The Joys of Hermit-hood

Ever since my freelance work dropped off into oblivion and my job hunt revealed itself to be full of disappointment, I've turned my obsessiveness to saving money and losing weight. 

I told you about my neurotic grocery budgeting, which so far is proving to be a real challenge to successfully execute. I'm also attempting to save money by becoming a hermit. (Hermits never have to worry about all those miscellaneous expenses.) The below zero temperatures are making this endeavor much easier. 

As for losing weight, it's not that I have a lot of weight to lose, but since I hate (hate) exercise, have no willpower, and love sugar and butter, it's more of a psychological battle. Really, it's not about the weight as much as the jiggliness in the mid-section. I'd happily stay at my current weight if things were just a little bit more...defined. But also, I need to be healthier. I have no endurance and my body is aging faster than I am, which is no good. 

And so I am treadmilling. This might sound like no big deal to those of you accustomed to physical activity, but for me it's quite an accomplishment. Obviously I need to do more than walk if I really want to be in shape, but you have to start somewhere. 

If I can stick with the treadmilling habit, I'll think about adding in some weights or something...I don't know, are there pro bono personal trainers? I need someone to hold me accountable besides me because I'll just tell myself to shut up and go bake some more cupcakes (although I promise I'll feel guilty about it for weeks). 

So will I emerge from this "transitional time" (that's how I like to think of it) healthier and with more money in our savings account? Maybe...or maybe I'll just stick with the hermit thing - you don't really need money or a good figure to be a hermit, right?

Thank you, Food Network

I think I may have found the secret to getting my kids to eat dinner without any arguing: TV tie-ins.

You see, modern parenting advice tells us that TV is bad for kids, but I think it really depends on what you watch. On Sunday night, the boys watched The Food Network's Ultimate Recipe Showdown with me. This is the show where home cooks get to compete with other home cooks using their own recipes and the winner not only gets $25,000, but also gets to have their recipe "interpreted" for the TGI Friday's menu...I think that's an honor if you're a home cook and not a snobby chef who would prefer to pretend chain restaurants don't exist. 

So the theme this week was burgers and the burgers looked mighty good. Inspired, I decided to make my own special burgers for dinner last night. I'm calling them "Chive Turkey (burgers)" and all they consist of is ground turkey stuffed with chive cream cheese. 

They were a hit. Since I prefaced the meal with a "we're having fancy burgers like the ones on Ultimate Recipe Showdown," Owen, who has always refused burgers in the past, dove right in without any complaints about having never tried it before (a first, let me tell you) and Aidan cleaned his plate! This is a breakthrough for sure. 

This can only mean more Food Network for me and more happy meals (not to be confused with Happy Meals™) for my family. Win-win. 

Allez cuisine!

Consider this a heads up. My family is entering a soon-to-be-named contest. It required us to make a video featuring a certain name brand condiment.

Normally my husband would opt out of such things, but the details of what we could win (free trip and more!) and a quick scan of the current entries convinced him to join up this time.

Which is how we found ourselves acting out a no-budget version of Iron Chef America in our kitchen yesterday afternoon…we could call it Iron Sandwichmaker America. Oh, but the way we hacked at that bread with the giant knife…the artistry of our plating...I fully expect to awake to TV executives knocking at our door tomorrow…or whenever it is that my husband finishes his fancy video editing (he went to art school, you know) and we get the thing posted.

So stay tuned. Your participation will be requested…soon, I hope.

Motivation

I think my kids are trying to make me feel better about going back to work (assuming someone hires me someday). Yesterday they clogged their bathroom sink with wads of toilet paper. Then, a few hours later, after apparently completely forgetting my riveting lecture about acting like 5 1/2 year-olds rather than 2 year-olds, they snuck into my bedroom and drew all over our giant, white bathroom sink with a red Sharpie. 

It's so thoughtful of them to show me that staying home much longer will surely drive me insane (and be very bad for our house). Such considerate, selfless souls. 

