Saturday Lapse, Sunday Penance

Zero spending for me this week, besides food, gas and train fare.

I am supportive of the various calls for strikes, like an economic blackout day on Feb. 28. But to really get any attention/leverage, I think everyone would have to scale back spending more and for longer than that. Come over to the no-spend side! It’s refreshing.

On a related note, I like to think that if I had a Tesla, I’d get rid of it.

Here’s what we ate this week. There was no food shopping during the week except that Tom bought some potatoes and dog treats.

Monday: pancakes, eggs all different ways, bacon.

Tuesday: Rigatoni Bolognese, finally using some beef that had been languishing in the freezer, and cheesy garlic bread.

Wednesday: grilled marinated chicken and roasted potatoes (go Tom, getting creative with the seasonings!)

Thursday: fish patties, homemade Rice a Roni, some grilled chicken seasoned with fajita seasoning (a “use it up” kinda night).

Friday: Pizza and stromboli from local pizzeria Stella Pizza.

One night at dinner all five of us had a long discussion about the causes of WWI and WWII, which I will remember mainly for Nicky’s question: “But is it true that Hitler only had one ball?”

Lunches: brought a sandwich two days, bought a large soup ($2.49) one day.

I have some new ideas for this week including a roasted cauliflower and chickpea dish.

Last night, we had a setback. We wanted to go bowling — it felt like ages since we had done something fun as a family. But it was a two-hour wait at the bowling alley. Can someone open an additional bowling alley please? (Too bad Baker Lanes is gone.) So we ended up going out to eat (sans Nicky) and paid a lot for some mediocre food (and had to wait a while to be seated).

So I was disappointed that we ate out (especially after take out the night before). It’s just too expensive. Silver lining: it felt good to get out of the house.

This week was rather quiet. One night, I cut my own hair again, this time taking off a substantial amount. It feels bouncier and healthier. My hair is so thick and wavy, it’s hard to see any unevenness. It is veering a little into Big Triangle territory, so next time I will go to a hairdresser.

I also tried using this coloring conditioner I had on F’s hair. It was supposed to give her some pink/purple color, but it just came out brown. I think it was just too old. I borrowed plastic gloves from my mom rather than buy any.

On Presidents Day, I baked bread again and also made the gravy for Tuesday’s dinner.

My seed packets arrived and I spent some time clearing off the big shelf where my seed trays go. I also tried something new: starting potatoes inside. I’ve got a lot of sprouting potatoes around (we need to eat them faster/store them better). So I got a pot full of potting soil out of the basement, rehydrated it, and planted some cut, sprouting pieces. We’ll see. Hopefully they will grow and will survive transplantation.

Yesterday I baked bread again, probably my best loaf so far. I ran out of white wheat flour so it has some regular white flour in it. Rocco and I had a nice walk during one of the proofing stages. Laundry, cleaning up, and redoing the food inventory/making a grocery list rounded out the day.

Today, in penance for last night, I baked brownies from scratch, roasted a chicken, made mashed potatoes and made homemade gravy. Now I’ve got another chicken carcass I can use. I also saved the fat from the roasting that didn’t go into the gravy. It must be good for something.

Some other small positives:

— I haven’t bought paper towels in a while and am really starting to replace them with rags. Today, I needed to pat the raw chicken dry after rinsing, so I dipped into my stash of paper napkins from fast food purchases.

— I washed out the plastic bag that carrots came in, to reuse. We always need bags like that for, among other things, dog and cat poop.

— I’ve also cut way back on use of aluminum foil and plastic wrap.

— Someone added Peacock to our streaming services. I immediately went in and cancelled it so it won’t auto renew.

F. and I went to Wegmans to grocery shop today, for a change of pace. Eggs, milk and chicken were cheap there, and I avoided getting sucked into buying any of their various goodies (the cheeses… the bakery… pizza…). Wegmans always reminds me of when the kids were little. We had a nice time, but unlikely to go back — too crowded on the weekends. I also would have to take a look at the company’s record.

Looking ahead to summer… I doubt that we will have a family vacation this year. For one, I’m kinda over the concept of the family vacation. See my post on our Outer Banks trip… I also am not sure yet what our college costs will be, so I need to be conservative. It is our 20th wedding anniversary in November, so maybe just Tom and I will get away in the fall. F. has been talking about wanting to go to sleep away camp, and also to do another volleyball camp. I imagine that T. will be working a lot this summer, and maybe N. too. The times, they are a changing.

If I can get off the couch right now, at 7 pm, I’m going to clean more seed cups and get some onions planted. I washed and sanitized some cups earlier.

If not, well, there’s always tomorrow.