Last night as Brent and I were doing our budget for FPU, we decided to see how much money we spend on eating out every month. I’ll just say that it’s way too much. We made a commitment at our “Budget Committee Meeting” to keep our eating out to once or twice a week (mainly on Wednesday’s. Because of our work schedule and having to be at church by 6, there is no way I could possibly have time to cook and eat before church. Eating out on Wednesday’s is inevitable. And, some Sunday’s. After all, it is the day of rest and I can’t rest when I am cooking a meal then cleaning up, right?) Anyway, so we made this grand decision to really cut back on our eating out. And, what would you know, I screwed up dinner tonight and we had to go out! My college roommate/best friend, Allison, and I cooked meals all the time when we lived together. We weren’t your typical college students. We didn’t heat up TV dinners or Stouffer’s Lasagna. We cooked homemade meals probably 5 nights a week. I screwed up plenty of those meals, like the time I accidently dumped nearly a whole bottle of Worchestershire sauce on some hamburger meat and tried to soak some of the liquid up with flour, cooked the burgers and tried to convince Allison that it was good so that we didn’t have to eat out. Needless to say, I got my messed up meals out of my system before I got married. Thanks, Allison, for learning to cook with me! On nights like those, we just went out for dinner. It never took much persuasion to get us out of the kitchen and into a restaurant. Tonight was one of those nights. I tried to create a dish all on my own, similar to something I have had at a Mexican restaurant in town (not Rosie’s). I’ve tried it before and we liked it, but tonight I wanted to prepare the meal differently. No recipe, just my own expertise…what little there is. It didn’t turn out well. Half of the meal was fine, but not enough to be considered a meal. So, we just dumped everything in the trash and went to Rooster’s to get chicken. Thankfully, we just bought one of those HUGE coupon books and we were able to get a free meal. And, we paid for it in cash. Dave would be proud. So much for committing to not eat out.
After Rooster’s, we ran a few errands. Lifeway was one of them…I went to find a book that I might use in a high school girl’s bible study. As we were backing out of our parking spot, a homeless couple stopped us and asked for money to buy a bag of ice. It wasn’t until after I gave them $2 in quarters (which, by the way, I had complained about having too much change in my wallet at Rooster’s) that we tried to make sense of their plead for money. They were staying in a hotel room for $475 a night and needed ice before the big storm came through. First of all, what hotel are you staying at that’s $475 a night and where did you get that money? Second of all, don’t hotels have ice machines? Third, what storm? Tropical Storm Fay that is gone or Hurricane Gustav that is not really headed our way? I will give them some credit though, they did have a few bags of groceries. And, no I don’t think any of it was alcohol because the bags were not shaped that way. Who knows if they were legit. At least I know that if they really needed ice, they were able to get some.
A Merry Heart 