Truth be told, I was tired this AM and went back to bed after the school-aged ones left. Thankfully the remaining one is a late sleeper, too!

Just spent a stint in the kitchen and accomplished thus far:

(1) caper/tuna noodle casserole for DH's lunch on T W and R
(2) got the bread maker going with a boxed mix of Hawaiian bread
(3) baked a batch of Raisin-Bran Honey muffins for breakfast on T and W
(4) mixed up a batch of instant pudding for afternoon snack
(5) juiced carrots and apples for DH to drink (he loves to juice but hates clean up)
(6) blended up the remaining strawberries and bananas with milk for a smoothie for myself and small one at home

Tonight for dinner it is a pork tenderloin and mashed potatoes.

Tomorrow for dinner it is waffles and hash browns.

Wednesday for dinner it is orange roughy filets and wild rice.

Ah ... I am feeling particularly "nickled and dimed" to death lately. Anyone feel that way?

Every time I turn around it is another $5 here or $5 purchase there. (Referring to BTS spending) - $9 for flash drive, $5 for volleyball team spirit T-shirts and snacks - I'm drink mom for the soccer game - I need to send Chlorax wipes to the 5th grade teacher - etc - etc - I'm subtracting those from my already meager allotment of living expense funds for September.

If I do away with processed foods and crap cereal I'll probably be able to recoup some of those costs. I guess I'm heading back to the kitchen to inventory the cupboards and look at some recipes.

Frugal snack ideas to implement:
(1) Homemade cookies
(2) Homemade rice crispy treats
(3) Homemade brownies
(4) Instant pudding put into snack-sized containers
(5) Homemade trail mix

Anyone have other ideas to share?

I have parted with quite a few of our hard-earned dollars this past week with school expenses. I thought I took care of most of them back in May with the sports fees and the prepurchased supplies and new gym clothes.

How did I happend to forget: Party Fee of $25, Yearbook purchase of $20, User fees for computerized version of math text book for $10 AND $160 for my oldest child's Outdoor Education Experience.

This brings me to the cost of milk for lunches. Last year it was $35 per child. This year it has jumped to $50 per child. That is $150 right now. I've sent Capri Sun juice boxes this week, but milk was provided at no cost. The kids thought it was great and I figured I'd keep on sending those and skip milk altogether. I worked it out and it would probably cost the same over the cost of the year, but I was looking at the quickly depleting balance in the checkbook and the $2,200 real estate tax bill coming due next week.

I shared this with my mother when I was visitng with her earlier today, and she left the room and returned with a wonderfully crisp $100 bill. She said, "It will be healthier for them in the long-run." I smiled and said thank-you.

One day when I'm a grandmother I hope I'll be able to do the same thing. In my quest for maturity, I'm finding the gracefulness to accept "help" and "gifts" without looking at an underlying message that probably isn't there (i.e, Oh, you don't think that I can provide for my kids).

Sometimes looking for hidden agendas when there aren't ones leads to un-necessary drama.

I was driving today and heard an interesting discussion that the recession really isn't going to be resolving itself as quickly as most predict. We are heading for a double-dipped recession, and if unemployment were calculated using the formulas pre-1990, we are really at 16% unemployment. What are your thoughts on this?