This decision was a long time coming. It’s almost hard for me to believe it’s actually happening.

We had been talking about the need for change for more than a year now, but deciding on what that change needed to be took a some time. At the beginning of last year, we explored the animation school option but the plan derailed about midway through spring semester, and we both gave up on the idea. Before the idea died, though, we saved up a decent chunk of change…then summer rolled around, and I decided to use some of that money to spend a month in San Francisco. Jesse got a keytar.

You know this part of the story already: Jesse came out to SF for the first week. We had a fabulous time, eating wonderful food, seeing wonderful sights. And we also ventured into the East Bay to visit Berkeley and to check out Emeryville, which happens to be home of Animation Mentor, the school Jesse had looked into earlier in the year. He had mentioned the possibility of touring the school’s headquarters, and I said why not? Might as well.

We toured the offices and asked a million questions, and when we walked out into the late-afternoon sunshine, Jesse turned to me and said, “I want to do this. I need you to hold me to this when I change my mind. I really want to do this.”

Honestly, I was thrilled. When I first started dating Jesse–twelve years ago–he wanted to pursue animation. All through college, it was animation. But as we moved into “adulthood” and all the responsibility that comes along with that, the dream looked more and more improbable. Every now and then, I’d bring it up, asking him if he ever thought about going back to school, making a career change. I’ve known for a while now that animation was his passion, and that he needed to at least give it a shot.

And now, it was finally going to happen.

That day, we launched into the plans. How much money did we have? How much could we possibly save before next year? How much of a deficit would we have between our expenses and my salary? What would we do about health insurance? We rode the BART over to Berkeley and walked the eucalyptus-lined campus, shopped along Telegraph Avenue, just off campus. We talked numbers and ideas and fears and dreams. We ate dinner at Chipotle. It was July 7, 2011: Our seventh wedding anniversary.

Since then, we’ve been on a money-saving mission, socking away every single penny we could get our hands on. We’ll still need a small miracle to avoid going into debt, but we’re going to give it our best shot. And, really, I couldn’t be happier. In our marriage, we’ve done plenty of sacrificing so that I could pursue my dreams. I’m excited that we’re finally sacrificing something for Jesse’s dreams.

(Of course, one of my first thoughts was–ack, look at all this money I am spending to go to San Francisco, when the money could have been used for school! But the fact of the matter is, had we not gone to San Francisco that summer, we might not have made this decision after all. That trip was, hands down, one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.)

So, the details? The program is 18 months, with a potential six-month “master class” at the end (which he’ll probably take if we’re financially alive at that point). It’s all online, so no need to move anywhere. And with all the extra time he’ll be here at home, we’ve already started planning a walking schedule, how we’re going to eat lunch together the days I’m home, all the little things that fit into two flexible school schedules.

We’re excited. A little scared, too. But mostly excited.

I got lucky. Really lucky.

My dad grew up on a farm. His parents supported seven kids on a single coal miner’s salary. My mother’s family wasn’t quite as poor, but they too ate a lot of beans and cornbread. When my mom was my age, she divorced her abusive first husband; shortly after that, she was in a major car accident and was seriously injured and needed several surgeries and lots of time in the hospital. She was out of work for about ten months total, with no money coming in and the bills piling up. After she got back to work, she paid off every penny of her bills, living by herself in a trailer and eating a lot of pancakes (they were cheap). Once my parents were married, they went through several strikes at the mines, when Dad would be out of work for months at a time. They had to save when they could.

Right now, Jesse and I are trying to live on as little as possible. We have some aggressive savings goals, and neither of us make much money. (That’s what you get when one of you works for a nonprofit and the other teaches. Well, we can’t say we didn’t bring this on ourselves.) So, I’ve been trying to take a page out of my parents’ playbook. We’ve been eating beans. We’re trying to use less electricity. We carpool. I’ve been drying our clothes on a rack instead of the dryer whenever possible. (I had to draw the line at the towels.) I’m not nearly as thrifty as my parents, not as resourceful as my grandparents. But I’m trying.

