Dastardly

I took the kids to the not so scary Halloween at Betty Brinn's today and we had a marvelous time.  My sister met us there with her kids and we enjoyed the trick or treat and the Mr. Potato Head exhibit.

But when we went out to my car...da da da dum... a PARKING TICKET!

Damn, in these economic times...

I was so mad, and then Coen, from the back seat, in his amazingly precious voice, said, "Mommy, you can have some money from my piggy bank."

Wow.

Woodmans

Have I mentioned Woodmans yet, dear readers?  Woodmans, wow.  . My mother in law told me about it. I knew it was a big grocery store.  A big cheap grocery store. And that's the word that I kept thinking--cheap.  When I think cheap, I think of the off brand chocolate (flavored) chips I once bought that made my cookies taste like warm gooey plastic.  When I think cheap, I think of the generic plastic bags that I bought which fell apart when filled with too many cheerios.  When I think of cheap I think of the dollar store toothpaste which did not meet American Dental Association requirements.  You get the picture...
So I thought, 'I don't know about Woodmans.' How will it be? Will it be that kind of cheap?  Will the meat and cheese be edible? 
But my neighbor Bill told me that it is amazing there. That I would need to set aside some time to go because of its sheer size, but that it was a definite worthwhile stop.  I've now been twice.  I love it.

The first time I went, I made a special trip. Its way out in Oak Creek. I drove there, bought a lot of stuff, then drove to Pick-n-save and bought the stuff that would still be cheaper there with double coupon day. Then went to Target to get diapers (which are still cheapest there when you buy the generics) and a wedding present for a friend.  I spent a total of $120 and bought the whole week's worth of groceries, diapers and toilet paper, and a wedding present.  Pretty amazing.  I was wishing for an omniscient mathemetician to tell me whether the driving around and time spent was worth the savings. 

Then I went yesterrday.  This time I planned my time better. I had to teach a class at Oak Creek High School, so I was right there already. I went right after that.  I went to get the other stuff at Pick-n-Save later on in the afternoon.  I spent a total of $75. 

Woodmans is huge. It is so huge that I lost my car.  Apparently there are two parking lots.  It has an incredible produce section and bakery.  You should go there.  Really. Try it!
 

Forgot my lunch!

I forgot my lunch today! At 11:30, I was SO hungry and excited to eat my delicious grilled chicken salad (homemade) and banana bread (from the Elegant Farmer), I rushed into the kitchen and then thought, "hmmm...I forgot my water bottle today...I don't usually forget that."  Then I opened the fridge door. No lunch! Forgetting your lunch when you have cash is one thing. Then its a good excuse to go to Alterra for a BLT or the Public Market for some Middle Eastern food.  But when there's not money around, it is a shame indeed.   I was so upset. I felt like I was a little kid. I wanted my mommy to bring my lunch to me. 
Here's my depiction of my reaction.

Lost (not the show, the state of being)

I've never been that good at letting go.  I mean, I slept with my stuffed donkey, Jack until I was well into adulthood. He came to the Peace Corps with me.  When something is bugging me, it is WAY HARD for me to forget about it.  Yesterday I lost three very important items...I am having a very hard time this morning letting go.

After our really busy, but really lovely autumn day in which we:
Headed out of the house at 8:30 a.m. for Coen's soccer game, only to find that it was cancelled
AND
Went to Cranky Al's for doughnuts instead where we ran into two other kids from Coen's team and their families
AND
Went to the Elegant Farmer for a train ride, shopping and lunch with my sister
AND
Came home for Lucy to take a (brief) nap and Coen to watch the 1930s animated version of Gulliver's Travels
AND
Went out again at 4:30 to Greendale to go to a "Haunted Walk in the Woods", an event that Tad's parents were not at, but wanted us to go to as it had been planned by Tad's Dad and the Greendale Historical Society
AND
Following the walk, had a picnic dinner in the park where the kids played until dusk

I managed to lose a set of keys, my sunglasses and $20.

I think I lost the keys at the Elegant Farmer.  I am pretty sure I lost the money in line for the haunted walk where I took cash out of my pocket to pay our way in....  The sunglasses, well it beats me!

I am letting it go.  Totally forgetting about it!  Completely over it.

Maybe I'll go search my jeans again!

How Elegant!

Well the Elegant Farmer broke my bank but not all the way...

 Every year, my sister and I and our families go to the Elegant Farmer for lunch (and pumpkins, and caramel apples, and pie, and everything else that looks good)  It is the one annual-don't-miss-it event between our two families. 

On the way there I had Tad stop at a gas station and take $150 out of the ATM.  That is all we get, I told him (really I was telling me) for the WHOLE weekend.  And that much only because it's an activity and commerce filled weekend.  On our budget, we normally get about $20 for the weekend.  Though, at the Elegant Farmer in years past, I have acted like it was a shopping spree there and spent something like $150.00 just on the groceries!

