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Working all those days in May paid off - here it is the Friday before the first round of budget meetings (next week) and I'm off!  My boss graciously offered to let me skip the 'retreats' - most were school site subject matter and while I'm always interested and appreciate hearing about how it goes at the sites and what things come up for a principal, having those commitments off my calendar made a huge difference.  Everything is done, we have an official 'tentative' budget and we're winding down.

It's after 12:30PM and I'm still in my PJ's so yay!

The weather is odd - rain (sprinkles), bursts of sun but mostly cloudy.  I can't decide how to dress..so I haven't.  (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!).

On a whim, I checked out British Air this morning and snared us two round trip tix from SFO to Heathrow in October - Premium Economy! - for under $2600.  That's not the cheapest fair we could have - we could fly coach for 1/2 that - but as I've stated before, Premium Economy is a splurge we feel is well worth it for long haul flights.  Now we're just working on hotels.  I paid $20 to hold the air reservations to give us three more days to confirm - and we're doing our usual 'round and round' discussions as we try to plan.

First, we fret about returning to London and Paris (our current plan) because we've been there, done that.  There's so many other wonderful places - we keep going to the same place.  But the truth is, we love both so much and there's plenty of things we haven't done or seen in each - so why not go back? And yes, there are places I plan to revisit for sure - but I feel more adventurous and braver with each trip because I have been there, done that to some extent.

Then we start to reserve hotels and realize to get the best price, we have to book and pay now - and all the 'what ifs' enter in - what if we can't make the trip for some reason - and we're out thousands of dollars for hotels?  What if we have a health event or some other catastrophic life event.  So we should reserve the rooms and not pay - which can add hundreds of dollars to the cost.  Prepaying is a huge savings but it's risky.

J. checks out the travel agent website we've used before - only they won't just book hotels.  Flights have to be included - and the hotels they suggest are far from where we like to stay - in unknown areas way out of the way of where we've stayed before - which eliminates the comfort factor of 'been there, done that'.

So we're back to deciding how to book and I think we will end up getting the rooms reserved and pay more for not paying now.

And then we get to the 'how to pay for it all'.  All things considered, we're pretty careful with our money and are officially 'at that age' where you think carefully about what you have and how long it will last.  These discussions often leave me fretful and frustrating - because honestly, I could work another 11 years and therefore, we could most certainly open up the coffers easily enough -

We want to travel now while we're both able (physically) and that window is getting tighter by the year.  And while I am still working, which covers the majority of our fixed expenses like our home, etc. - why not travel?  But we would still need to dip into savings quite a bit for this trip which would be hitting our budget not too far before the next cruise and Disney trip in March, 2018, hit - nice problem to have, I realize...but that's a lot of cash to exit the coffers in a short time frame.

I often think as I slog away long days - especially in May which is the hardest month of my year - 'it's all worth it to have a great job that I enjoy and pays well'....but I still get nervous about the money.

I think we're going to DO IT.  And then we can start making lists of things we want to see and do.  I want to go to the Kew Royal Garden FOR SURE...that's my 'must do' in London (OH and the Princess Diana memorial fountain which was closed last time we were there) and return to the Marmottan Monet Museum in Paris - maybe every day.  (Probably not but I might!).

We went to The Gallo Center last night for "Pippin!".  It was an interesting show.  A 'modernized' version and since we've never seen the 'original', we have nothing to compare it to.  The humor was more sexual and baudy than I expected and we both noticed lots of young people in attendance so I wondered if their parents knew what they were getting into.  It was a good show and I'm glad we saw it - but it wouldn't be one I would book to see again.

I was doubly glad to be off this morning 'cuz we got home late and took a little time to unwind before we headed up to bed and a 5:30AM alarm would have really been hard if I'd needed to get into work today.

Guess I'd better drag myself in to the shower and get dressed.  I want to get to Target today - it's the season of graduations, weddings and our niece purchased her first home so we want to send her a housewarming gift.  And a few other toiletry items.  Will also gas up my car at Costco....because I may venture to Thunder Valley on Sunday -

I love lazy, carefree days - and I love having budget done.  For now.  A lot to do for planning purposes but at least it's done.