Today was Rose's 11th birthday. It's hard to believe that my little girl is that old. Not so little either. She's just hit 5 foot 2. She started the summer at 5 feet so that's two inches in two months. Ouch. No wonder her legs are hurting. 4 more to go and she'll be as tall as me. She's now taller than my mother. And she's complaining about how all her clothes are too short. $igh. I know what that means. At least it coincides with back to school shopping.

DH called and told me he will most likely only be coming home for a week this time. He needs to train the new RC's new alternate RC. I guess they had to hire two people to replace DH. Seems that's always the way, with him doing the work of two or more people and doing it so well that when he moves on or up they have some serious scrambling to do.

I'm not complaining though. That means an extra $2,625 coming our way, right in time for back to school shopping. I was wondering how I was going to handle that, as I hadn't quite prepared for it like I should have. They can wear shorts and tank tops to school until the weather turns, as long as the tank tops are three fingers wide at the strap and shorts are fingertip length. Rose's shorts are past fingertip length as she favors the Bermuda style length. So that would have given me a month's leeway to scramble some money together. She can still wear her windbreaker, her lightweight and her heavyweight coats since they were all big on her last year.

Tobias on the other hand will need a new heavy coat and several new pants. He's grown 3 inches since January. Fortunately all of his shirts were bought long so they all still fit nicely. And we're good on socks and unders for everyone. I'm sure he'll need shoes, though. His tennis shoes were tight at the end of the school year and he's been living in his sandles. They'll both need boots, but those can probably wait until mid-November, as we don't usually get snow until the 20th or so.

I need a stadium coat or a parka or something this year. That squall jacket I got last year is fine for fall and spring, but no good for snow. It doesn't keep me warm at all once the temperature hits 28 degrees F. That type of coat will be at least $100. Sometimes I wish I wasn't allergic to wool and down, it would be so much cheaper.

I reckon between all the needs we will probably spend around $600. So that'll leave $2000 extra to put on debt, into the education fund, and maybe a bit into the EF. A very good thing. I need to make the effort not to let it get frittered away. DH wants to start going for his BA through correspondence by October or November. That money will get reimubursed through work after the fact but we need to come up with it in the first place.

He's going to run the numbers for me on taxes and make sure with his new day rate that enough taxes are being withheld. And also see about upping the 401K by 1%. I don't think we can until November.

So much running around in my head right now.