3 Things

I mowed tonight and it is still HOT here in Texas. I got a bit of sunshine as I mowed for 3 people after school.

1. My daughter tags along with me when I mow right after school. She is pretty good and can entertain herself with a notepad or a magnadoodle. She really gets excited when someone is home and she gets to play. These past 2 weeks as we drive around we've transitioned from taking turns on what we listen to on the radio: she wants Radio Disney and I usually listen to ESPN or some pop music station. Now we just listen to Classical Music and it is not that bad! At least she isn't going to hear something she shouldn't hear!

2. I mowed 1/2 of a duplex tonight. Early in the mowing season the next door neighbor asked if I would mow their 1/2 too! We set up $15 as a fair price and I began mowing. This summer when I left for St. Louis my neighbor mowed for me and covered this lawn 2 times before he showed up and they had a sign that said, "Don't Mow Anymore" on the door. Well, I've mailed to bills to collect $45 they owe me to no avail. Tonight the boyfriend's truck was there and for some reason I did not go and knock and demand my money. I think I've chalked it up as a loss. They've had many chances to pay and haven't.

3. We had Pei Wei for dinner tonight for the first time and I really liked it. We dined for under $20 and that include 4 drinks. One adult teryaki bowl, 2 kids teryaki bowls, 2 adult drinks and 2 kids drinks. They only upcharge 50 cents for each kids drink. That's FAIR! I'll go back for sure!

Enjoy your weekend.

Smoothies

I have been interested in making smoothies for a while, but our blender was big, bulky and required more than necessary assembly each time it was cleaned so I had yet to delve into the smoothy market, until Monday night. I went ahead and put in orange juice, a banana, a strawberry and some ice. Wasn't that bad. Had a lot of ice chunks though.

My wife doesn't care for banana so I went to make her an orange julius. I put the blender on high and left it running a bit longer in an attempt to get rid of ice chunks. Well, I burnt up the blender.....it started smoking and somehow managed to leak some black liquid into the smoothy.

It was 8pm and Big Lots was open so I went to look at their choices. Two cost $20 and one $15. The Hamilton Beach blender had about 12 buttons so I opted for the 2 button blender with the glass container. I LOVE IT! Easy to clean and it really chops up the ice.

I am looking for some HEALTHY smoothy options for the upcoming weeks. This morning I just had orange juice with a banana, no ice. Not bad. Got any recommendations?

Billy the Kid is back in town

Best news I received today was the my best friend billyv is back in town, blogwise that is. He took a short sabbatical for personal reasons, but he is linked once again. Welcome back billyv!

Lunch Disappointment

After church today I really wanted to go and watch some football. The only problem is in my decent sized town about the only place that would have most of the games on their screens is Hooters. This wouldn't sit well with my wife and it probably isn't sending the best message if this is my dining place of choice IMMEDIATELY after hearing a sermon from Matthew in which the pastor addressed the issues of lust in our society. As Homer Simpson might say, "Chicken wings, football, boobies."

About 40 minutes after NFL kickoffs we arrived at a restaurant just north of town and it was one we visited a few times last year with decent reviews. With 8 TVs going the Rams/Bucs game wasn't on so when the waitress addressed us I asked if we could get the Rams game. At least 10+ minutes later the manager finally hooked us up.

While the wife was in the restroom with daughter I ordered our drinks: tea, diet Coke, 2 kid sprites. She shows up with a large Sprite, large diet, and one kid sprite.

We ordered chicken nachos, wings with fries(hot sauce on the side), and a kids meal cheeseburger. While we waited for our food the manager and a few of his friends were playing the video golf game right next to us and he asked if we had been in before and I said last year. He informed us that he just took over ownership 3 weeks ago so it was a cool exchange.

The order came in a reasonable amount of time, but the wings were tiny and soaked in hotsauce.

When the waitress finally came back to our table we informed her of the wings issue, the need for silverware and napkins, ketchup and plates.

