Eating out challenge

My family LOVES to eat out. When hubby and I were dating we ate at restaurants all 3 meals a day. We gained a million pounds. I shudder to think about how much that cost. We're past that point but we still eat out several times a week. We're trying to kick our habit. Last night we had dinner at Outback ($12 plates. I wasn't impressed) today we start our week long eating out challenge. I wouldn't mind eating out once a week as long as we budgeted for it. And if it was mindful, a planned expense. Right now we eat out randomly. Part of the problem is our busyness. Part of the problem is I get tired of cooking. I enjoy it fine, but i get burnt out when I cook all the time. Too bad for me!!! :) I'll be using the crock pot and bbq to help stay on track.

Tonight's dinner
Sloppy Joes (gluten free bread for hubby)
Asian Broccoli
Quinoa

Zoo Bento

I had to quickly pull these bentos together, there isn't much finesse here!


Bento baby has a half a turkey sandwich, cheese stick, and strawberries.
Hubby had a sandwich, strawberries, cheese, granola, cookies, and almonds. This was right before he started eating gluten free. I imagine this lunch made the poor man quite sick!

I had turkey sandwiches, cheese stick, pineapple and strawberries.

Bentobaby ate everyone's strawberries, most of my pineapple, and all of hubby's granola! She was a hungry girl. She says "I a hungry teddy bear!"

Night stand score!

I'm replacing (slowly) a lot of our cheap, beat up furniture. Its going slowly because I buy second hand, or refinished items. Some I repaint myself. But with others sometimes I'm blessed to find a good piece and a good price. As is the case with my new night stand. it barely fits in its new spot. Its so tight I had to move the blankets and comforter off the bed for the picture.


I've been looking for a new nightstand for over a year. What I had before was very ugly open shelving. I had become so desperate I was eyeing new $60 night stands! Imagine my glee at finding this little cutie for $17. Already painted the white color I wanted! YAY!

Free organic fruit? I'm there!

My area has a very invasive, aggressive, painful weed hat grows everywhere. The upside to that is during the summer this weed produces sweet and juicy blackberries. Its very easy to find ripe blackberries. I picked a pound and a half out of my tiny suburban yard yesterday. We eat them plain, topped with yogurt and topped with whipped cream. Bentobaby loves them. I want to try something new. So today I'll be picking more berries and trying my first batch of freezer jam.

Thrift store mirror re-do!

I love pretty things. And i feel better when my far from perfect house feels nicely decorated. Unfortunately I can't afford to furnish my house by buying all the things I like from Macys. But that is okay. It means my house is full of different, sometimes unique items.


Our bedroom is purple. A pretty dark purple. I want to repaint it. But, hubby doesn't. So i am doing my best to lighten the room with accent pieces. I wanted a frilly white mirror. It took forever but I finally found a frilly black mirror with gold accents, it was horrible. The price was perfect $7. It took some spray primer, and several coats of white plastic paint. But now the mirror looks like this:
I love it! And the best part was I already had the paint. It didn't cost me a cent to re-do my thrifted treasure!