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.

Soccer!

Well, I spent $63.59 in the consumer world yesterday.  I know, I know.

But Coen's school is starting a lower elementary soccer team.  I had to get him cleats, shin guards, shorts and socks.  But just look at the picture.  Come on!  Wasn't it worth it?

His first game is on Saturday.

On Sale This Week: A big hunk of meat!

So I will do my grocery shopping, per usual, on Wednesday when it is double coupon day. This week's big ticket item? A big hunk of meat.  Boooooring!  It is a boneless beef chuck roast. If you purchase you get a free bag of potatoes, carrots and celery.  Hmmmmm...How to make this interesting....

The cool thing about the grocery store ad is if you go online, you can click on specials of the week and it often gives you a recipe to go along with it--so you know what to make!  This week's recipe: pot roast with vegetables.  The instructions include a dutch oven.  Pot roast!? Dutch oven?!  I don't even have a dutch oven and I am sorry, but I am not making a pot roast. What is this? 1952?

Okay, okay, I'm sure some of you out there make a mean pot roast, but I can't do it. And furthermore, if I did do it, my kids wouldn't eat it. And if any of you, my dear readers are mothers or fathers who spend forever planning meals, preparing meals, cooking meals and serving meals only to have your sweet little angels turn their noses up at all your labors....well, it is an unpleasant thing indeed.

But I googled "Beef chuck roast recipe". I'm learning to be a better googler, by the way. There was a time when I'd have googled "What do do with a beef chuck roast when you don't want to make a pot roast"  Seriously.  Tad is teaching me to be less verbose in my googling.  So "beef chuck roast recipe" yielded of course many results but I found one that's sure to strike the fancy of all of my family members.  Barbeque pulled beef sandwiches. That's what we're having on Thursday and Friday with broccoli and some tortilla chippies.  I might even buy an avocado!

Let's hear it for big chunks of meat. And google.

Dinner outings abound

I'll tell you what I'm glad for:  I don't have to make dinner for three nights in a row!!!

tonight: We are going to Tad's school program's potluck at his teachers house.  I made mint brownies to contribute

tomorrow: We are going to our friend Jen & Connor's house

saturday: We are going to my sister's house

Three nights!  That's what I'm glad for!