The furniture's paid for. The past is not.

It's been a while since I've reported on the money plight - and since the curtain looms on my year of blogging, I thought I should offer an update.

The short of it is, we're solvent.

In fact, due to the job in Denver which lasted from the beginning of May through the end of June (and still continues a little here in LA where I'm editing videos for them), we have even paid off our credit cards - about $10,000 altogether.

More importantly, we've been able to sock some dough away and pay for all the furniture we got in April and March, as well as a few other things.

I'm still not a staffer anywhere, but after Noodles arrives, we may have some time where I don't have to work on work work but can focus on a play, screenplay or TV pilot.

These are not gifts of theatre. (Mr Spinella can tell you more about that.)

But they don't come without cost - mainly that I'm not doing theatre right now the way I'd like. I felt this keenly today when putting together a submission. I read through the scene of a play I've never had time to really finish and liked the damn thing. It made me miss trying to figure out how to present work. (Despite the sounds I've made about making my own work, I'm still a ways from doing it.)

Still, there could be worse things. Only four months ago I was collecting unemployment between short stints and wondering how we were going to make it. Serious consideration was given to destroying a retirement fund.

And we have yet to make a real dent on our collective grad school debt - which, though we're making the monthly - still tops out at around $177,000. For those of you who add things up, that's about $1400 a month out the door in cash. (If the Republicans really wanted the country to grow, they'd forgive all school debts and put those Sallie Mae big shots out into the cold.)

The baby will cost $500 a month in insurance.

Lack of work will not be tolerated long.

But, in the meantime, we're paying taxes, eating watermelon in the evenings and drinking juice and coffee in the am, so it's not all bad.

Now, if I could just work out my screenplay....