Wednesday...Hump Day...

I ended up staying home today instead of going to the yarn store in Newton. Actually, I intended to go, but since it was only 8 a.m after I picked the kids up from football practice, I laid down.

And woke up at 1:oo. GEEEZZZZZZZZZ. I guess I am still not back on track as far feeling better.

I did get the lab reports back and yes, the kidney stone was composed of calcium, which is pretty common. So as a result, there is a huge list of things I have to avoid like broccoli, carrots, spinach (goodbye beloved spinach salad), whole wheat anything, shrimp, raspberries, CHOCOLATE (just shoot me!!), ICE CREAM (ditto), tea, coffee, yogurt....did I mention that I start every morning with yogurt and a glass of iced tea....and the list goes on. It will take me a while to get used to the NO list. Damn. Chocolate is going to be impossible. I'll have to work on that by cutting back first. I am pretty motivated to not get another one as large as this one, but changing all at once is going to be unrealistic. The hard thing is that a lot of the foods I have to avoid are foods you usually think of a healthy. No cranberries, raspberries, whole grains, whole wheat, cheeses, etc.

Thank God (literally) for good health insurance though. I have a needle biopsy scheduled for the 12 th of the month to check out the lesion they found on my liver. I know, EWWWWWWWWWW--believe me, I'd rather not be blogging about this either. However I have discovered that just getting it out in blog land helps me be less stressed.

The boys start school on the 14th, so this is going to be a busy month. As of Friday, our budget is going to take a huge dip. To enroll the boys in public school costs $110 for both kids, then we have sports physicals at $60 each. And then we have new clothes for school. However the boys are pretty easy to shop for since they prefer to wear jeans and t-shirts.

I have decided that I want to learn to weave this year. I have been interested in weaving for a while and there is a class available at the city art center. I'll look into it on Friday. A lot depends on whether hubby has class on the day the class is offered. He is working on his master's degree again this semester, so our family schedule will be "interesting" to say the least.

On the budget side, my goal this pay period is to make a grocery budget and a meal plan and stick with it. I am going to be pretty careful about writing down EVERYTHING I buy so I can determine where the leaks are. I am also going to try some freezer cooking...dinner for tomorrow will be homemade pizza. I buy mozzarella cheese in bulk at Sam's and freeze it, so I have all the ingredients for it, including pepperoni and other toppings. There is a blogger I admire who feed 13 kids and two adults on a budget. check out her site, not only is it a highly entertaining blog, she is a great example of how to budget and feed a family on a budget. She also has tips on meal planning and a little of everything else. Go check out her site :

http://bakersdozen.typepad.com/.

One of my goals this Christmas is to make gifts and buy very few commercially made stuff. I am going to make jams/jellies, candies, knitted gifts and other handmade gifts. Since it is August, I am working on mittens. Actually I took a mitten class last week and am still working on the color work. They are very detailed, so I can't say I will be gifting any of these except to family. They are very labor intensive. Fun, and a good project to keep me focused and entertained, but definitely labor intensive. The yarn shop is going to have a mitten of the month club, but I'm not sure it will be in my budget to join. I might have to go solo and find free patterns off Ravelry...Heaven knows I have yarn for more pairs of mittens....lots more! and I am definitely going to do a lot more of the Fiddlehead mittens that I am currently working on.