While minor sacrifices, like no Margaritas at the Mexican restaurant last weekend (the first restaurant meal of the thirty day stretch), are easy to make, major adjustments have also been made. I was able to decline an invitation to head North for a weekend of skiing. After tallying the cost of long underwear and lift tickets and equipment rental and ski instruction and food and the gas to get us there, the answer was obvious. The old me would have accepted the offer and hoped that the credit card had sufficient balance to support our vacation. The new me measured the price of our pleasure and decided against the trip. I’ve been told that skiing is a blast. I also know, first hand, what a drag it is to sit home on a cold weekend in January. But it’s absolutely no fun to pay for a $1000 weekend well into summer.

In the past thirty days I’ve had to be thrifty, using gift certificates and frequent shopper coupons to purchase next month’s book group selection. A good book is always a justified expense. A good book that costs $4 is a victory. In the spirit of the game, I have been avoiding catalogs and slick fashion mags and Elle Decor. Its best NOT to know what I’m missing.

We’ve made pizza, three times in four weeks, instead of ordering from a local pizza joint. We have come to like our own creation better than the delivery variety. Each time the dough is a bit different, we select a fancy mozzarella and concoct a fresh sauce, all in pursuit of the perfect pie. We are close, we are very close. We joke that once we’ve got it, that secret and perfectly delectable recipe, we’ll open our own pizza place, called We,The Pizza . We laugh and feel clever.

But here’s where the fun stops. My Better Half, swept up in the spirit of the thing, has made a suggestion, a staggering and solemn suggestion that would, indeed, save us $70 a month but is surely the end of lighthearted fun and the beginning of something permanently spartan and unpopular.

“Let’s get rid of Verizon Fios,” he said and, game over, I wanted to weep. I even surprised myself with my own visceral and dramatic reaction. I wouldn’t even call us a television family. The kids aren’t allowed to watch t.v. during the week and are only allowed a movie or a televised sports event on Sunday. My Better Half and I rarely watch live broadcast network television and prefer to catch up on popular HBO series via Netflix. But there’s a feeling of freedom that our cable package with rewind and pause and high-def, affords us, even if we don’t use it all that much. When American Idol airs at 8 and I’m still reading a story or putting away laundry, there is comfort in the fact that I can kind of float downstairs twenty minutes post start-time and back the whole thing up to the first contestant. I miss nothing and gain the ability to skip through irritating commercials. It’s a beautiful thing.

And then there’s the tricky business of watching whole tennis tournaments. First, the early rounds are only available on cable and then, of course, they are aired during the week, usually during the work day when it is important to look busy with things other than watching tennis tournaments. So there’s only one way to watch televised tennis and that’s with the ability to tape, replay and fast forward at will.

Also, the cancellation of cable would mean the end of The Daily Show as I know it, which is a day late by necessity. I simply can’t stay up that late and must catch up with Jon Stewart after the fact. Better late than never. The cancellation of cable would mean no more 30 minute stints with Cesar Milan and the wayward dogs of California. (Is it me or is the canine population of LA particularly prone to aggressive behavior and peeing on the sofa?)

So I moaned and stuttered and held on to the furniture for support, trying desperately to justify the expense, wondering where would the cancellation of cable leave me but hopeless and abandoned and utterly entertainment-free?

(Before I can answer that question, a thank you is in order. I want to express my gratitude to the one individual who actually purchased something via my Amazon links on this blog. I don’t know who you are or what item you actually bought but the $1.09 in my Amazon Affiliates account warms my heart and makes me feel just a little bit closer to keeping my cable habit. Never mind that in order for Amazon to cut a check, I’ll need to earn another $98.91. After a whole year of linking products and posts, I’m on my way.)

Now back to the cable issue-gasp, gawk – I’d rather begin walking to the grocery store with my wheel barrow and a bunch of those string sacks that environmentally conscious people use instead of plastic. Is that sacrifice enough to keep the cable? I could bike the three miles to tennis. I could wear outerwear in the house and knock the thermostat down to 60 degrees. I could shower but once a week and knit my own socks but getting rid of digital video recording? I just don’t think I can do it.

And, now that I’ve got some remove from that uncomfortable conversation, I can see how this ‘poor mouse’ thing might have legs. I can limp about and lament my having no money for simple things like movies and coffee and new espadrilles for my trip to Florida and friends and family will buy me things and take me places and feel charitable and good.

I might never have to spend another non-obligatory dime. But then (sigh) I would have to swallow a whole heap of pride and get past the fact that other people’s consumption on my behalf does not solve the global problem, it just solves my problem. It is after all an exercise in restraint, an existential shake up, if not a subtle veil for the stark reality that is my checking account.

So bear with me friends while I beg off anything fun and interesting for the next 60 days. It is not your company I eschew. Really, it isn’t. Lenny Kravitz isn’t feeling the love either, nor is the shoe department at Nordstrums or the Boston Flower Market or Whole Foods or Amazon.com or the sweet little gift shop in the center of town that sells a darn good mocha latte and the most adorable chocolates from France.

And I have to report that I’m more than a little stymied by the thorough reference list I’ve been asked to provide. Having been sitting in front of a home computer for two years, it’s almost an impossibility to come up with three relevant business or community references that can speak of my relative sanity. I suppose the mail man knows I’m reliable in that I answer the bell when it is rung and I often put the flag up on the mailbox when sending out-going letters. The neighbor can be contacted as to my strict adherence to schedules. My lawn gets mowed on a regular basis. I’ve been known to fertilize and apply lime supplements. I’ve got general yard maintenance standards and this should count for something.

