The End of the School Year is Nigh

Wow, April 19, huh?  I have had a few blogging ideas, but little blogging time.

The last month has been a flurry of school and kid things -

The school auction was early May, and I was in charge of it - so many late nights of prepping, a day of setup, a day at the auction, and a bunch of little things to wrap it up.

Art night/ open house night was last week

Spring sing was this week - and I was 5 minutes from the school (picking up my kid) when I remembered that LAST year's auction we auctioned off "reserved seats" to school functions.  Nobody remembered that in December (whoops), so I ran to the office and wrote out 5 "reserved" signs with a sharpie.  Score one for the mommy brain!

A few parents had a camping "party book" to raise funds for the school, and that was also in mid-May.  It was a GREAT time with about 7 families at a nearby campground. Right next to the beach, at the edge of a big open field for games (but we had to make sure not to set up the tents in the grass, or the sprinklers would go off), right next to a great playground.  Across the RR tracks from the playground was a brewery, didn't make it there.  Had some good burgers though.

Then there was the 3-day weekend, where we had THREE parties and our first family photo shoot.  We are firmly entrenched in the toddler birthday swing.  Amazingly, this weekend we have no parties, and I think  none next weekend either.

I've been trying to get back in the major healthy eating swing.  I hit 140.2 lbs in January, but round 3 of work layoffs + the auction + strange work stuff + kids - I found myself in the upper 140's again.  (which is at least a good 20 lbs less than last year).  But I'd love to break that 140 lb barrier.  I'm just not sure it's worth completely giving up wine and bread.

Some of the "good eats" this week have been lots and lots of veggies.  I've been following the 21-day fix again, with a change - a few days a week (Tues/Thurs/Sun) I am trying to mix it up and allow myself to go up a bracket.  The difference is probably mostly mental, but the higher bracket (which would be a maintenance bracket) allows me to have an extra carb, an extra fruit, an extra veg, and two extra tsps of fat.  Gotta make it work in the long term!

We are in a few weeks right now of NO LETTUCE from the CSA!  I've been steaming and roasting the "Normandy vegetables" from Costco (yellow carrots, baby carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower).  I made a "Greek" salad with cucumbers and peppers yesterday.  I've been eating scrambled eggs with zucchini.  Lots of experimentation this week!

Your frugal tip of the day:  My spouse and I had a DATE NIGHT last night.  Now, while it wasn't "cheap" by most people's standards, we did do things to make it more frugal.
1.  Babysitting - no cheaping out there, it was $50.  That's standard for 4 hours.
2.  Wine - I have a membership at a local winery, which includes a glass of wine for me and a guest, for free, every single day.  In the 2 months I've been a member, I've gotten a total of 3 glasses of wine.  Because I have kids.  Who can make it?
3.  Dinner and popcorn: We grabbed a quick burger.  I got mine lettuce-wrapped.  I was trying to find something "healthy", and when looking at the nutritional info, realized that a plain lettuce wrapped burger had 150 calories less than a salad (maybe even more).  This left room for the popcorn.  Total for both: $16.
4.  Parking: $3
5.  Movie: Free.  We were going to try and get discount tickets, but those are hit or miss.  My spouse traded in his "points" from being a blood donor for 2 free tickets to see The Avengers.

Now it's time for me to get ready for the gym. I did this crazy thing and decided to do a "lazy man's triathlon" - it's an Iron Man distance, but you have the month of May to finish.  Now I have 28 miles of biking and 4.4 miles of walking to finish in 2 days, because I'm generally lazy on weekends.

Here's a silly pic from the photo shoot: (wearing the kiddo's chess medals!)