On Friday night, I found a nice e-mail from an OTBKB reader in my in-box:

Tonight I was feeling very sorry for us because we hadn’t bought years ago, and our couch is kind of shabby, and we can’t afford a plasma TV. I decided to check out OTBKB, which a mom friend has been telling me about for weeks, and the piece about the rosebush made my day. I’ve been watching that new yard all week, reading about it and the rosebush made me feel pretty good again.

It made me feel pretty darn good that something I wrote made someone else feel better. That made my day probably as much as the rosebush made hers.

Earlier in the evening, I was talking to my first floor friend/neighbor and we were playing a game called "Envy Toss.’" Not really, I just made that up. But we were having a playful conversation about what’s missing in our lives:

Me: I’ve got brownstone envy.
She: I’m over that now. I’ve got income envy.
Me: What’s that?
She: I’m jealous of my friends who have incomes.
Me: Oh.
She: Y’know, working and getting paid envy (note: she’s a wildly busy
mom, PTA president, church volunteer, graphic designer, artist, etc.)
Me: I’ve got regular paycheck envy.
She: Yeah.
Me: And health insurance envy. We have to pay for our own…

It was actually a fun conversation. Very cathartic. A great way to slay those dragons of envy. Our girls were in the living room falling asleep watching TV. They’d been out in the yard all day and playing in the neighbor’s dragon pool. They were tired and so were we.

Envy toss can take a lot out of you.