It’s shame My Better Half can’t write a recommendation as I’m sure he’d be glad to enlighten the management over at Elder Services as to my unyielding and dogmatic nature. It would read something like this, “CCE is an individual with steady resolve and unwavering expectations. It is she, after all, who plagues me day in day out about placing clothes in the hamper and dishes in the dishwasher and not wearing my slippers out of doors. It is she who practically wrote the book on industry and perseverance in the face of household dirt and pet hair on the couch. CCE has an expert’s sense of when to tighten the reins in order to suppress disorderly conduct. She has no problem doling out rebukes and maintaining order with well timed sighs and ominous silences. She’s no stranger to emphasis and will slam drawers and doors with impunity.”

Or perhaps one of you, my loyal readers, could make a pitch for my professional worth. After all I am here day after day, entertaining the five of you with haphazard words slung sloppily across the web page. You could mention that my typos are only occasional and that my story choices are sometimes amusing and, occasionally, maybe once or twice, actually border on brilliance.

And while I’m suffering my charitable-block with dignity, I contemplate Mad Hatter’s willingness to throw off the chains of commerce and consumption and give it all up for eight weeks of self-imposed asceticism. She dangles the challenge before the rest of us, taunting us to join her in the decision to buy only necessities for the next two months, sixty days of nothing but groceries and medicine and gas. And I think, hell yeah, why not? It’s not too different from the reality I’m already living. With little spare change rattling around in the MadMarriage coffers, every non-essential purchase is dissected and discussed and the source of great dissension.

I’m willing to pass the local Starbucks with nary a wave, to fill my own thermos with tap water before the daily trip to the gym, to eat lunch at home and snack from the cupboard. But I have some unanswered questions. Is it only products that I must eschew or is it service as well? My confusion and apprehension stems from the impending need for a hair cut and highlights, from the spousal b-day looming on the horizon of mid-January, from the weekly fee required to secure court time for a Sunday match, from a dentist appointment, the first for G in nearly a year, from the fact that the babysitter will surely want dollar bills not a dozen home-made cookies after her evening here with the kids on the 18th.

Does the bottle of wine we like to consume on weekend nights count as a grocery item or is this something we must give up in the bargain? Does the download of the new Lenny Kravitz MP3 release count as consumerism or is it art appreciation, particularly because the required transaction takes place in the ether of the internet…no packaging, no immediate exchange of cash just a future credit card bill and one new song on the MP3 player?

Having no answers to above the questions, here’s the best I’m willing to do…no cosmetics, no clothes, no gifts to self (like scented candles or house plants or cut flowers or new novels), no bottled waters or cafe coffee, one meal out a week and only a cheap, non-fancy meal at someplace only a rung up the ladder from fast-food, one bottle of wine a week, one gift for my suffering spouse unfortunate enough to have been born just three weeks post-X-mas, only school supplies for the kids, (stuff like erasers and notebooks and glue sticks), no dreams of new furniture or rugs or refurbishments of bathrooms until March, one evening out on the 18th while employing a sitter at home who will be paid in cold hard cash, one trip to the salon to hide the roots and get my ritual 12 week styling. ( I swear I won’t do it again for another 12 weeks. I think I deserve congratulation on my willingness to go 3 months without a haircut. I know women and men who insist of five weeks, some even four. I’m a hair hero in comparison), one additional day on the tennis court a week (my two day minimum has already been paid for, everything else is cake), no MP3 downloads for the entire 8 week period (did I say none, maybe I meant one but we’ll see how it goes). So there, I’m out of breath and out of time but I’ll fill you in on any other exceptions I think of along the way. Will the eight week period of anti-consumerism help the bottom line? Probably not a whole lot seeing as we’re already keeping things pretty spare, but it’s a good exercise, a thoughtful pause before slapping down the card is always a good thing. Here’s hoping it’s not too painful.

Any challenges you all feel like sharing while I’m in the competitive mood?

Some misery just loves company.

But since I’m not a meeting type of person and can find no solace in group confessions, I must suffer this antique ownership thing alone. Naturally, my misery tries to find company within my own four walls, company that does not serve beer or brownies or look on with protracted expressions of understanding. Whenever I try to elicit some sympathy and assistance from My Better Half by bitching about the bathtub drain or piteously howling about the bat guano collecting in the attic atop boxes marked ‘X-mas Ornaments’ and ‘Infant Clothing’, I get the same, half-interested, why-are-you-so-hysterical shrug that often is paired with my most favorite phrase, “You need to relax.”

And then, spurred into action by his apathy, I promptly call a professional who, I am certain, will deliver an estimate somewhere around the $2000 mark. Because nothing, I repeat, nothing incites My Better Half’s ire more effectively than the threat of untrained, unskilled ‘bat guys’ making $2000 in one afternoon collecting feces and spraying spackle foam.

Though I miss out on the understanding nods, the brownies and the beer, I do get to see My Better Half suit up and fix the problem. Whether it be rodent eradication or basement trenching, there’s no limit to what he’ll do as long as he is not paying some other schmuck to wear a respirator or wield a pneumatic drill.

Yes, the photo included is of My Better Half in his weekend uniform, ear plugs and pneumatic drill included. Too bad I erased the one of him in his hazmat suit and respirator sponging off the X-mas boxes. It was just too damning and ridiculous. his attempt to save a buck, even while risking Histoplasmosis poisoning.

Bat-ass crazy? Who? Us?