Like many things in life, I'm approaching Brad's layoff as though it were a challenge, and almost anything can be sort of amusing for a while when it's a brand new challenge for me to figure out. I've been throwing myself wholeheartedly into rebudgeting and figuring out how to be frugal. But I have a feeling the novelty will soon wear off and I'll long for the days when we used to spontaneously go out to eat or to a movie or have a large mocha without even thinking about the money.

In my dream world, we'll figure out how to live on nothing but my salary and either Brad can be a stay-at-home Dad for a while or else we'll just become so extremely savvy with money that when he does get a job, we'll be swimming in the bucks and saving money hand over fist so our kid can go to college and we can retire someday, and then we'll soon be selling our house in this cold and impersonal townhouse neighborhood where we live and moving into a cute little house in a cute little neighborhood where there are sidewalks and little yards and the houses all look different and trick-or-treaters actually show up on Halloween.

I can dream.