My wife also asked for some salsa for the nachos and the waitress brought back "wing sauce???"

We finished most of our food which didn't taste bad at all altough the fries were a bit wimpy and appeared to have sat under the warmer for a LONG time. Fries can be a deal killer for me!

My wife took my daughter to the restroom one more time and said one of the 2 toilet lids had a broken 1/2 lid. STRIKE 5. She commented that only someone with one butt cheek would be comfortable using that toilet. Plus she said her feet stuck to the floor as she walked across it.

The last deal breaker, well, the deal was broken long before we got the check. The total for our meal: nachos, wings with fries, kids meal burger and 3 drinks was $28. I left sick to my stomach that we went to this place. The service was not good at all. The food was decent, but not $28 range. We could have gone to Chilis, Saltgrass, or just about anywhere for that price. You know me, I find the deals. A nearby BBQ place would have been about $14 for us with ice creams for everyone! But, no games.

We were really disappointed that the one girl who was waiting on everyone couldn't keep up or remember things we asked for in a timely fashion. Probably the biggest disappointment was that the owner was standing within 5 feet of us and either didn't know the girl couldn't handle it, or didn't care.

The 5th Quarter had one chance to win us over and it failed. We won't be back.

What I Eat

I am very predictable when it comes to what I eat at which restaurants.

McDondalds-Filet of fish, double cheese onions only, fries
Pizza-sausage and pepperoni
Jack In the Box-2 tacos and onion rings
Scotty P's-chicken tenders and fries with cheese on top
White Castle-4 cheese-no pickles, fries, onion rings
Movies-large popcorn, large diet
KFC-tender/taco combo with potato wedges
Donut Palace-on cinnamon roll
Chick Fil A breakfast-chicken with egg biscuit
Chick Fil A dinner-tenders and a large waffle fry

I sometimes think about getting something different, but I don't. I think about getting a quarter pounder with cheese, onions only at McD's and I don't. I try not to get popcorn at the movies and I almost always do. I get bent if I have to eat a pizza that is not sausage and pepperoni.
I think one problem I have when I go somewhere new I think of all the menu combinations, the cheapest way to eat the most variety of food and so on. I have a hard time making decisions so being set on something does save me a LOT of time. The other day at Big Lots I was trying to decide on a snack chip and I think I must have bounced around the chip aisle for 10 minutes.

I guess I'm becoming an old dog!

Fiber1000

After teaching a few lessons on food and nutrition at school I decided to add fiber to my diet. One girl brought in a box of Fiber1 cereal and with one 1/2 cup a person could get 57% of their daily recommended grams of fiber. So when I saw Fiber1 breakfast bars I had my wife get some. They only provided 40% per bar so the first morning I had 2 of them with a diet Pepsi. BIG MISTAKE. By 10am I was experiencing some severe gas build up. I had not had this level of discomfort EVER. While monitoring my class I probably walked out into the hallway 10 times a half hour to let loose. I really had to be careful and hold back a bit because I know people down in the cafeteria or the gym would hear.

Everywhere I went I tried to pass some out inconspicuously. For the most part they were odor free, but I get moving around just in case. From 10 to 10 that day I probably let out about 1,000 air biscuits. The next day wasn't quite as bad, or should I say I didn't let loose as often, but the odor began to get offensive.

It took me about 3 days to recover and I think I will let someone else have my Fiber1 breakfast bars. I could let the kids have one each for breakfast!

WOW. I'm not exaggerating in this story. Buyer Beware!

No Time or No Desire?

I've been slacking in the blogging department lately. Well, sort of. I've probably posted about 80% of the time on my new bible reading blog www.cravetheword.blogspot.com. Since I am committed to doing that before I even check emails it has helped my spiritual life very much. I may be slacking in blogging because I am very busy and very tired. This has been an extremely busy start for a school year. This week I have 3 after school commitments along with other church, mowing and auto detailing commitments.