He Makes it Look So Easy

The Amateur Gourmet posted such a nice blog about his New Year's Eve party that I'm feeling like maybe I could get over my Peter Brady Syndrome* in time to throw a NYE party next year...maybe. I make no promises. Let's talk about it again in, say, 11 months.

In the meantime, let's all make sure our resolutions include getting "as drunk and fat as possible."

*A reference to Brady Bunch episode 22 ("The Hero") in which Peter throws a party and no one comes. The sight of him sitting alone amongst the dozens of glass soda bottles has been burned into my psyche. 

Questions on a Cure

There is a lot of controversy over whether autism is something that we should be trying to "cure" (in case you're still confused, there is no cure, despite what any former Playboy bunny says). There's an entire neurodiversity movement that feels it is insulting that the medical community would try to cure or remove the traits of autism when autism is really just an alternate way of being. 

Now, I agree that we need to figure out how to better support people with autism and part of that is increased awareness and acceptance.

But I don't think it's reasonable to say to a mother of a child with autism so severe that he can't speak, for example, that she is selfish or bigoted because she wants the medical community to find out what's causing this disorder and then find a way to help her child speak.

When it comes to this debate, the question I always ask myself is, would I want Owen to be "cured" if that were possible? Would I want to change who he is so that maybe his life would be a little easier?

The other night at dinner, Owen was being particularly spacey, getting distracted between every bite of food. As usual, I asked him to try really hard to focus on eating, but his gaze kept wandering off and we had to redirect him to his plate.

So I asked, "Are you having a hard time focusing tonight?"

"Yeah," he answered.

"Does it bother you that you have trouble focusing?”

“No,” he said. And although I don’t think this response was intended to convey a pro-neurodiversity stance, it did occur to me that his autism bothers me more often than it bothers him. But he’s only five.

The thing is, I love who he is and I wouldn't want to risk losing any of the extraordinary parts of him in exchange for some illusion of normalcy. So I don’t think I would choose to “cure” him. 

But I would love to see a day where he could make that decision for himself. I hope we get there.

Grocery Neurosis

I wouldn't call it a resolution exactly, but I've decided to make an effort to trim our grocery bill by 25%. I've been told that our grocery budget was pretty lean already ($400/month for a family of 4), but I think I can do better.

Any of you who watch Jon and Kate + 8 regularly have probably seen the episode where Kate goes grocery shopping and explains that she spends $150/week to feed her family of 10. She is meticulous about clipping coupons and recording how much things cost at various stores so she gets the best deals, but that is still an insanely low number for 10 people. That's $15 per person for an entire week. In my new plan I'm giving us a luxurious $18.75 per person. 

Today was my first attempt. I finally gave into my OCD urges and started working on an Excel spreadsheet listing every grocery aisle of SuperTarget so that I can make my list in order. I actually took photos of the aisle signs with my cell phone today so I can ensure accuracy on my next trip. It's freaky, I know, but it's always such a bummer when you get to aisle 7 and realize you forgot something that was in aisle 2. 

I also clipped coupons for today's visit. I used to love clipping coupons and then I would always forget them when I went to the store and so I gave up. But not today. Not only did I bring the coupons, but I made little asterisks next to all of my coupon items and had the boys help me find them using the pictures on the coupons. Yes, it took longer, but if I get the boys onboard the coupon train, it will help me remember to bring them and encourage me to keep clipping them, even when saving 35 cents seems like a big waste of paper. 

So, the good news is that I saved $6 today with coupons. The bad news is that I didn't make my $75 goal, but I was close. Next time I'll do it.

Why am I going through all of this trouble? Is it really worth saving $25/week? Well, since that's $1300/year, I'm going to say yes. Plus, despite my interest in home cooking, I don't think I'll ever love to eat at home. I'd much rather put that $1300 toward Hawaii...or a weekend trip to Las Vegas...or a handful a really nice dinners in town...or, oh yeah, my steadily rising property taxes. Wait, aren't we in a recession?