Ben's Bday present

I finished Hobbes a little after two this morning. Ben was so happy! I was double guessing if he was too old for a stuffed animal or not, but he loves it!

It's hard to believe he is already 8. It really does seem just like yesterday.

Breakfast conversation

Cate: Ellie, you should give me your phone number when you grow up if you have this cream of wheat.
Ellie: Why?
Cate: So we can have a sleepover and you can make this for me in the morning.
Elllie: I already have a phone.
Cate: Yeah, but you're not married yet.

Challenge 3

This week's challenge is to buy only generic brands and see how much you saved. As my shopping list for this week is fruit and chicken, there are no name brands to buy. Also, there are only a couple of name brands food I HAVE to have. The rest seems the same to me. Not a very refined pallet, but somehow I survive just fine.

Challenge 2

So last week's challenge was to make a list and not buy a single thing NOT on it. As I did not go shopping last week, I did it!! Yeah- But I am about to go check what this week's challenge is, so I'm not letting my head get too big quite yet! Josh would probably say it's a little too late for that, but what does he know?

update

Receipts: So since June 20th, I have already spent around ...$800! That is as much as I need to spend in a MONTH! Hopefully, I am pretty set for the rest of the month and will only have limited expenses. I'll let you know.
Menu: So far, I've done pretty well. Only one night didn't go as planned and we hit the drive-thru. Boo! I hate being accountable. Even if it is only to myself!

Menu for the week

So here is my menu for the week:
Friday: Applebee's
Saturday: BBQ chip coated Orange Roughy, garlic mashers & carrots
Sunday: Grilled chicken thighs, corn & beans
Monday: Crab topped fish, sweet potato & apple saute
Tuesday: Smother chicken, noodles, beans
Wednesday: Steak with peppered onions, broccoli, roasted sweet potatoes
Thursday: Chicken in lime butter, noodles & zucchini
Friday: Skillet fish with spinach, rice pilaf

6 out of 7 are new recipes, so here's to the unknown. And yet another trip to all the stores in town!

Something new, well not really, something a bit more challenging

My friend Camille sent me this link and I am up! I am going off the deep end as far as wanting to simplify my life. Yesterday was toys (gasp!), today is something very near and dear to my heart...office supplies!!! Not sure I will make it out alive, but I am going in.

While I am in a hurricane of clutter and chaos, why not add another challenge and do a complete make-over? No one would ever accuse me of staying stagnant.

Sooooo this week's challenge is-making and KEEPING a menu. I would like to say that I have always enjoyed menu planning. I love thinking about food, making shopping lists, figuring out what kind of meals we will want depending on schedule & weather. (Tonight we are having beef stew and homemade bread because shocker- it's raining and cold in the middle of summer.) Keeping to my menu and not over-planning is my problem. It gets to be about 4:15 and my ducklings are asking about dinner and nothing sounds good. I would equate this to someone with any sort of fashion sense (I humbly admit to have very little) standing in a walk-in closet and having nothing to wear. So we get pizza or have mac & cheese and whatever I bought for that week or took out of the fridge gets pushed back a day, which dominoes into the rest of the week. The next thing you know I have some mysterious smell in my fridge and I am throwing away meat and vegetables that I so carefully picked earlier in the week.

Man it is hard to keep a train of thought going and typing (when you don't know how) when you have three little kids wanting something everything every nanosecond that you are on the computer.

anyway..

I am determined to make and keep a menu this week.

Challenges: holiday weekend- not sure what we are doing/ bringing anywhere; moving-we sold our house and they are moving in soon, so we need to finish bringing all our "other" stuff to this house; kids- I also have been wanting to teach the kids to cook. So I have them each picking out something they want to help with this week. Why or why do I do this to myself? I guess I love stress and want to see if I can rise to the challenge. So here we go!

Late Bloomer

So since today is the last day of spring, I guess I'd better get in gear and spring clean! My motto for this afternoon. "Don't love it? Don't need it!" I have picked up the girls' room, and although I didn't purge as much as I wanted, it at least looks tidy. Hopefully I can go through more toy bins tomorrow if the sun decides to grace us with her presence. See, today Josh proved once again that I hit the jackpot when it comes to husbands. He moved and assembled the trampoline in the rain! On Father's Day! Dude, he rocks!!!! That means if the sun is out, so are the girls and I can do some real damage without a ton of resistance.

