Good news about the gas co., Ava, etc.

I'm full of good news today. :)

First off, I got an email from someone at Xcel Energy to apologize that nobody filled me in on what was going on with my account (despite the fact that I was emailing back and forth with one of their "customer service" people who never bothered to bring this up). He said that while our averaged monthly bill has gone up, it's only gone up $10/month!! The big bill we just had was the reconciling at the end of the year (which I was aware of), but our next bill should only be for $10 more than what we were paying last year. This, of course, wasn't noted on our last bill so I had no idea! The only amount on there seemed to indicate that our monthly bill had gone up over $100. So what a relief that was!!
I guess we can stop scrimping on our heat quite as much now. Good thing too cuz I've been freezing and it's supposed to be a cold, snowy weekend around here.

In other news, Ava seems to be doing much better, don't ya think? ;) (I took these pics today as she tore up the livingroom - the kid went from one kind of the "runs" to another ;) - and then we played a little dress-up - for mommy's benefit.) The diarrhea finally stopped after what seemed like ages, though it was really only about four days. And today she got her appetite back. Yay!





And lastly, Jody's birthday is tomorrow. He has to work so we don't have big plans for the day, but I got him a few presents (or I'm just saying that so he'll think I did) and we will probably go out to eat on Saturday as well as pick up a cheesecake for dessert from The Cheesecake Factory. Yummy!

In food news, I made a couple new dishes this week - roasted carrot pasta and fettucine with a tomato, artichoke, tempeh sauce (yes, I'm giving tempeh another chance). The tomato/artichoke/tempeh thing I threw together tonight off the cuff and it actually was really good. I'll post the recipes and pics this weekend.