If you have any tips on saving money, I’d love to hear them. I love reading Erica’s blogs on saving money, because she is so much better at it than I am. My friend Sharon is also the Queen of Saving; that woman can stretch a dollar like nobody’s business. Another friend, Kirsten, is a budgeting pro. Kelly and Hilary continually impress me with their couponing skills. Basically, Harris Teeter just pay them to shop there. I’m pretty sure that’s how that goes. Couponing is a skill I just don’t possess, unfortunately.

I’ve got a ways to go, but I’ll just keep plugging along. I’ll just keep making those pots of beans.

The other day, a friend and I were walking downtown and we were gushing about how exciting it was that she was finally vested in her 401(k). She suggested that our excitement was an indicator that we were old. I had to agree. The fact that retirement savings is an exciting prospect has to mean that we are at last becoming our parents. Now we’re the penny pinchers and the long-term thinkers. We’re the ones fussing over the electric bills. And I guess that’s not such a bad thing.

I’ll let you in on a little secret:

I might–might–be doing something crazy this summer. A couple weeks ago, I switched a setting in the novel I’m writing to San Francisco and immediately had a crazy idea: What if I spent a month this summer in San Francisco, researching for the book, writing, soaking up the city, pondering life, recovering from a rough semester?

Before I could think about it too much, I decided to do it and launched into a rigorous “Find a Place to Stay” search.

Now I’m knee-deep in vacation rentals–most of which are too expensive or not available when I want to go–and I’m starting to wonder what the heck I was thinking in the first place.

I can’t go to San Francisco! By myself! And spend that much money!

Jesse emailed me a quote for inspiration: “If you don’t take a chance, you won’t get one.” (He’s pretty sure if I spend all this money to go to California, I’ll let him buy a keytar. He’s probably right.)

I told him that being a scaredy cat and a tightwad at the same time can be bad for taking chances.

Sigh. So, that’s where I’m at this morning. Trying to find the point at which I throw in the towel, say that was a fun idea while it lasted, and give up. How much money am I willing to spend, and how much is too much? How much time away from home am I willing to spend, and how much is too much? Am I doing this just to prove I can? Is there anything wrong with that?

If you have any words of wisdom (or money) you’d like to send my way, please do.

2. Our rental car is red. I never knew how fun driving a red car could be. It makes no sense–you can’t even see the car color when you’re driving it. But, you know. You just know.

3. I’m not a bagel person. I love bagels. I just often forget they exist. (Don’t ask why. If I knew why, I would tell you.) But, Harris Teeter had them half-off, so now we have bagels. Bagels for breakfast. Bagels for lunch (little pizzas!). I haven’t had bagels in years, and I associate them most strongly with childhood–eating them at my best friend’s house after Friday night sleep overs. And high school. I worked at an art studio in the mall on Friday nights, and often when I’d get home I would make myself little improvised bagel pizzas in the toaster oven. Then I’d eat them in my bedroom while talking for hours on the phone with Jesse. Having bagels in the house makes me feel young and impulsive and happy.

Now I too can buy in bulk!

I got a Costco membership today. It being February 1st, the day when the budget resets and I can go grocery shopping again. (Actually we went over our grocery budget this month. And our eat-out budget. In our defense, we just this month lowered both of them, so we’re still adjusting.)

This was the first time I’d ever been in Costco as a member. It was like suddenly being part of an exclusive club. A club that charges you money in order to let you buy things! (Wait…)

I wandered the aisles, in awe of what I could now buy. Stewed tomatoes, anyone?

You'd never run out.

If I wanted, I could get a tub of  mayonnaise large enough to bathe in. Pounds of crushed red pepper flakes. Vitamins that would last me seven years. I wanted to buy a giant sack of Israeli couscous because I’d recently tried it at the Vetters’ house and liked it. I drew the line, though, and told myself I needed to prove I would regularly eat Israeli couscous first before buying enough to feed half the Israeli army.

When I was in college, I had a Sams membership. I once bought a six-pound bag of pancake mix. I didn’t even eat pancakes that often. Do you know how many pancakes six pounds of mix makes? (Neither do I. I ended up throwing out probably half the bag after I graduated college, got my first job, and then got accepted into grad school.)

