Does anyone have a spare zillion dollars to loan me? Thanks.

Remember the Year of Austerity?

Yeah, neither do I.

In the last month, here are some things that have popped up:

Lester needed work done on his car, which has close to 150,000 miles on it.  $$

The ceiling in the boys room collapsed. Yes, collapsed. We had to get it fixed with the quickness before the whole slab of plaster fell in on our sleeping darlings. $$$

Dean thought it would be an interesting experiment to see what would happen if he flushed a toy zebra down the toilet. The plumber snaked, vacuumed, tried to break it up, etc. Nothing worked. By the time he finished banging incessantly, we had to buy a new toilet. $$

Our oven has stopped working. Just doesn't come on for some reason. We have to call a repairman this week. I'm sure he'll say we need a new stove, because why wouldn't he. (projected $$$)

The railing outside the house, leading up to our porch, is wobbling - badly. This is dangerous, not to mention an insurance infraction. (projected $$)

The boys outgrew the sneakers we bought them at the BEGINNING OF THE SUMMER. And Clair's toes are hanging off of her little jellies - and the sandals we bought her at the BEGINNING OF SUMMER. We had to buy all of them new shoes. And coats for the winter. Clair still has a lot of hand-me-downs (thank goodness) but somehow mostly dresses and tops. So we had to buy her pants. The boys still have some of Russy's old clothes, but somehow mostly pants, so we had to buy them tops. We went to the mall on Saturday. We left absolutely broke.
$$$$

In addition to soccer, which starts in September for C & D, we have to figure out which activities to enroll all the kids in this fall and winter.

Here are our plans:
Music class for Clair - Sunday mornings
Tumbling class for all kids - Thursday evenings (which will mean crazy rushing after work)
Swim class for all kids - sometime starting in the winter

Can you say "mo' money, mo' money, mo' money?"
$$$$$$$$$

In other news, I'm back to my foolproof financial savings plan of playing the lottery. I'll let you know how that turns out.