The Vegetarian Accountant's Garden
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Country & Rural Garden News (13)Newspapers (6)Other Gardening News (A-J) (29)Other Gardening News (K-Z) (30)I finished up week #2 of shopping at Lucky. Apparently, I wasn't very organized last weekend, because I had to make three (!) additional trips into the grocery to restock on bread, bananas, and milk. Oh, and it was my week to provide the snack for E's Japanese class... Another week of shopping at Lucky. It's not so bad, now that I've spent some time locating my usual purchases in the Lake Merritt store. $121.70 this trip, and I should be set until late in the week... There are so many places to shop, I realized as I was driving through town the other night. You can get groceries in this town at Lucky, Safeway, Whole Foods, Piedmont Grocery, Village Market, Farmer Joe's, Trader Joe's, Grocery Outlet, and Walmart... Starting this week, we're on to Lucky for our grocery shopping. I may need to incorporate more fish into our meal plan, as the vegetarian "roasts" will probably not be available for purchase at Lucky grocery stores... Running: it's a blessing and a curse. It helps so much to release tension and anxiety, but it also causes stress on the body. I tried too much this past week. Having a 2 mile run and a 3 mile hike on the same day was a bit too much, so I opted out of the five-mile hike on Friday and went to Dailey Method instead... My final trip to Whole Foods for this part of the experiment (sniffle)... and I spent $47.77 on bread, milk, eggs, and snacks. Oh, and I stocked up on Yves' Veggie Bologna because I know I can't find it at Safeway or Lucky... Week #4: $105.95 and I still ended up with three bags of groceries (plus two gallon jugs of milk). We also spent $7.50 at the farmer's market on broccoli and apples.... For some reason, I had more recipes than days this week. I guess that may be because we had one pizza night and one night where we ate the leftover vegetable ziti gratin. This actually works out well, as I'm not so fond of the last week of recipes on the recipe planner... Another late week trip to Whole Foods for milk, bread, bananas and snacks. I only spent $35, though, which brings this week's total to about $170. Not bad for a family of four (I'm not counting the baby, although he does eat his share of the bananas and milk)... ... ... It felt good to stay on track with exercise this week. I actually fit in a couple extra hikes, which proved more challenging than I thought. My total mileage for the week was about 18 miles, 8 of which were running miles... Food spending update: I needed to make another trip to the grocery store, to fill up on milk and bread. Meanwhile, I bought most of the ingredients for Sunday's dinner and more apples (for lunches), since I will be away for Sunday & Monday of this coming weekend... Our farmer's market results -- $21.50. Our grocery total from Whole Foods for this upcoming week is $112.22, so far. That's about the same as last week, except that I had already spent the aforementioned $21... I did need to return to the grocery store mid-week, adding $31.76 to my grocery expense, and, Rudy went for more sandwich items on Saturday (another $13.65). The grand total for week 1 at Whole Foods was $156... I'm getting into running again. After a long bout with a recurring injury, I finally determined that the injury was caused and worsened by running or jogging with the stroller. I just can't do long runs with the extra weight of the stroller any more... It's a new year! And I have a food-and-budget-related challenge. Actually, it's more like an experiment. I am curious to see whether it really matters, budget-wise, about where you shop. I have a monthly menu plan, which I adapted from Real Simple magazine... It's that time of year: the time to add even more to your to-do list! I've really been dragging my feet this year, too. I did manage to send off the overseas gifts, but I am shocked that we're a couple weeks away from Christmas and I haven't sent out any cards, wrapped any presents (I have procured a few), or done any decorating... More about chores and kids... We're at the tender age of pulling everything out of the cabinets and getting into every dangerous item in the house. Well, John is at that age. It is nearly impossible to do anything in the house with him awake in the house, and even if I'm just concentrating on him, he is still doing the dangerous and messy... It's been a battle with the deer, but our pumpkin plant finally produced. We started several seeds back in February, but after transplant and some cooler than anticipated weather, only two plants survived... It's a foggy, late summer Sunday morning here. We finished up our first week of school without any major trauma and have started attending the regular barrage of weekend birthday parties. It's a nice pattern to resume... Happy Independence Day! Here we are at the Piedmont 4th of July Parade, where the girls collect candy and the Balloon Platoon stopped by to shake hands. It was a nice parade this year with lots of music, classic cars and all the regular troops of small town associations and businesses... I read once that you should limit yourself to trying to accomplish only five tasks per day. I often wonder, is that in addition to a standard job or does that include work. And then I forget that I do work (not for pay), caring for three young children... Ah, Mother's Day... again. Only this year, I have three little people who are trying to say "thanks for taking care of us... every day... all the time." Oh, and let me pull your hair a bit and scratch your eye... More iris are starting to bloom. This is "Jessee's Song" from my Grandmother's garden. Many more are about to open, and the garden should be popping with color very soon. Sunny is waiting patiently in the iris bed on the patio...
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