I took my time wandering the aisles. The trip had been my reward to myself for having finished some work this morning. I wanted to see all the things I could buy in bulk. I needed to know my options, now that I had so many. Also, I don’t know when you all usually shop at Costco, but the other times I’d been in the store were always weekends. Costco is lovely after lunch on a Tuesday–there are no crowds, and everyone in the store is over 65 (except for me, and one or two moms). In the book aisle, an older man stopped me to ask which of the two children’s books he was considering would be better suited for a second grader. I gave him my opinion and carried on, slowly pushing my cart through the quiet aisles, listening to nothing but the rhythmic sounds of the building, the freezers humming, the heater softly blowing, the lights buzzing.

Slow, peaceful, uncrowded. Never thought that's how I'd describe Costco.

In the milk and cheese aisle, I stopped to do some math on milk (three half gallons, divided by…) when another older man said to me, “Darlin’, you’re going to have to shop a little faster if you’re ever going to get out of here.” I laughed.

The only disappointment was in the meat and fish section, I must say. The Costco I visited in Charlotte with my aunt had meat everywhere, stacks of it, and loads of fish and seafood–crab legs, whole crabs, several varieties of salmon, everything. Our Costco had chicken seventeen different ways, but only a couple varieties of fish (all farm-raised). And I couldn’t find any fancy cheese. Perhaps I just missed it. Or perhaps all the weekenders snatch it up, and there’s little left for us Tuesday shoppers.

At any rate, it was a fun way to spend some time. Now, on to dinner–a spinach, fontina, and pesto lasagna that calls for a whole bunch of spinach. Sure, every other ingredient came from Harris Teeter. But I do have a giant tub of spinach from Costco, and it sure will feel nice to use it.

How come my Costco picture is so much better than the one on my driver's license?

The most hilarious bit? The whole dinner cost us less than it did to eat lunch at Chick-Fil-A coming home from Florida.

I guess I still have a lot to learn about grace, huh?

Let’s back up. The past few days have been a whirlwind—fun, nearly every moment of them, but packed. Thursday, I got up early to clean the house, wash linens, make the guest bed (er, futon), pick up a pork tenderloin and some good balsamic vinegar from Harris Teeter, and prep said tenderloin so it could marinate for the rest of the day. I watched A. for the afternoon, playing outside with him and the family’s Australian Shepherd, feeding him peas, and singing to him while stacking blocks. Every time I finish singing him a song, he claps, grins, and says, “Yay! Yay!” I have no idea how I managed that, but let me tell you, with that reaction, I’m singing all the time now. Sometimes, when I forget the words to “Hush Little Baby” (I can get started, but then I forget what order things are supposed to be given…) or run out of alphabet- or farm-themed songs, I resort to Elton John.

Thursday afternoon, about a half hour after I came home from watching A., Beth and her mom Cheryl drove up and we commenced the requisite hugging-and-squealing phase of the visit, which we followed with a house tour (about thirty seconds is all it takes to see the whole thing) and conversation in the living room. We then started dinner, popping the tenderloin in the oven and starting in on the mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts, green beans, and bread. Jesse came home and we poured lemon Italian soda into champagne glasses and got out the tablecloth and had ourselves a nice little dinner. Jesse ran out to the store afterward to grab ice cream, which I’d forgotten earlier, and we had brownie and hot fudge sundaes. We stayed up late playing card games and something called Speed Scrabble (fun, fun, fun).

Friday morning, Jesse left for work early and Beth, Cheryl, and I had a lazy morning at home. We took our time getting up and getting ready, and then we set up a waffle bar for breakfast. Aunt Joannie got me this fabulous waffle maker for Christmas, the kind you flip over to make two waffles at once, and it’s red and shiny and, apparently, it makes The Best Waffles Ever. I took my mom’s suggestion and separated the eggs, beating the whites separately and folding them in at the end, and the waffles were light and fluffy but with perfectly crispy outsides. Yum. We improvised a blueberry-lemon syrup and we whipped cream and served the waffles with strawberries and macadamia nuts. Beth had brought a tea called Lady Grey, and we drank nearly a pot of it as we sat around the table, making and eating our waffles, and talking—so much talking!

