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Weekend Spend

February 22nd, 2005 at 03:22 am

Well, the weekend was anything but low-key -- but there it is. And now a new week upon us (even though I rather feel like I could use a weekend to recover from the weekend, heh).

Our little Russian lass has been with us two days now -- no problems there....

Saturday was a bit of a wash. Spent the entire day doing little more than driving all over creation burning fossil fuel and schlepping the children to their various, too- tightly scheduled destinations around town (a meeting, two classes, rehearsal, a birthday party (DD and Russian Lass having a wonderful time), a symphony concert (free tickets!)). I also found myself shopping in between schlepping, which I hadn't expected to do, but oh well. Spendy spend spend -- but at least I did run across some deals. A quick stop by the neighborhood asian grocery to pick up some fresh produce landed me with a whole mess of free carrots --probably close to 15 pounds or more. They were given to us 'for our bunny' by the shopkeeper (she knows we have a pet rabbit). The carrots were bagged, but in each bag you could see that there one or two squishy ones, so she gave us the lot. The vast majority of the carrots were perfectly fine though, and it was a simple enough task to open the bags, dump it all in my big laundry sink and pick through, composting the questionable ones. Now we are rich in carrots! Rabbit nothing -- oh sure, she'll get her share, but we'll be nibbling on 'em too...

Stopped by a large chain supermarket as well where I raided the scratch and dent discount bins. There I found pouch upon pouch of Mrs. Wages tomato dry canning mixes (which I actually really like), for .50 cents a bag. They are ordinarily close to $2.50 or so -- so I rifled through them and stocked up. I can always stick them in my freezer if need be. Most of the mixes were Ketchup, but I did get several Spaghetti Sauce's (Mrs. Wages (http://store.yahoo.com/mrswages/tomsaucmix.html) is an 'add your own tomatoes' kind of a thing for canning -- very handy, especially for making ketchup in particular).

Also in the discount bin were a bunch of dented (26 oz) cans of Hunts spaghetti sauce in assorted flavors, discounted to .60 cents each. I dug deep and snatched all the meatless ones....

Additionally on saturday, I stopped by an estate sale I noticed while driving across town. I have a 'thing' for estate sales -- like a moth to a flame. If anything, I am perpetually nosy about houses, any house, and love opportunities to see inside -- especially the grand, old ones (like this one). But, I'm attracted to all the Stuff too of course. Saturday I showed real restraint however, and made it outta there with only a $1.00 tablecloth, and an quaint old $2.00 basket thingie, despite an abundance of interesting clutter (my particular estate sale weaknesses are old linens, practical-looking baskets, and old wooden boxes...). But I knew perfectly well I didn't need to spend the money, and probably even more importantly? I do NOT need more Stuff....

Yesterday proved eventful as well, despite the gloomy weather. On a whim, we ended up hosting a very spontaneous and impromptu dinner here for some friends of ours. There were nine of us in all. It was lively and fun -- and I managed to cook mostly from my pantry. On my menu was 'Couscous with Seven Vegetables' -- a rich stew chock full of veggies (including CARROTS). Although I did need to make a quick stop at the HFS to pick up couscous from their bulk aisle since I was out, that was all --the rest of the ingredients I had on hand. To accompany the stew, I also quickly pressure cooked garbanzo beans (from my bulk-purchased stash) and whipped up a big batch of hummus -- with what else? CARROT sticks (as well as a bit of sliced, discounted 'day-old' french bread from the H.F.S. -- priced at .45 cents) . Our friends brought salad fixings, which was a nice addition. Last but not least, however, was the dessert I made -- 'Pineapple Upside Down CARROT Cake' (do you see a pattern here? Heh, getting a lot of mileage out of the free carrots ....). Oh, and lots of peppermint tea. Anyway, the party was fun, the company enjoyable and the food ample and well turned out (despite the cake running over a bit in the oven and burning on the bottom nearly smoking us out of the house) -- not too terribly shabby for somebody who woke up with no particular plans for the day whatsoever....

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