Why, yes, I have been.  Thanks for noticing.

It’s been busy.

I have been having a birthday. (Somewhere between 40 and 50, and that’s all I’m sayin’.)

We have been having an anniversary.  Our lucky seven.  Which we kind of, sort of, don’t really celebrate, because we were together in a committed way for three years before that.  The wedding was a formality to make his sweet Southern Baptist mother very happy.  But it gave us an excuse to get these for each other:

Oh shut up.  I know, with all my bitching about the economy, I go and buy a phone to replace my perfectly good Blackjack.  But consider this – it’s no more expensive than my current phone plan and my husband’s phone was dead anyway.  And it did spur me to start paring down the budget in many other ways.

Don’t think of it as gratuitous spending.

Don’t think of it as conspicuous consumption.

Think of it as stimulating the economy.

You’ll thank me later.