This year we met my sister and her husband and kids at 10:30 a.m. and took the trolley train ride from the Elegant Farmer to East Troy and back.  The kids loved it.  It was $12.50 per adult and $8.00 per kid. Lucy was free.
So that's $33.00

Then we shopped.  And got our lunch.
We got
Three ham sandwiches
Chips
Banana bread
A dessert for each kid
Apples
2 butternut squash
Gourds
Honey
Syrup
Pancake mix
Cheese curds
some drinks and some other stuff I'm probably forgetting

for about $60.00

And we got our pumpkins. Coen and Lucy each picked out a small one and then Coen insisted upon a medium one for Tad and I to share
$13.00

Elegant farmer total $106.00

So we still have money to go to the village of Greendale's haunted walk in the woods and get dinner tonight!

Now if I can only convince Tad that another outing is a good idea!

On reading and watching the ends of things

   Speaking of free-ish entertainment, I'm watching Glee right now.  I got it on Netflix so I'm only on the first season. I'm having a lot of fun with it...with the occasional need to fast forward through things.

  Oh did I mention my issue with stressful shows and books? I almost got kicked out of the movie theater when I went to see Ransom with Mel Gibson.  The man behind me turned around and said "would you PLEASE?!!!"  The usher had to come and threaten me to settle down or leave.  Needless to say, I don't see stressful movies in the theater anymore. 

  But the thing is, I'm so easily stressed out, even Three's Company stresses me out!

  I read the last of the Harry Potter books walking around while I held the book open.  I couldn't sit. I couldn't handle it. In fact, I read the last page of every book I leave before I read the first page.  I know that this seems a little weird to some, but the thing is, I don't get any less out of a story just because I know the end.  In knowing the end, I am relieved of my stress and I get to enjoy the way the story moves.

  So back to Glee.  I have been very stressed about who is going to end up with whom and which very bad relationships are going to end so better ones can blossom as they should!! And NO one would tell me what was going to happen...
 
  People seem to think they are doing me a favor by not telling me the endings of things! 
 
  So my coworker overheard me on the phone asking my sister about Glee.  After I hung up, he told me all the things I needed to know for a stress-free viewing.

  I am so pleased!  Now I can enjoy this little show, already knowing about about endings of things that will stress me out and just focus on all the music and sparkly sets and high school melodrama!!

How much paper would a space case waste if.....

Well, it is National Disability Employment Awareness month... This means I am very hard at work on a little project called Disability Mentoring Day.
I have been busy, super duper busy, since early September all the way up until this week working on finding job shadow placements for 160 youth with disabilities in the Metro-Milwaukee area!  The kids apply to the project and I set them up with a job shadow that is anywhere from an hour to a full day in one of their top three job choices.  The most popular? Music, animals, health care, graphic design and carpentry or auto mechanics. 
I have been hard at work and am proud to say that 159 of those kids have been placed and will be going out to their placement sometime during the day tomorrow. The one left wants to job shadow with the Milwaukee Bucks. I'm working on it.  It'll happen. Pretty much no one says no to me.
Anyway, today I was printing participation certificates out--250 of them.  For the kids, teacher and of course for the mentors.  My printing code is 8390.  In my frenzy of printing and typing and hitting buttons and clicking the mouse....I accidentally typed 8390 in under number of copies rather than the code.  I can't even begin to tell you how many copies ran off before I realized my error.
Now I have a huge pile of scrap paper.  Huge. 
The, this afternoon, I took Coen to the doctor's office for his 7-year check up.  After we checked in, the receptionist handed me a big pile of paper with a smile.  "Scrap paper for you!" she said.
Whaaaa?!

Double date weekend

Friday: The third annual Wisconsin Charter School Gala. We were invited as guests of Highland Community School.  We got a lovely buffet dinner and ate overlooking Lake Michigan at Discovery World on Pier Wisconsin.  We had our run of the museum, lots of wonderful parents from Highland to talk to and our son's school won the Silver Charter School of the Year award!!!  And the parents of Highland Community School won the silver Innovator of the Year award!  We got to go up on stage--thirty five strong (we were the best represented school there) and receive the award.  I left full, happy and proud as ever to be a Milwaukee resident who's child goes to Highland.
  A good friend babysat and was the first person outside of family to put our daughter to bed. He did awesome and the kids had a great time. 
Cost of the evening: $0

Saturday: Tad's high school friend's wedding reception.  It was exciting meeting all of Tad's old high school companions and kids from his neighborhood all grown up.  Dinner was great-catered by Saz's and I even got to see a few people I hadn't seen in a while.  My parents took the kids overnight so we even got to go for an evening walk, and watch movies and sleeeeeep in!!  Lovely.  We took a trip to Outpost to get a few items for dinner and the next morning's breakfast (which we ate at 9:30 a.m. on the porch in the sun).
Cost of the date: $15.00 (Outpost purchases)

Okay I can't resist..... Value of a two-night weekend with Tad, hanging around with grownups? 
Priceless. 
Sorry, it had to be done.

