Sunday update

Ahhh, Sunday.

The day where I sit back and blog a little, after a whole week of working, working out, working on laundry, and working to stick to the budget, and because my kid happens to be occupied at the moment singing 'Fwinkle Fwinkle Yittle Staw' to all her dollies as she strong-arms them into taking their morning naps.

It was a hot week. HOT. Like, Mother Nature confused Seattle with Phoenix and dialed up the temp past 100 degrees by mistake, only to realize her error late on Thursday evening and crank it back down to a more respectable 85ish that actually allowed the house to cool off in the evenings. Strangely, and I'm not proud of this, the hot weather made it exceptionally difficult to stick to the budget, particularly the menu I had planned out for the week. I had purposely planned items that only required stove cooking at most, but even that became impossible as standing in the kitchen for any length of time made me feel like I was going to have an asthma attack. So sandwiches it was. Except that, by Wednesday, after days of having sandwiches for lunch and for dinner, and feeling like the sight of another egg salad sandwich might make my head (not to mention my colon) explode, we headed out to Taco Del Mar for dinner. This, after our cheap-date-night-eating-out on Saturday. I felt guilty for breaking the no-eating-out rule, twice in a week, even, AND NOT EVEN A PAYDAY WEEK, but seriously. My brain felt like it was about to boil.

One thing I will say about living by a strict budget is that it all but eliminates the 'spend without thinking' mentality that apparently I had been living by without knowing it for all these years. You question every purchase, from toilet paper to shampoo to a taco salad for dinner, and I suppose that's not all bad. And, you know, someday I'll slide back a little and the purchase of two cans of S&W tomatoes won't cause anxiety in the aisles of Winco...but hopefully I will continue to question most of the things I occasionally 'waste' money on, like eating out. But seriously, when the temperatures drive up past 100 degrees, Taco Del Mar seems more sanity-sparing and less like wasting 14 dollars.

That being said, I DID get paid on Friday, and that allowed for a more pleasant grocery shopping trip yesterday. (And yes, I did shower before heading out to Winco. In case you were wondering.) I had been craving things like ice cream cones, potato chips, and strawberries all week, and all three items made it in to my grocery cart yesterday. Beer included, my total bill was only $77. Not bad. Now we'll see if we can stick with the menu this week.

And now, I am off to create the Barefoot Contessa's Triple Berry Muffins in my very own kitchen. Because lining the muffin tins with paper cupcake liners is the highlight of a certain someone's existence at this point...and let's get that baking over and done with before the temperature hits 90, yes?