One huge blessing tonight was that my kids went straight to bed after I picked them up from church. I played hooky for 2 hours and got a grip on a bit of house cleaning. I can actually see the floor in my bedroom, 90% of the clothes are washed AND folded. Not sure I'm going to fold the load currently in the drier.

I am looking forward to a Friday night of cards. Friday night may be the only night in 2 weeks that I haven't had to do something.

I love my new school, the kids are great, and fall is just around the corner.........

Dining In Drawbacks

I really am surprised that I don't weight 300 pounds since over the summer we averaged eating out 2 times a day EASILY! We've made a decent attempt to start dining at home and scheduling our dine out times based on being busy with church and other school commitments. My wife has tried to design meals for the weak with the intention of us actually being home for those meals. Problem is when we both get home after 6pm many times neither of us want to take that extra 30 plus minutes making a meal AND messing the place up even more.

Maybe for us dining at home needs to be quick micro meals from Lean Cuisine or SmartOnes. The disposable dishes are handy plus the portions are very acceptable. Tonight when I got home I spent some time unloading the dishwasher and then semi-cleaning dishes to load the dishwasher again. I was able to remember some of the meals that we have indeed had this week.

The problems of our dining at home begin with commitment. We often buy the groceries for it, but don't always stay the course. Some of the food that is bought ends up getting thrown out. Also, my wife and I are not that good at closing the deal of doing the dishes. I've always been the type of person who: kicks my shoes off at the door, sets something down wherever I am standing, washes clothes and only folds them when I can't get to the washer, basically I ride the horse hard and end up putting it away wet.

I wonder if I planned dining out meals around kids eat free events or super cheap meals if it would actually be cheaper and even free us up on time since there would be less time spent cleaning up.

I guess I'm just not a good planner. We'll see.

$100 Update

If you remember a few weeks ago my wife found a $100 bill outside of a local bank after she went inside to cash our checks. By chance we used the inside part because we sat in the drive thru for 10 minutes without moving. When she got in the truck we talked about what to do? She found it on the parking lot. We decided to ask the couple who pulled up after us if they lost anything and they said no.

We have kept the $100 in a safe place for 3 weeks until Monday. On Monday, my wife's birthday, we went to an antique mall. Part of my birthday gift to her was getting a sitter 2 days in a row. As we browsed thru the mall I actually said a brief, quiet prayer that we would actually find a wooden blanket box somewhat like the one we had about 8 years ago and sold when we came back to Texas. We miss that blanket box that doubled as a cool looking hamper. Well, it wasn't one aisle later when we came across a decent looking blanket box. I had $200 in my and my wife later said she was thinking $195. It listed for $295. We looked it over good and finally walked on. I was easily justifying buying it since I hadn't got my wife much for her birthday. The next aisle we came across ANOTHER blanket box similar to the first one. It had to be the same vendor. Sure enough. A lady asked if she could help us and chatted a bit. Without any prompting she said it was her booth and she was taking 15% off for labor day.

Buy price would be $250 plus tax. Now we just need to decide which one. We ended up buying one plus 3 wooden chairs at $22.50 each. Our total purchase with tax was $344.

Total Purchase $344
$100 found money $ -$100
birthday check from mom -$ 75
wife's savings bond from 1978 -$ 50
$ saved from misordering flowers -$ 44

Real net out of pocket $75(or the antique blanket box for FREE)

I could easily justify that I might spend $75 for her gift. All I know is she is extremely happy with her mid-30's birthday weekend!

Date Night

Actually went on a date tonight with my wife.

Dinner: $6 cash,$20 giftcard
2 games of pool: $2
4 games of bowling: $11
1 large coke:$2.50

The sitter cost as much as our night out: $40. It was great getting away from our kids and seeing that we still enjoy being around each other. Kids are a blessing, but they do take away from the time a couple have together.

I really need for grandma to move to Texas and watch them on a weekly basis!

Have a great Labor(less) Day.