Exhibit A for Why We are on a Spending Freeze.

We've been on a spending freeze for about two weeks.

The following is a list of things I want, in a deep and passionate way, to buy.

1) A hair dryer.  The hair dryer I'd been using successfully, if sporadically, for the past ten years appears to have officially entered its twilight years and now only wheezes gusts of lukewarm air.

2)  A new flat iron.  My trusty flat iron - a device one uses to iron one's hair flat - has also given up the ghost.  It just lays, inert.  Cold and lifeless.

Both of these elderly appliances chose a fantastic time to pass on.  The only time I blow dry my hair is when it is below freezing outside, so that I don't get hair-cicles walking to work.  The only time I flat iron my hair is when my hair gets weird because it has been too long between haircuts.

3)  I'd really like to get a haircut.

4)  Name brand pants for Owen.  Because generic pants don't have slims, and Owen doesn't have hips.  And I have just, suddenly, had enough of Owen's butt crack.

5) Specialty socks.  For myself.  After struggling for nigh-on 30 years with socks that swim around my feet, and heels halfway up my calves, it occurs to me that, in this age of Google, I might find a sock store that caters to small feet and this thing that has been annoying me daily for decades is a problem I could solve.

If only we weren't on a spending freeze.

We've been through this before, the last time we were on a spending freeze.  It is surprising how much stuff you can buy, if you put your mind to it.

Oh, also:

6) A foam mattress topper.  In lieu of

7) a new mattress.