Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Tomato Tally and Rides


With today's 7 we're now at 11 awesome tomatoes from the yard this year.

I caramelized a small amounts of sliced onions with a clove of minced garlic. These seven tomatoes were then rinsed, chopped, and added to the pot. I added an organic spaghetti sauce spice mixture (the easy way to go especially if you're randomly cooking up odd proportions of tomatoes) and simmered for a bit. Because I know you're supposed to remove the skins (for whatever reason) and I was not about to take the time to peel these babies I then plopped the simmered sauce into the blender and pureed.

Added some cooked up ground turkey and boiled spaghetti noodles and little Abe and I had fresh from the garden spaghetti tonight. Was it the best spaghetti sauce ever? No. But you know what, it was good, and it was so fresh, and we both liked our dinner. If you were to ask me I'd say we dined like kings.




My brother got tickets to a local amusement park from work and invited us to join his family today. (The tickets he gave us were worth $120) It was a strange day in that I had to go into work really early (I am NOT a morning person) but I was really excited for the fun filled day. Then my hubby was kind of grouchy at the park (this dramatically affects my mood). The kiddos really enjoyed themselves but little Abe crashed (mentally/ emotionally) at the water park because it was WAY past naptime. He then had his own little three year old version of a melt down. It wasn't any sort of terrible melt down but we needed to leave shortly there after so he could sleep. He actually fell asleep in his stroller in his wet bathing suit wrapped up in his green froggy towel as we walked to the car.

I am unbelievably tired right now and feel like I may be close to having my own little 30 (something) year old melt down shortly.

Spending rundown today: $1.79 on a coffee while on my way to work. 99 cents on active dry yeast to make pizza dough so I can pick more tomatoes tomorrow or the next day and turn them into pizza sauce. $15 at the park on a bottomless pop. It REALLY wasn't worth the money but my brother paid $30 for us to get this snack/ meal deal thing where you can eat at the park all day every 90 minutes. He then offered to buy us the $15 refillable pop cup and we said no but he offered again later and then my husband decided he better go buy the cup himself before my brother spent even more money on us. For the record my brother does not think we're poor or anything like that (I was reading back over this and it sounded like maybe he was feeling sorry for us). He was just being really nice. I think because he invited us he was sort of hosting in a way.

Oh, shoot I forgot we played two games. Okay, plus $10 on games. We played the water squirt gun game twice. Once was specifically so my niece could win a big Pikachu (I have no desire to look up the correct spelling on that) and the second time just little Abe and I played the game while everyone else was riding rides that were too big for him. He did not know that he was going to win a prize. Oh, the innocents of children. He really thought it was just for fun, you know, to squirt the target. When he beat me and the girl handed him this really cute little stuffed giraffe he was over the moon. He feels like he won the grand prize.

My budget for the month is $436 which leaves $252

Average daily spending for 2015: $18.32



6 comments:

  1. Your tomatoes are way ahead of mine. Quite a lot have set but it will probably be about another month when they are ready.

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    1. The carrots came in earlier too. We must have a bit of an earlier growing season here. I think was about the same time I had ripe tomatoes last year too. Although, wow I have WAY more this year!

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  2. Love that your getting tomatos and menu planning around them. My husband is not an amusement park guy either, but I and the kids love them. I always volunteer to chaperone the amusement park days for youth group. I'm ride mom, or as a boy said, "best leader ever" and apparently I "rock" at rides.

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    1. My little mind is going over all the ideas for what I can do with the tomatoes. I know it's practical and ideal to can or freeze fresh produce but at the same time I don't much like eating from the freezer and I really love cooking fresh. So I am trying to think of lots of things to do with tomatoes right now. It's pretty exciting.

      I love that you're the ride mom, haha. That's so cool. You must have so much fun chaperoning those trips.

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  3. My BFF cans her own salsa with her tomatoes - I soooooo wish we were closer so we could do all this together but with her in Georgia & me in California....not quite an easy commute :)

    Sounds like such a fun day - but yea, I remember how "fun" days can lead to meltdowns because they are sooooo overwhelmed, tired, excited, you name it!!!

    For us, $15 for refillable soda - they would loose their shirts between Ted & I :) First half hour it would have paid for itself and more.....not that we are addicted to diet coke or anything!!

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    1. Gosh, Georgia would be too hot for you too. I started to think, "ooh, there's a place you could retire..." probably not.

      Haha, I used to drink Coke a lot. I LOVE it. I mostly cut back because of cost but then I had some horrible stomach pains not too long ago that were basically diagnosed panic attacks but still I'm a little afraid to drink Coke now since it is so harsh and acidic and those pains were intense (yes, I like Diet Coke too). I haven't really drank much pop at all since then. We got a few cups of lemonade at the park and one Sprite. I felt like we should have refilled way more often then we did but man is an amusement park rush rush with three small-ish kids and four adults. I've never actually had a kid of my own at an amusement park before, WAY different story! Go, go, go, go, wow exhausting! LOL

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