Fall Decorating

I decorated my mantel for fall. I bought three bags of candy corn and filled two matching clear cylinder vases with the candy corn creating three distinct layers (and putting my favorite type - Indian corn - out of my reach). Then I put them on either side of a maple leaf berry swag and added a few mini squash and mini pumpkin scattered in front of the swag. Originally Audrey helped by adding Farmer Bob in with the squash and pumpkins, but he has been MIA for a while now, so I couldn't get a picture of that. I also put the pumpkins for us to carve on the hearth, though the little one has been mistaken for a ball, so it usually sits on the bookshelf.

Northern Exposure

I realized the other day that I missed almost all TV that occurred during my high-school and college years. In high-school I was too busy and in college we didn't have TV. The exception was 'Friends'. I started late on that one, but then when my other roomies and I were hooked, we would go to friends' houses for "Friends" parties or we would go on campus and watch it in some of the auditorium style classrooms.

Anyway, I have decided to catch up on some of those via Netflix. Northern Exposure was one that came to mind, so I watched the first two episodes this week. It was pretty good. And what makes it even better is, there are no commercials and no timing issues. The only bad thing is that watching Northern Exposure makes me want to move to Alaska, it is just so beautiful.

Holiday Planning

Flylady has this thing called the Holiday Cruise, where you are supposed to pretend you are going on a cruise for the first 3 weeks in December and must therefore have all of your holiday stuff done before then.

I decided to give an organized holiday a shot, so today I filled in the list of gifts to purchase from her online control journal. Which gave me a chance to think about what I actually want to get for people. I looked online for some prices and because I am ordering so early, I will be able to do slow boat shipping and still get everything in time. I am really excited about this.

In another part of the holiday control journal you list traditions that your family does and the dates that you will do them this year along with any preparations that need to happen for those traditions. It is really quite brilliant and so much fun to be getting into the holiday spirit in October.

Bring It On Marathon

I just recently realized that they came out with a part 2 to the fabulous "Bring It On" cheerleading movie. So I casually mentioned to Ryan that I was thinking about putting them both on our list to get at the same time so that I could have a "Bring It On" Marathon. For some reason, he was both amused and horrified by my good idea.

Law School

Ryan just started an LSAT study course this week. It made the whole thing seem suddenly real and sort of scary to think of being student poor again and to think that we could be living almost any where at this time next year. To be honest, I really like our house. It is just a townhouse, but it is pretty big and we bought it directly from the builder, so we got to pick out little things like the kitchen cabinets, floors and counters. Plus we have painted so many rooms and Audrey's room looks fabulous! It is the perfect little girl room. So in many ways, I hope Ryan ends up going to a local school.

The $50 challenge

Well, aside from the occasional (read: weekly) eating out, we are doing pretty well on our challenge. In fact, it no longer really feels so much like a challenge at all. I am not implying that I just buy lots of snacky things at the grocery store, but it is safe to say that since I am planning our meals and snacks a little more carefully which results in us eating better food consistently, the challenge seems like a much better lifestyle choice.

Oops

So this past week was a little less frugal. I went over my $50/week goal by $5. Those fresh apples at the farmers market were so tempting that I couldn't resist.

It is actually a bit ironic that this is the week that I went over for the first time. In the past couple of weeks, I have needed to buy big things that were a substantial portion of my allotment (like chicken breasts that were $13/bag). In order to do that, I was making sure I was not buying anything except the things on my list. Last week there was nothing big to buy, so I decided to stock up on some pantry things that I am low on, like some canned goods, etc. I guess my stocking up really added up.

Proclivity for productivity

I recently read an article about how most people are happier when they are productive. And that some people actually find productive hobbies and such to be relaxing.

I thought to myself, that is definitely me. I am productive to a fault!

Then last night after a nice and productive day, I lied down on the couch and just vegged for 2 hours, watching Dancing with the Stars and Justice. To be honest, I didn't feel an ounce like being productive, I was very happy to just do nothing. So perhaps I am not as inclined to be productive as I like to pretend.

