Day Thirteen

I should have posted this last night but this cold finally caught up with me and I went to bed early. After watching "Chuck" of course, and skimming through "Dancing With the Stars." After all, we have to have priorities.

Yesterday was a good day. The sun was shining, the crisp fall air is here in force, and for most of the day I felt really good. I walked to work - the car didn't move all day. I had put spaghetti sauce in the crockpot before I left for work so I came home to my house smelling yummy. And I'm almost half way through the month.

One of the nice things about this Month of Nothing has been the way it has freed me up to say "no" to things. Want to order books from the school book order? Sorry, no, it's our month of nothing. School fundraiser selling vats of chemical tasting cookie dough? Sorry, no, it's our month of nothing. These are all things which are "optional" but which, sadly, I usually cave in to when the sweet little faces of my children turn to me and plead, "Please?" But they are things that I probably should say no to more often, or at least be more selective. Maybe let them buy one book from the book order instead of a set. Buy one thing from the fund raiser instead of many, or don't buy from this fund raiser but spend a little extra on bingo night when the whole family is together having a good time.

I guess this is what I wanted out of the Month of Nothing - a fresh look at what I spend money on and why. Do we need books from the book order or could we check those same books out at the library? How many fund raisers can we really support? (I've been the PTA president for three years and been involved for 11 years so don't yell at me that we need to support our schools! I know how underfunded our schools are and fully recognize the need to fund raise. But when we get hit with three different fundraisers in one month I question whether we are going about it in the best way.)

Hopefully, when this month is over I won't go back blindly to my old ways. Hopefully I will have a new awareness of what is actually need vs. what I just want. And hopefully my family will also.

Meals today were:

Breakfast was homemade bread toasted. For the cheese bread I used my Bread Making 101 recipe, rolled it out after I punched it down after the first rise, brushed it with melted butter and sprinkled grated cheddar cheese. Then rolled it up and put it in the pan seam side down. The only change I would make would be to use less sugar in the original recipe. The slightly sweet bread with the cheese is a little odd. If you use 1/4 c. sugar instead of 1/3 c it should be fine, though it might need to rise slightly longer.

Lunch was bits and pieces. I had a cheese stick and the last of the lunch meat, an apple, a yogurt and a homemade granola bar. The little kids had yogurt, apples, graham crackers. I'm not sure what Hubby had.

Dinner was the afore mentioned spaghetti sauce over tortellini, sliced tomatoes from the garden, fruit cocktail from a can.

Jill