The forecast is for temps in the 80s all weekend. I'm excited. It should make all the veggie seeds I've planted germinate more quickly.

One of my rites of Spring is the Inserting of the Window and Door Screens and, as usual, I have a pile of other stuff i want to do.

I learned yesterday that, sadly, I won't be able to get my 2nd cat, Stripey/Waldo, for another two-and-a-half weeks. All because the traveling vet who will give him his final checkup can't make it til then. But they are using this vet to spare Waldo the trauma of waiting around a vet's office for hours or days in a cat carrier, although there will be no getting around the trauma of a car ride to my home. (If you are a cat-owner, you know what I mean by "trauma.")

In other big news, I'm once again seriously contemplating enclosing my screened in porch. I have at least two reasons for wanting to do so: every spring when the pollen starts to fly, green dust floats right through the screens and settles on everything on the porch. Every surface has to be wiped down, not once, but several times over a month or so.

The second problem is that rain, and often snow, also comes in through the screens, which extend down to the floor. The snow ends up sitting on the painted wood floor, then melts when the temperatures rise, and drips into the wood.

Finally, I'd like to extend the season and turn the porch into a truly three-season space. I might even consider adding baseboard heat at some point, though to do that, the porch would need to be properly insulated, and right now, the exposed, uninsulated ceiling is charming to look at.

The builder, highly recommended by someone I know, lives right in town. He came over the very next night and we spent quite a bit of time going over the details.

I figure about $1,500 for the windows and doors and the rest is pretty much labor. I'm hoping it will be under $5,000 because I'm still feeling a little nervous about paying for this job with money from my so-called Emergency Fund, which I only recently funded with $10,000. This is the money that would see me through in the event of a layoff.

I have other savings, but they're invested in taxable mutual funds.

Thanks to the extra incentive offered by the federal tax credits, this would be a good year to take on this project. It might induce me to commit to staying in this house for another decade. I've been so undecided about whether I should sell it when the market recovers, buy a smaller house or buy a condo.