Frugalling along

So far the $50/week challenge for groceries has gone really well. (We still end up eating out at least once a week and I am not counting that in the $50.)

I have found that there are two main tricks to eating well on $50. The first is to plan a menu. This actually isn't that hard so far. I am just writing my ideas for meals directly on the calendar in the pantry. Some people spend a day doing this, I just do it whenever I happen to think of something. For example, I was talking to someone about salmon recently and thought how much I would like to eat some, so the next time I was at the pantry, I filled in a salmon day for a weekend dinner because salmon seems kind of fancy to me. So far I am basically ahead by a week or so which has made grocery shopping pretty easy. I also add any missing ingredients to make the meal onto my shopping list right when I write the meal on the calendar, so I won't forget.

The second key is to buy only one big item a week. Today I bought some frozen Alaskan salmon fillets at Costco. Last week, I bought a large bag of frozen chicken breasts.

Tomorrow, I am going to go to the farmer's market to see if I can finally get some decent produce - yum.

To tell the truth, I think we are eating better on $50/week than we did before.

French Bread

Yesterday I tried making baguettes for the first time. It was actually quite simple and I skipped the whole kneading by hand for 6-10 minutes step in favor of my dough hook on my mixer, which made the whole thing about as simple as you can get.

The best part was, it turned out absolutely delicious and my house smelled great!! Plus the part that I don't like about French Bread is the too crusty crust, so I just didn't do the browning step at 450 and just went straight to baking. It was great, still a little crusty, but not rock solid and the bread itself was a little more dense than normal French Bread, but that was perfect for dipping in our lentil soup last night - yum, yum!

Good Eats

I like this dorky show on the Food Network called Good Eats. The guy who runs the show likes to bring out the basic science behind food preparation - which is why I like it. He also explains the best way to use various kitchen tools and why they are used in the way that they are - which is another thing I like about it.

One idea of his that I really liked was his spice cabinet. He has little tins attached to the inside of the cabinet doors with the names of the herbs and spices written on the front. So I decided to create my own version. I found some little tins at the container store and bought some magnets and then I glued them together and viola I have a new spice system on the side of my fridge - which is pretty handy because my stove/oven is just two feet away.

My new spice system is pretty good, but it does have a couple of drawbacks. First, I only bought seven containers and I have more than seven types of spices. I decided to only put sweet spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, etc.) into the new spice containers and that works pretty well, but I am still a few tins short. Second, the tins are 4 oz big. That is pretty big for spices. So I am on the lookout for smaller tins in the future.

I love being able to see my spices without hunting through the cabinet.

New Jersey Tomatoes

I was at a bridal shower in Baltimore, MD last weekend and someone there was from NJ and had brought some fresh tomatoes. The tomatoes were very tasty and everyone there kept raving about the NJ tomatoes.

Apparently I live on the moon because I had no idea NJ was famous for tomatoes.

In all seriousness, I have been thinking about produce a lot lately anyway - mainly because we just don't have anywhere near us to get any decent produce. How is this possible to live in a suburb of the nations capitol and have such terrible food in the grocery store. I even tried to go to a local farmers market. Apparently they just don't bother to have it there anymore because the commuter lot (where it was held) was empty when I arrived at 10 am. What does a girl have to do to get some good food around here.

Next weekend, I think I am going to try Eastern Market.

Journaling

Last night I felt the urge to write in a good old fashioned journal. The only problem is, I don't have one anymore. Luckily (because I am so frugal and they were on sale for back-to-school) I had recently stocked up on spiral notebooks, so I grabbed a new spiral and started to write about my day. It was a busy but ordinary day, yet somehow, all of the ordinary moments seemed to be a little more special when I took the time to write about them. I think there is something magical about recording your life - it seems to make you feel more alive.

Gilby Baby

My favorite basketball player is Gilbert Arenas - or Gilby Baby as he affectionately known in our house. He is cute, well-mannered, well-spoken and a darn good basketball player. Plus he is humble. I get really annoyed by the egos and the entourages of some of the sports personalities.

So you can only imagine how mad I was for him, when he didn't make the American Team for the world championship. That was such a dumb move, Gilby is so cute and nice, everyone loves to watch him play. And when he smiles - forget about it.

