it's essential to keep me occupied after work, otherwise there's no telling what kind of trouble I'll get us all into. We both felt a lot better today after Catherine ran down the list of my Christmas presents and pointed out how many of them will keep me off the streets, yet still not require any sort of mobility. Usually I exercise my stress off, but I can't even go running anymore. My shoulder just can't take it, so I'm more or less housebound after I get home from work.

So, for Christmas Catherine bought me a model of a Ford street rod to put together. That will take me awhile, and I can keep relatively still while I'm doing it. It is very, very cool. She also bought me an Atari emulator, so I can sit in the bedroom and barely move at all for hours on end. She bought me a couple of new CDs to give me something else to do besides turn on the television after work (people get jobs so they don't have to listen to daytime TV). And now her parents have paid for some watercolor bits and pieces, and I can do that while I'm waiting for the model glue to dry. I can't spend all my time reading library books, so I'm hoping I'll be happier now that I have some other things to keep me busy.