We have to be completely out of our other house by July 15. That means no more free storage. I thought I did a pretty good job editing what we needed, but I was wrong. I go over there once a day at least to get this or that. I am struck by the idea that in reality, there is no way we NEED all this stuff! It makes me feel like a High School Junior that just finished "Walden" for the first time. "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say let your affairs be as one, two, three to a hundred or a thousand...We are happy in proportion to the things we can do without."

It sounds so great in my head, but then I find I want something I've gotten rid of and I kick myself in the butt for being so impulsive. In the end, what do I really need? Do I need a bread machine, a George Foreman grill, 2-18 gallon tubs full of yarn, 3 different kids of hair spray? Hairspray at all? Why the Depression mentality? Is it better to be simple or well-prepared?

A while ago I made a list of what I wanted in life. Then I wrote down what stood in my way to having those things. Next I tried to make a plan to get rid of these road blocks. Three quarters of those obstacles were fixed by having a clean, uncluttered house. So every once in a while, I get motivated to start, only to get sidetracked for a good six months. I pray this time is different. Watch out guitar- I swear one day I will master you! But to get there, I gotta run and tackle our bookshelf.

Keeping track

I was so amped to keep track of my receipts and then lost them. Pretty sure the first week we spent around $75, but then this week I was probably closer to $225. I can't find all receipts (shocker!), and after talking to my friend Camille (who has an amazing blog) I might try to keep track for an entire month and average it out. SOOOO..tomorrow starts day 1 of the 30 day challenge. I'm not positive, but pretty sure the challenge will actually be keeping all those receipts long enough to log them in somewhere. Oh, and I better go splurge on some big products today! (just kidding, I will wait until tomorrow and be honest).

ok,ok, really, now I am going to post

So ,I always wait until something "exciting" happens to blog, so you know, I never blog! Everyday things happen and then the next thing you know, it's tomorrow. So I have decided to blog again for several reasons. 1)to get out all my "unimportant" thoughts so Josh doesn't have to listen 2)Josh's aunt Cris thinks I should ;) 3) I would like to work on my writing skills. I LOVE to talk, and communication is surely one of my strengths (did I mention I married a saint?) but when I was asked to contribute an article, I drew a blank. I have plenty to say, but can I write it? So here goes another attempt.
My thoughts for today: Food budget.

I try really hard to keep this part of our budget down, and haven't given it too much thought lately, but today I read a challenge that got the wheels turning again. The challenge was to post how much we THINK we spend on food each week (including coffee and going out), keeping all our receipts for one week and report back in again with our ACTUAL total. Now most people know that I am extremely competitive, so I will admit I was tempted to guess high, just so I could look good to complete strangers when I spent less. Ridiculous to say the least. So I guessed as close as I could, and we will see where the chips fall. Because it is for my benefit that I do this challenge, not theirs. I know that my major weekly shopping trip is almost always on budget, but then I go to other stores for sales and the next thing you know, I've spent two weeks worth in one. I justify my expenses because I bought sale items, but who needs 32 boxes of cereal at any given time? Apparently, we do! We have been getting better at "shopping at home". We are selling our house and live in a rental in our neighborhood. I am lazy by nature and the new owners don't move in until July, so we kept our full freezer and a bunch of dried goods at the old house. Each week (and as needed) I go to the other house with my list and go shopping. It is actually kind of fun in a weird sick way. I'm not sure where I got the depression mentality of border-line hoarding food (OK, so it is TOTALLY my mom!), but I am trying to break the cycle.

My other downfall/awesome-ness (depending on which family member you ask) is my need to try new recipes everyday. I'm not kidding, I would say on average we have something new, either main dish, side dish, vegetable, or dessert (total side note: every time I read or write the word "dessert" I hear in my head, dessert has two ses-is that right?-because everyone wants seconds of dessert) 3-4 times a week. The only things that we have had multiple times is: spaghetti, meatloaf, baked ziti, honey baked chicken, grilled chicken, anniversary chicken and tacos-beef and pork. The good side, as Josh likes to point out is that our kids try a ton of new things. The bad side is that even if you love something, who knows if it will ever be made again and many times, I have purchased some weird ingredient/spice only to never need again.
So I am in on this challenge. I think we average about $150 a week on all our food/household items. I will let you know what we really spent next week.