Frugal Fanny

A friend of mine a couple of years ago said that his wife budgeted $50/week for groceries and she never went over that. At the time I was thoroughly impressed and wondered if that was even possible (though to be honest, they consistently ate much better than we did, she was a SAHM and cooked all of their meals and we were DINKs who ate out quite a bit - $50/meal was not uncommon).

So in an effort to be prove my frugality, I have decided to take up the challenge and try that myself. I have done it for the last two weeks without a problem (except for when we went out to eat on Friday night). However, I have my freezer and pantry pretty well stocked from less frugal days. The real challenge will be to see if I actually will be able to buy my refills from costco within that budget.

In order to accomplish this, I pulled out a separate wallet to keep the grocery money in and I am only going to deal in cash - $50/week. So far, the only trick is to actually plan our meals and make them. When I actually do plan a menu, we eat so much better, so this may actually be better eats for less money.

If anyone else is feeling up for a challenge, try $50/week for food and let me know how it goes.

Old Friends

Ryan and I went over to his best friend's new house last weekend for dinner. It was lovely to see them and three children (all girls). Audrey loved playing with new people and new toys. It was an interesting dynamic, the boys ended up playing with/watching the children while the women got to tour the new house and chat about future decorating plans, etc. - lots of fun. Hopefully I will be able to get together with his wife to do some fun projects soon, especially if the husbands continue this nice trend.

Hobbies

Lately I have been thinking about what sort of hobbies I have and which ones I would like to have and which hobbies I pretend to have.

I pretend I am a scrapbooker because I would really like to be one. I think I could also say that my house is a hobby of mine because I enjoy coming up with little projects to improve/decorate it.

I used to love to go dancing. Maybe I should take that up again. A tap class would be fun. I also used to love outdoors things like camping, but again, I haven't done that for years, and it really seems like more trouble than it is worth to go camping with a one year old.

I love to read, especially good fiction - Jane Austen is a favorite. I used to like to travel, but now I hate flying more than I like to see new places, so until I own a jet, that one is out.

I used to love to crochet, maybe I will take that up again.

Mommy Moment

Last night at 3:30 am, I had what can only be described as a "mommy moment". I had just fed little Audrey and was taking her back to her bed. Usually she is groggy and has her eyes closed and I just hurry as fast as I can so that I can set her down before she falls all the way asleep. Last night however, she was just looking at me. As our eyes met, I looked into her big blues and started to smile and I whispered, "I love you sweet girl" and she just smiled back at me gently (not her usual fill-her-whole-face-up-smile) as if she knew that already. It was just a tender moment. So I did what any first-time sleep deprived parent would do, I savored it. This time instead of putting her right to bed, I walked around with her and rocked her as we just smiled at each other. It was a fabulous moment (and actually fabulous seems a little weak as a descriptor).

Seeing Clearly

While we were out in Utah for Bud's wedding, my glasses were broken by a friend's children. As glasses are a big pain to replace and fairly expensive I was quite bummed. When I told Ryan about the incident I mentioned that I was tired of having to worry about glasses and I was ready to consider surgery. He was so excited. He has been trying to talk me into considering surgery forever and I just have been too afraid to even think about it.

So I started to read up on what actually happens when you get eye surgery. And I started to get nauseated. I am not kidding just reading about the surgery made me queasy. Now I have a new approach, I am just going to read up on the best doctors and then get an exam to see if I am even a candidate. If I am, then I will read up on the surgery.

I must say, it would be really nice to see clearly without glasses, I just don't know if it would be nice enough to get surgery.

Bergdorf Blonds: book review

Sadly I am reviewing chick lit on my blog. Perhaps even more sadly, I am reading chick lit. And saddest of all, I enjoyed this book immensely.

It took me a while (probably 30 pages) to get into the characters and their non-frugal ways (which I found annoying - don't even bother with the shopaholic series if you are frugal like me) but in the end, I thought the characters were well developed and I really liked the twist at the end.

So if you are looking for a light and easy read, dig right in.