Simple Updates, Weekend Plans, Groceries

I apologize for the excessive blogging as of late. I guess that avoiding facebook for the month has caused me to blog considerably more than usual. I feel like I have a ton of random updates due to my increase of posts.

1.) Turns out I love clementine marmalade! The little batch I made awhile back is almost gone and I will for certain be making more.

2.) After two successful loaves of cheese bread I will be taking a stab at sourdough this weekend/ week. I'm going to make the sourdough starter tonight so I shouldn't have an actual loaf of bread (or three... the starter makes three loaves) until Monday or Tuesday. I'm thinking I will be giving a loaf of bread to someone come Tuesday, that is if they turn out super yummy.

3.) I'm moving along in the basement much quicker than I'd hoped. I'm both super proud of myself and super excited that we may have a usable/ clutter free/ junk free, clean basement quite soon.

4.) On the "food waste" front I ended up throwing out a bit of taco meat yesterday and a red pepper today. The pepper was just beautiful. I cut it open and it was all moldy inside. I can't be blamed really for that one, I mean, a moldy pepper in disguise was not my fault. Add to that the few moldy clementines I threw out a few days back and that is all of our food waste for the month so far.

5.) Tonight I'm making a huge pot of soup with the three remaining chicken breasts from the $1.99lb chicken I bought earlier this month. It will be chicken and dumplings soup and although my husband is not a huge fan of soup or chicken I'm rather excited about it. Yum! I used several carrots that were at the end of their life, a little bit of already chopped onions left in the fridge, a very small portion of the pepper I threw out (it was free of mold and looked good), four large cloves of garlic, salt, and a hearty amount of corn and peas.

6.) I have a very long to-do list for the weekend. I'm calling it the weekend of the dogs. I've already scraped plaque from their teeth today. I intend to trim their hair, cut their toe nails, and give them baths and a good brushing. That's enough for one weekend but I hope to clean a good bit more in the basement, do some sort of fun activity with little Abe, and maybe get some reading in (which would include a trip to the library). Among other things I have a pretty good list ahead of me. I'm glad it's the weekend.

7.) I went shopping today and spent considerably more than I'd planned but with the exception of some boneless skinless chicken thighs that I found for $1.59lb that I could not pass up, I stuck to my list. I had to buy dog food and picked up a few chews for them too. I spent $30.26 on the dogs and $30.88 on groceries.

8.) I'd really hoped for a no spend tomorrow but a dear friend of mine asked me to go to breakfast tomorrow for her birthday. I was absolutely not going to turn her down simply due to my plans for a no spend. I will gladly give that one up. Also, it will be the first time I've eaten any sort of food away from home this month (beverages included). I think making it half way through January without a single food or drink purchase away from home is pretty darn good.

I'm off to make some dumplings for my soup now.
I hope each and everyone of you has a fantastic weekend!

Average daily spending for 2015: $18.02