Shopping on a budget

I'll be honest. I'm not used to it.

I knew it would be a challenge, because Mate and I are always better at living beyond our means than within them, but I never thought that going on a date with my husband would involve going grocery shopping and then doing the happy dance when it came out to less than we'd planned. *sigh*

And other than that--well, it's been a peaceful week. I mean, it sucks that the Cave Troll was sick and all, but what it boiled to really was a lack of stuff to do. We only had 2 soccer practices and 1 game--instead of 4 practices and 2 games--whoopeee! A week that felt sane. I didn't even take the little wiggly people to gymnastics today--today was the Cave Troll's day of rest after his fever finally (!!!) broke for good. Ladybug is looking surprisingly symptom free and, well... grocery shopping really was as exciting as it got.

I'd wish that all weeks were this peaceful, except the short people are so bored, they're thinking about eating the furniture to see if they can shit out legos-- I'm pretty sure the Cave Troll is not only looking forward to school, he direly misses soccer and gymnastics as well.

And I'm editing. And editing. And editing. Gee, ain't THAT exciting? Well, it sort of is to me--this book has been a challenge on about a zillion levels, and the editing process is no exception. I'm more than ever convinced that my hubris is outstanding and more than ever grateful to the people who read my work-- I'm to the point in the editing process where I'm pretty sure I suck, and the rest of life is an illusion. Don't worry--it will pass, but right now, whenever I surface from the book, I'm pretty disappointed that all this work on the manuscript doesn't have some extraneous side benefits--you know, like cleaning the kitchen, cooking dinner, or bathing the short people.

Oh yeah--I'm knitting. I know I've promised knitting before, but this thing I'm knitting--it's both butt ugly and really frickin' cool. I'm calling it 'Princess Arwyn's Pony Puke Bucket of Boat Trash'. Yeah--I know, it sounds hideous, but in reality it's all the things that little girls like on their fabric--fuzzy yarn, shiny yarn, beads, and a My Little Pony shitload of pink, all wrapped up in one petal-expanding A-line poncho. Every time we went into the yarn store, Arwyn would throw fuzzy purple and fuzzy pink yarn into my basket. I would always take it out, but she obviously wanted something fuzzy and purplink. I got this really cool chunky Cascade yarn (wool, glorious wool!) in pink, and have proceeded to add the fuzzy purple/pink/blue yarn, shiny yarn, and beads in stripes as I expand the poncho. She loves it, and I'm thrilled she loves it (she wears that sweater that Mate shrunk all the time, without even a little bit of complaining about the tight neck) but I've gotsta tell you, I'm SOOOOO tired of pink. I guess the next thing up in my home knitting is to finish Chicken's Mardi-gras sweater of acrylic shame. *sigh* The Pony Puke Bucket of Boat Trash suddenly looks TONS better.

Anyway, this is sort of a boring 'all is well' post. You know, a marker to my 500th post give away (three more entries--woohee?) Sometimes, you've got to be happy for those too:-)

Oh yeah--I thought this was cool.