The house was torn apart (we had stuff from the was-office, the bedroom, the bathroom and the kitchen all stacked in the living room) for painting the nursery, kitchen and bathroom, but now the painting is done (thanks to my father and also to the spouse; I steered clear of the fumes) and the house is almost in order again. I have a stove (it was in the living room) and a refrigerator I can access (it was pulled out and I could just barely open one of the doors). I have a computer on its own table again, so I’m not holding the keyboard on my lap, sitting on the futon, typing. (This did not work very well, considering I dropped the keyboard about a dozen times.)?

What this means to you: If I haven’t answered your email, I will most likely get around to it in the very near future now that I have better keyboard / computer access.?

And I promise to bore you all with blogging about cribs and maternity clothes and budgets. Mmmm budgets. Tomorrow’s the end of the month; that means it month-end net worth calculation time. When we get to see?just for fun?what the stock market has done to our 401(k)s and IRAs this month. And look at how much the mortgage principal has decreased (not much). See, I’m boring you already.?

I don’t think I’ve spent so much money or done so much shopping in years. New shirts (that look OK with a bump), new pants (actual maternity pants because even the belly band wasn’t working with the pre-preggie pants), new other necessities, and crib shopping to boot. The spouse took me to the big cities and we have crib finalists. Now to clean up the house after the painting. Is it Friday yet?

The NYT ran a series of articles Sunday about “The Culture of Debt”?looking at the debt problem from all angles. (I haven’t read any of it yet, but that’s what the subtitle said.) Today, Brooks, with whom I rarely agree but sometimes enjoy reading, has an editorial on the same topic. I’m intrigued by his third option: that the U.S. has changed the way it looks at debt: morally, culturally, individually.

From my early 20th century American history classes, I can see where he’s coming from. I still say that if the government, and therefore, the taxpayer, is going to pony up for the bill in the end, that we should have more say in it from the beginning. I don’t want to pay for someone else’s retail therapy or housing speculation; and even more importantly, I do not want to pay for a corporation’s or stockholders’ speculation. (Yes, yes, I know, as an index fund investor, I may unwittingly be a part of the stockholder speculation though it is not I who am speculating, but the market in general, I would say.)

I hold that responsibility should still be understood on an individual level. And that we need better education in schools on personal finance to teach people about money and personal responsibility. Otherwise, how will people know? They’re not learning it from their parents or their peers.

Church has been attended, the kitchen cleaned, breakfast burritos and Grits made, banana bread baked, experimental pumpkin applesauce muffins put in the oven. I am feeling much more efficient today. That whole not going to work thing may have something to do with it. Now to research cases for the iphone so I can start using mine without fear of dropping it and killing hundreds of dollars worth of technology. And later, I hope, I’ll get to try out a new Puerto Rico strategy I thought up during a long, tedious meeting this week. Anyone up for a game?

This article on Bankrate today says Americans on average receive 14 days of vacation per year, while Europeans get between 24 and 37; Canadians receive 17 days per year. What’s more, Americans only use 11 vacation days per year. I don’t know about you, but I use every vacation day I have (except for the ones I’m allowed to carry over to use for next year that I keep as an emergency fund); there’s no way I would let vacation days burn. And I would love to have France’s 37 vacation days per year.

This editorial on the NYT is about the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. I remember that Meyer’s trilogy received the highest advance for a young adult author (correct me if I misquote, H) and now, she hit the NYT editorial page. I happen to love the Twilight series, though admittedly, I’m a Buffy/Angel fan, and read Bram Stoker’s?Dracula and just about every Anne Rice novel while in high school. Fairy tales, faery tales, fantasy, some sci-fi: I’m there. I’ve read my share of Dickens and someone even got me to read We Were the Mulvaneys?(terribly depressing; why do I try to read American literature unless it’s Poe?) but I’m all there for what most people would consider fluff. Hey, at least I don’t obsess about American Idol.?

I worked, I came home, I surfed the internet, I read a book. I did not clean the house. It is still an utter wreck from the nursery arrangements that are half done. I was sickish?all evening.?(Dang it all, I’m at week 15, I thought this massively misnamed “morning” sickness was supposed to go away by now.)?

I’m sure I’m just tired and stressed from work, but I feel very boring. I just can’t summon the energy to clean anything, or bake the banana bread I’ve been meaning to make for two days. Blech. Sleep it is. Maybe I’ll feel more inspired tomorrow.?

. . . is mostly disassembled. The computers have migrated to the den of technology, which is getting a bit less nerdy as the majority of the video game consoles have been boxed up in anticipation of having a smaller space. I am blogging from the futon, which is my new computer chair. We’re down a bookcase, having done a thorough purge of the library shelves to make room for the spouse’s computer desk. All in all, there is much upheaval but it will lead to better things: like painting. In a couple of weeks. After we clean out the garage.

In other news, just finished Stephenie Meyer’s new novel, The Host.?I’m still not convinced it was as good as Twilight?or its sequels, but it’s very different, more dense subject matter. I guess the only way to do a thorough comparison is to reread the trilogy. I think I can live with that.

Went with friends to the local blueberry field and picked 22 pounds of blueberries yesterday morning. Actually, I probably picked half that many; the spouse picked the rest. And he doesn’t even like blueberries. Double extra husband points for him. Especially since he had to get up at 5:30 a.m. on a holiday to pick. Altogether, our group picked 69 pounds of blueberries.

So, at 4th barbecue (British style) we had fresh blueberry pie. Yum. Hurrah to E. who made it and the yummy-looking lemon tart with blueberries that I didn’t even have a chance to taste because I was so stuffed with pie?and home-made peppermint Oreo ice cream that M. made.?

It was a good day. I am thankful for holidays that make long weekends. Even if the fireworks don’t stop until 1:30 a.m. (I slept through them but the spouse didn’t.)