Beth and I have known each other our whole lives. Our parents lived next door to one another in Nitro before we were born. Then we showed up, three months apart, and we’ve been friends ever since, even though both our families left West Virginia when we were children, even though we’ve not lived in the same state since we were four. Beth is kind and mild mannered and smart. In college, she majored in chemistry and French, and now she works in a hospital pharmacy, in a place so clean she wears a hairnet and cannot wear any makeup for fear it might flake off and contaminate someone’s IV bag. That fact alone puts her job into the category of Jobs I Will Never Do, but Beth does it because she’s not as vain as I am and has a very lovely complexion anyway.

Beth and her mom had to leave in the afternoon, so we took leftover veggie soup to the church and had lunch with Jesse before they headed out of town. After they left, I did a little copyediting and then went shopping. Because it was Friday and because I had a gift card and because it was warm enough to wear a skirt and flip flops, and that made life oh-so-good. At the mall, I found sales and managed to leave with $10 still on my gift card, and I drove to Ulta to pick up some makeup I was running out of (no hospital pharmacy for me) and I kept the windows down, which made my hair unhappy, but I didn’t care, because it made the rest of me happy and my hair is unhappy so often that its desires cannot be taken too seriously.

And then that evening I nearly forgot that Jamie Oliver’s new show was on, but I remembered in time to see three-fourths of it (so good!) and found the rest of it on Hulu today. (You can watch it there if you didn’t catch it.)

That brings us to yesterday, when we got up early and left for Charlotte to help Joannie move in to her new apartment. It’s in a fantastic part of town with a shopping center across the street that has a Target, a Harris Teeter, a movie theater, just about every kind of restaurant you could want, and dozens of other shops, including one that rents out audio books. Lovely! Mom and I cooked chicken fajitas for dinner and we drove around the area to see what we could see and we cooed at Joannie’s cats and tried to reassure them everything was fine, even though they were not quite sure what was going on. Jesse and I left after eight that night and made a wrong turn, which meant we pulled into our driveway about four hours later, just about cross-eyed with fatigue. And Oliver and Gracie were waiting at the door, meowing for dinner, which, they made clear to us, was far too late for their liking.

See, it’s triples week. Which means any coupon up to 99 cents is tripled (unless it happens to be a “DO NOT DOUBLE OR TRIPLE” coupon, which a surprising number seem to be, at least the ones I find). Which means all the people who are really into couponing come out en masse. Now, I’ve been rather fascinated by the couponing movement lately. It can be a lot of fun. But there I was, walking by the frozen pizzas, and I’m watching these severe-looking women with carts brimming over with on-sale super-cheap foods, and I just felt a little panicked. There were groups of them, even, several ladies walking together with lists, fists clutching stacks of clipped coupons. And then there’s me, a couple printed coupons in hand, freaking out about—what? Growing up? Becoming too suburban?

Allow me to sincerely apologize for this, because I know several fantastic, non-severe, totally glamorous people who do the whole couponing thing. It seems to work well for them. And they save heaps of cash.

But there was something about watching the people in Harris Teeter that slightly terrified me. I don’t know if it’s my growing apprehension about how quickly thirty is coming, or anxiety over the mounting pressure to have kids, or the deep-seated worry that I may never ever live in a big city. Like, if I went there, if I really got into this whole couponing thing, that would mean something, that would signify something, something I’m just not ready for.

Behind me in the checkout lane was a woman in a faded black shirt, her hair pulled into a loose ponytail. A little boy was with her, and the lady had a couple coupons in her hand. She motioned to my cart and asked if organic milk was on sale (I had two half-gallons). Considering my earlier reaction to the other women in the store, I should have been disconcerted, but I wasn’t—something about this lady was comforting. She was just buying groceries. She was just doing life. Wondering if milk was on sale, not because she was obsessed with getting the lowest price, but because she drank organic milk. I smiled, told her it wasn’t, but mentioned that if she went to Stonyfield’s website, she could print out coupons. I’m not going to be one of those people who can get $500 worth of groceries for thirty bucks. But I can find a coupon for some organic milk. And that’s fine by me.