I seem to have posted every five days for the last few entries.

I have been very busy and had an eye appointment. I was given new contacts to try out and now I have to wear reading glasses to be on the computer, but see better overall.

So now I need to order new glasses since I have been without since my grandpuppy ripped them off my face being affectionate and they pretty much disintegrated back in July.

So today I am going for a teeth cleaning.

Tomorrow will be my first half of month subtotals.

It is the MOST beautiful time of year here on the North Coast of California.

We are still eating out of the pantry, but stocked up with the Costco coupons on cleaning supplies (soft scrub and Clorox clean-up), toothbrushes, scope, lever 2000, dawn liquid, honey bunches of oats and last but not least 2/1 30 count Nestle candy bars (for SIL in Iraq). It was a bit difficult to resist the lawn Christmas ornaments. DH especially liked the Santa climbing up the stairs...., but resist we did!

Some good, some bad over the last five days. I did get the food for OD made and frozen. She left yesterday with 3 small styrofoam containers of lasagna, burritos and lentil soup. Before she left, I gave her dog and my dog baths, which saved $30.00 (for both).

After OD left for 5 hour drive back to Oregon, I realized I was coming down with a migraine. I got my work done and at 4:30 I almost called DH to stop and bring something home for dinner.

But NO! I still had time to thaw some chicken or something from my very full freezer. Luckily I found the Orange Chicken from the buy 1, get 1 at Costco in one of their coupone books. Turned out the sauce was frozen separate from the chicken nuggets in two separate meals (2 bags of sauce, 2 bags of chicken). So yippee two meals. Anyway I already had broccoli and cauliflower roasting in the oven and I stuck the nuggets in the last 15 minutes and made some rice (from the pantry stock). A victory, I didn't give in to conveniece and feeling sorry for myself. It was a pretty tasty meal too even if I say so myself (DH has done 99.9% of cooking for the last 25+ years of our 28 year marriage).

Wednesday was DH's birthday. Unfortunately the girl's wanted to go out to sushi. Somehow I ended up paying and crap, sushi is expensive. $59.00 for the four of us and my mother-in-law. For that price we could have had Chinese for at least 2 meals. I don't even like sushi that much. I mean it's okay...

Luckily for dinner we had the first of this year's venison in the form of venison burgers. Yum very tasty.

So that comes back to this morning, woke up at 4:15 with head pain, popped a pain pill and DH woke up and made me an omelet (we decided not to go out to breakfast, another victory!) before he left for deer hunting again. Oh it's our anniversary and we knew DH was leaving and considered going out.... We had eggs, leftover bacon, avocados and tomatoes, oh and fresh basil. Yum!

Yesterday DH brought home from work the Costco Connection magazine, a new Costco Coupon book and the October issue of Consumer Reports. There is an article on Supermarkets! The shopping tips were nothing new or earth shattering, but the interesting thing was the supermarket ratings.

Quick picks for low prices were Trader Joe's, Costco, Aldi, Sam's Club and WalMart Supercenters.

Top Regional chains: Wegmans, Publix, Raley's, Harrs Teeter and Hy-Vee.

Best for meat and produce: Wegmans, Raley's and Whole Foods Market.

I was happy Winco (where we regularly shop besides Costco) was #11 out of 54 markets surveyed. But then Safeway and Costo are the other other stores that were surveyed that we have in our area (North Coast of California).

Another very motivating force lately was a book I purchased at our church presale rummage sale, (I was dropping things off and bought some books and a new bread maker). Anyway the name of the book is "Credit, Cash and CoDependency" by Yvonne Kaye, Ph.D. This was a very interesting book that I got a lot out of.

I haven't done my monthly subtotals because my head hurts, but tomorrow or Sunday will be paying bills, etc.

There are some interesting Costco Coupons that I will be taking advantage of.

Oh back to food. Tonight I made macaroni and cheese with pasta from the pantry. It's amazing how much I have been pantry cooking since Dido's inspiration. The rice from last night, oh and I baked a cake for DH and made my own frosting..... something I hadn't done in years.. when did I cross over and start buying canned frosting??

Thanks for all the motivating posts everyone!

Here is my bedroom color, if you can call it a color with black and white. It's very dull to some I'm sure, but very soothing to me.

It's a gray day here on the North Coast and OD is home for a visit before her college starts. She gets so busy with work and school that she starts buying frozen stuff to eat, so I decided to send her home with some frozen food.

My plan is burritos, lentil soup and lasagna. DH is at Costco buying some supplies, but I also have some of the ingredients on hand, like the pinto beans (just boiled for 2 minutes, soaking for 2 hours, then throwing in crockpot the rest of the day), a large can of tomato sauce, canned tomatoes and onion and bell pepper, lasagna noodles, lentils and chicken broth.

I won't be sending it all home with her, which will also help us on those busy days. I will have to be careful the rest of the month to keep food under $500.00.

I did a freezer and pantry enventory and here is my freezer enventory (Dido inspired me):
4 lbs butter
2 pkg of cooked turkey leftover.
2 pkg of turkey broth (with meat in them).
2 pkg pork tenderloin (Costco)
2 cornish game hens
6 pkg - 2 in each of chicken breasts (Costco)
2 pkg - 2 in each of New York Steaks (Costco)
1 rib eye steak
1 chuck roast
2 large racks of pork (Costco carries this around the holidays, leftover from last holiday season)
3 large pkgs of pork of some sort, boneless chops? (that's what happens when we don't label pkgs)
4 pkg of pork for carnitas or chili verde (basically chunks of sirloin for $1.28 lb)
1 pkg of sliced beef for carne asada (sold at same store that sells the pork sirloin chunks - Winco)
6 pkg of bone in chicken breasts-3 in each pkg
22 pkg of 1/2 lb each venison burger
10 pkg of venison steaks (about 3/4 lb each)
1 frozen orange chicken pkg meal from Costco
1 large bag of frozen strawberries (Costco)
1 whole filet mignon (having tonight for dinner)

Then in the small freezer above the frig I have another pkg of strawberries almost gone, whole wheat flower, flax seed and 3 different containers of ice cream (partially eaten).

Seeing the movie The Wicker Man....DH's birthday is Wednesday so we decided to do something "fun". At least I took my own snacks.

My enabling friends think that $600+ for food for three (groceries and eating out) "is not that bad". I think it is very bad....

So my goal for September is $500 for the month (combined groceries and eating out).

Also I was a bit shocked at the almost $70.00 in pet costs for one little dog. I usually buy his toys at the Dollar Store, but do feed him expensive Innova dog food. I also bathe him myself except about once every six weeks take him to the groomer for a good bath, toenail trimming etc. Lola my grandpuppy is coming for a visit so I did buy her a new toy today at the Dollar store. But for September, my goal is $50.00 for Landon.

I am copying Flash here, but these are my daughters and their pets. All three puppies were rescued from shelters. My doggy is in the middle with my YD who is recovering from a bad case of mono (not in this picture of course, this picture was taken in early June).