The B led me to a blessing......
The B word really is not a bad word. 
BUDGETS are such a blessing even though sometimes they feel like a curse. 
When the July budget was completed, it was zeroed out. This means that we intended for our checking account to hit $0 by the end of the month. 
When a budget hits $0 there is a likelihood that things can get tight, especially if you fail to account for something along the way. 
And of course, I failed to account for something. I failed to consider the need to travel down to Daytona Beach and back, not once but twice, during the month. 😓
Although it is not a long ride from Jacksonville to Daytona Beach, any vehicle used for travel would not be able to complete the mission on fumes alone. The 92-mile drive needed fuel for the four trips. 
That's when it happened. 
I stopped for gas and before I even made it to an open pump, the yellow signage immediately caught my attention. Yes, that is E85. According to Wikipedia, it is an ethanol blend…

I could barely see. 
My eyes felt itchy and irritated. 
I thought I was tired from a full day of work. Sitting at a computer. Taking meetings with clients. Staff meetings. All the work of a typical Friday. But the day was not over. I still had an hour left in my two and a half hour drive down the two-lane, tree surrounded road to Tallahassee. 
I was rubbing my eyes and blinking so much to stop the itch. Nothing was working. Nothing was soothing me. 
I drove in discomfort as long as I could......then I reached my breaking point. 
When I arrived at a stopping point in my travels, I removed my contact lenses. Before I replaced the contacts with glasses, I took a look at the lenses. 
If only I would have recognized the signs sooner....
The left lens had a tear. 
Side note: The thing I have yet to grasp is how a contact lens that is inside the eye gets a tear without even being touched. If you can explain how this happens, feel free to drop the knowledge in the comment section.
In any eve…

It was the final round of the national spelling bee. They were down to the last two contestants. 
One contestant was up to spell her word. The judges gave her a word that she knew. It was a word that she learned after her fellow contestant mocked her several months earlier. This means that she knew how to spell the word. 
Yet, her mind went to a conversation she overheard. It was a conversation that made her believe that winning the contest meant more to her fellow contestant than it did to her. 
So I'm sure you can guess what she did. Yep, she intentionally misspelled the word. 
The other contestant was puzzled. He was sure she knew the word. After all, it was a word he challenged her with. Of course, she knew it. 
When he stepped up for his opportunity to spell a word, he was given the same word that was just missed. When he got to the second to last letter of the word, he gave an incorrect letter. 
That's right, he also made an intentional action of misspelling the word. 
T…