Concert Denial

    Tad and I have never been big spenders.  All our furniture is hand-me-down. Most of our kids clothing is as well.  We buy our clothes at Goodwill and other resale shops.  Our computer was my graduation gift recieved in 2006. when we want to play video games, we whip out the old original Nintendo system.
    But over the last year or so we spent almost $1000.00 on concert tickets alone--going to see Leonard Cohen, Matthew Sweet, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, the Magnetic Fields, Vampire Weekend, the Flaming Lips and the Fiery Furnaces.  Dang.  So of course when Tad and I made the decision for him to go back to school, we knew that one of the things that would have to go was the concert budget.


Tad's completed homework, drying on the floor



   So far, we have skipped two concerts I wanted to go to.  The first was Farm Aid with Willie Nelson and others at Miller Park.  It wasn't that hard to skip because the tickets were so expensive that we may not have even gone to that one even in better financial times. 



  But last night, Iron and Wine played at the Riverside and I must admit, it hurt my heart not to go.  But nevertheless, I survived.  The self-denial of seeing my favorite artists live is hard, but will not kill me.



  What did we do last night instead of going to see Iron and Wine live?  We listened to Iron and Wine on the stereo and I helped Tad with his homework.  Last night's homework?  Painting twelve Montessori charts with watercolors. Not a bad evening all in all. 



Now we're cooking with grease

I am having a lot of trouble cooking lately.  I am chalking it up to the AMOUNT of cooking I'm doing.  Here are a list of my mishaps in time sequenced order.

Friday: I made a chicken dish with a pear rosemary sauce.  The sauce never thickened!  It just never did. I was told to cook down until it is a sauce consistency and it was a watery consistency all the way.  "Why won't you turn into sauce?!" I yelled at it.  But to no avail.  Eventually, I added corn starch, but too late, so it was clumpy.  Then on the side I made that potato cheese casserole, the one with the corn flakes crushed up on top.  The potatoes turned this completely weird and gross brownish green color.  It all tasted good but looked just horrific!

Saturday: I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies for Tad and I to have with our vanilla ice cream.  I made them, just like I always make them...but when I took them out of the oven, the bottoms were burned and the tops seemed not to be cooked!

Sunday: Pancake morning. I decided to try my dad's recipe instead of my usual.  On the list of ingredients was "vinegar". Vinegar? That couldn't be right. But I made them, as directed and found out later from my dad that it was a misprint. Should have said sugar.  Those were weird pancakes.  My son said, "I'll eat them, but they'll need a LOT of syrup"  I made double batch too, to last us the week.

Tad's cooking tomorrow.

Two month itch

Well I've got it...the two month itch.  What is the two month itch, you might ask?  Well, I have not bought a thing outside of groceries and gas for two full months now. Not a thing. If I can't eat it or run my car with it, I'm not buying it. 
But the other day I needed to stop at the store to pick up a birthday present for my friend.  The place didn't take a check card.  So I went to the local cash machine and withdrew twenty dollars.  That left me with ten dollars burning a hole in my wallet.  Did I save it for an emergency or to put it towards groceries? No.  It took me approximately ten seconds to look around a locate a lovely re-sale boutique to pop into and spend all of that ten dollars on a shirt and a sweater.  Ahhhhhh, I missed being a consumer.
Now, mind you, I did not go to the Gap or the Limited or any place like that to spend.  Mind you, I probably could only buy one sock at one of those stores with ten dollars, if that.  I went to a Goodwill-owned boutique.  "The Re-Tique" Cute, huh?  They had super cute stuff and nothing I saw was more than $7.99. 
I'm also slated to go out to dinner with my girlfriends on Monday.  I suggested Noodles since I still have my gift card for there from a generous donor! But my sister says she'd rather buy me dinner than go to Noodles for a girls night out. 
I also went to Target and bought our Halloween Trick or Treat candy and let each kid pick out a $10.00 or less toy. 
Yep, its the two month itch. I'll settle down now.... something tells me in two months from now..there'll be some more spending going on again. 

Cheap date

I am a cheap date, by the way. I don't drink, so there's that. Also, I'm always happy to split things. Except dessert. But that's not the point of this post.

Tad and I had a really nice cheap date on Friday night.  Our neighbor Julia babysat for our kids. She came over at 8, after they were already tucked into bed for the night.  We didn't have to pay, since we swap babysitting hours with Julia and her husband.  We went out to a movie!! It was the first theater movie we'd seen since...well jeez, I don't remember!  I think it was at the Majestic Theater in Brookfield... and it was the Fantastic Mr. Fox. I just googled it and it was out in November of 2009, so yes, that's the last movie we saw in the theater. Almost a full year ago.

Did we have to pay big money for the movie?  NO!  Tad was the third caller on 91.7 WMSE, Milwaukee Film Festival contest and he won us free tickets! 

We went to see "Date Night", a series of romantic shorts at the Ridge in New Berlin.  We talked on the ride and held hands.  We got to the movie theater an hour and a half before the film started, but we were so glad to be out of the house, we didn't care. We walked laps around the movie theater and enjoyed each other's company. We even splurged on a kiddie combo: A small popcorn, a small soda and pixie stix for $6.50.

A whole date night for six dollars, fifty sense and enough gas to get us to New Berlin and back.

Lovely.