Saving Money Idea

How often do you go to the grocery store? We had a habit for a while of going several times a week. We are either blessed or cursed with a Thriftway very near our house, so we would just walk there. Especially in the summer. We've come to realize this is not the greatest for our budget and have been focusing on going to Safeway once a week.

Here's an interesting article about how you can save money by cutting down the trips you make to the grocery store. It suggests once-a-month shopping trips!!!! I'm not sure I could get my act together that much, but it's an interesting idea. I do also like the idea of 2x/month. That might be more doable for us. We definitely notice that we spend more when we go numerous times a week (especially if it includes a Starbucks run!)

~t

DYM: Pancakes

Allright. I've talked about Mercury Retrograde here before. It's going on now. I've decided to share my Mercury Rx stories as I feel like it and make a WHOLE FREAKIN' category for them, in honor of Astrological knowledge. I am calling it DYM! DYM is a little acronym that my friend Heather and I use. It stems from her son learning about Mercury Retrograde, having some experiences, and then shouting, fists towards the Heavens, "Damn you, Mercury!"

So, here is my first (official) DYM story:

I am up before everyone in my house today. All is well. I'm getting quiet time as I get ready. I decide to have my new favorite breakfast, silver dollar pancakes. I decide to take it out of the microwave tin and put it on a lovely little blue plate with some sliced up bananas. Also on my plate is a veggie sausage patty. Everything is round. Everything is beautiful. Coffee is brewing. There are not even any 2-year olds awake who want to snatch my limited portions of food. Life is good.

How could it be better? Well, I don't like syrup, so I decide to use some cinnamon on my lovely concoction. We have cinnamon sugar handy on our table, but I decide to be oh-so-good (weight loss) and get the straight cinnamon from the cabinet. I feel fairly certain I know what I'm doing as I grab it and delicately sprinkle it on my lovely little plate of round items.

And then I smell it. An odd sort of scent for the morning. Where is THAT coming from? Oh NO! I look down at the spice in my hand: CUMIN!

DYM!

Here's the thing about DYMs, though. They are usually not the most terrible thing that can happen. It usually turns out allright in the end. Of course, I didn't have any more silver dollar pancakes in the house, but they weren't that bad. Yep. I ate 'em. I can sorta still taste the cumin, though. I figure the must do something like this somewhere in the world. Mexico, maybe?

~t

Eddie Murphy's Mom's Cheese Sauce

Do you remember that sketch that Eddie Murphy used to do where he talked about wanting McDonald's cheeseburgers and his mom always made cheeseburgers from scratch? And how different those mom-cheeseburgers were. Not at all McDonaldsy and not at all what Eddie had in mind.

We had a similar experience in my house today. Something got us on the topic of cheese sauce. And I decided I wanted cheese fries (gee, wonder why I'm not losing weight?). Not being from around here, we weren't quite sure where to get such a delicacy. I thought Arby's, but Kevin had to go to the store to get smokes and decided he would just make cheese fries.

Do not attempt to make cheese fries.

You know the sauce I'm talking about. You can get it on nachos or pretzels at the movie theater. It has a nice unnatural orange hue about it. It's probably out of my home state of Wisconsin. It doesn't need refrigeration, which should tell you something. I know this because we actually had a cheese sauce dispenser at my last place of employ for a while as a special employee treat. It's smooth and creamy and cheesy and I'm sure really wrong as a food.

Here is what Kevin made:
(Disclaimer: Kevin is generally a fabulous cook who does a whizbang job with everything in the kitchen. This was the exception.)



So proud. Is that a SLEEVE of cheese?:



Gack.

Caspian also made this sandwich with the meal:



And Zane took his buttered roll, stuck it on his thumbs and slathered the butter all over his face.



It was one of the grosser meals we've had in sometime. Perhaps the grossest. It recalls bland dinner night in a weird way.

Caspian loved the cheese sleeve, I mean sauce.

~t

ps--if you like this post, you'll love my friend Amy's post on colon cleansing. (Beware: truly gross.)

Another Great Use for Baby Sign Language

When your mouth is full of chocolate, sign language allows you to ask for more chocolate. I swear to God, that Zane has not signed anything in about a month (since he has begun speaking much better). Just now, after he shoved a mini Kit Kat in his mouth, he signed "More" so he could have another one.

He loves chocolate.



~t

Caribou Coffee Granola Bars

I don't really like granola bars. I do really like coffee and chocolate. These Caribou Coffee Granola Bars ROCK IT! They are delish. We got ours at Safeway. They didn't have them yet at Thriftway. Or you can order them online. They are worth it. WW people, I think they are 4 pts/bar.



~t

Great New Milestone

I don't know that this is one of the "traditional" milestones. And I'm also not sure I trust it 100% yet. But here it is: I LOVE that my kid seems to know what he should and should not eat. He found some weird thing in his food the other day and he said, "Yucky" and showed us. He did the same thing to his banana that he found sitting out (I guess we need to clean better? But hey, I'm busy BLOGGING!)

Anyway, it's great that he knows what he shouldn't eat. Yay for that!

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~t

Cookies, cookies, and more cookies

No, this is not a tech entry. I have made two batches of cookies in the past few days. One is already gone. Zane is such a cookie monster, and unfortunately, so am I! I am already waaaaay over my Weight Watchers flex points for the week. But I'm still counting, which is new for me. I am hoping that will help. In the past, once I went over, I stopped counting and just did whatever I wanted.

Well, here is Mr. Cookie.

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~t

Mom's Night Out

Wow. I didn't realize how geeky that made me feel until I typed it: "Mom's Night Out". What is probably even worse is that I could probably count on ONE hand the number of times I have been out during an evening without Zane since he was born. Oh well, it's my choice. I don't really mind. It's just the kind of mom I am. He won't be shrimpy forever. In fact, he's getting bigger every darn day. And that's fine, too. I'm not one of those moms who wants their kid to stay small forever. Go on, get big! He is so much fun at this age, though.

So, I went out to a local diner and it was so good! I was invited by my friend Suemary and there were 2 other moms in addition to the 2 of us. A nice small group. We had some great gab sessions, burgers, and coffee. I even avoided dessert and french fries. Amazing. AND, their salads were great. The place was adorable, too. A little hippie haven with murals on the walls and tofu on the menu. I will definitely return. I'd link it, but I don't think they have a website. Nope. Darby's Cafe. If you are ever in Olympia, check it out. Friendly and good service, too. Overall, a very enjoyable evening. Yay, moms.

One of the nice things about Olympia is that I really feel we belong here. I like the people we meet and can generally relate to them and don't feel like I have to hide my true self. I don't get odd looks when I talk about astrology or Kevin's healing and psychic pursuits. People are interested. It's a nice change.

~t