Today, I am getting my finances in order!  I admitted to my friends Carolyn and Jeanette that I hadn't balanced my checkbook in four years.  Jeanette threatened me.  Carolyn made me ashamed.  That's what good friends do.

This--from a mathematician!  It all just got away from me when I moved to Edmond.  I was renovating a house, in a strange place, overwhelmed with details.  One thing led to another, one month went by, then another, everything seemed okay.  (Bank wise, that is.)

But now.  I have an honest balance in my account.  To the penny.  It feels good.  I kept it that way for sixty years--I just fell of the wagon.  

Ken was always gone.  He expected me to keep up with all the bank things.  I wrote the checks, paid the bills, decided what we would buy and what we couldn't afford.

When he came home from Viet Nam and retired, I handed him the check book and said, "Here.  You figure it out.  I'm done."  He said, "How much do you need each month to run the house."  I told him.  He put it in my check book.  What I didn't say was that we had never had that much.  He came back later and asked, "How did you make this work?"  I told him that he asked me how much I needed--not how much I was getting by on.