Low grocery week! Can I keep this up! Also: AMAZING KID RESULTS

 Before I rest on my grocery saving laurels, I should note that we also did a Target run for cleaning supplies and a trip to the local grocery for wine, cheese, and salads-in-a-bag, and I don't know how much that cost because Ben went, and I hate checking my account balances. #badatadulting. ALSO, we spent all of the money eating all of our meals at restaurants last weekend because SO MANY KID THINGS. (Srsly we had lunch and dinner out Friday-Sunday, which is very much not like us, but was necessary.)

BUT! I only spent $308 at the grocery store! That;'s unheard of around here! 

Menu:

Sunday (yesterday LOL): Burgers, chips and veggies and dips, green beans, peanut butter cookies (I had a Costco chipotle black bean burger wrapped in lettuce, and it was SO DELISH).

M-W: SO MANY options! Sandwiches and crudite, breakfast sandwiches, eggs, pancakes, and fruit, pizza, spaghetti, deli fried chicken-- I will fully commit to being a short order cook as we get through another week full of kid things. Also there is a very good chance that takeout is in the cards tonight because Minnie and Cooper have to come to campus with me for a 4-6 thing.

Thurs: Grilled chicken breasts, baked potatoes, broccoli, salad. 

Friday: No clue! Maybe tacos; maybe spaghetti. We'll see where the wind takes us.

Weekend: Dorothy has a Chicago dance convention/competition, but Ben might take her because she has only one dance (it's only for the company dances, and most of hers compete at the club level), and she wears her hair down for it. Soooooo, I could be home alone with everyone else-- meaning I will probably throw money at my feelings.

KID STUFF (aka THE GOOD PART)

Jack had his state speech competition on Saturday. He competes in a category called special occasion speaking, and in WI, this (funny-- think mini stand-up routine built around a specific topic to a fake audience) category has 3 prompts that the students can choose from. The prompts are determined at the state coaches' meeting in July, so kids theoretically have from July-December to work on their speeches, but Jack? Decided to write his 6-minute speech the week of the year's first tournament, where he placed 4th and then took off like a (non spaceX) rocket! 

He has won so many competitions this year, and he was so happy heading into state (hosted at his very own school no less!) This year, students could choose from a motivational speech by a coach, a villain monologue, or a welcome-to-camp speech. Jack did the camp speech, and it was HILARIOUS and BANANAS. SO much physical humor! SO many dark jokes about middle schoolers! He did a cartwheel In a suit! And did a Russian jump that was always higher than classroom desks! 

He was elated to make semi finals (he has never broken into out-rounds at state before). Coop and I went to the high school when the semis were over to wait and see if he made finals because we planned to watch. Well! Jack's coach could not contain his delight and told Jack he was the top speaker going into finals before the postings had even dropped. Jack was SO EXCITED. To make things even sweeter, 2 of his teammates also made the final (it's unusual for schools to have HALF of the final round, so the whole team was thrilled, and anyone not in their own round came to watch.) 

Jack was AWESOME in the final round, and the whole round was just ridiculously funny. Kids! They're so smart and talented. Jack got to speak in his AP history classroom, and the room was stuffed to the gills with people sitting in the aisles and standing in the back. Jack got the most laughs for sure, and he was clearly so happy and proud of himself.

The whole fam came to school for awards, and JACK TOOK SECOND PLACE IN THE WHOLE STATE OF WI! His teammate got third, and his other teammate won. It was SO COOL!

Also happening this weekend! The AAU Red-White-Blue national dive qualifier! PHEW! Okay. SO. AAU has a national tournament that you qualify for with a certain score at regular season meets. Coop has already hit that mark, meaning there's a CA summer tourney he can attend where the top 2 in each event get to go to London to compete. But then! AAU has a more prestigious tourney that you have to qualify for where the top 3 in each event go to Croatia and also become part of the AAU national team. That's the one Coop qualified for this weekend (yay!!!), and he will compete at nats in Charlotte, NC, over Memorial Day weekend. He has ONE MORE national qualifier series coming up for a chance to compete at the USA Diving junior nationals (this is the big kahuna of national tourneys) also in CA this summer. I don't think he will go to both AAU national meets, but we will have to see where the USA Diving chips fall.

He had platform on Friday (3rd!!), 1-meter on Saturday (8th-- a real bummer, and he hopes a qual for that event bumps down to him by kids who finished in the top 6 deciding not to go to the tourney-- this is a thing that happens because some kids are USA Diving-only competitors, so we will see), and 3-meter on Sunday (6th! A qual!). His age group was STACKED with USA Diving national finalists, so these finishes were a BATTLE. And even though he dove poorly on Saturday (it was baaaaaaaad-- he got 3.5's on a dive or 2), he was able to come back strong on Sunday-- a very big thing for him. Also, he has a poorly timed dive birthday because he will be 14 at the end of 2025, but he has to dive with the 14-15 boys all year, even though he is a teeny little 13 y/o 7th grader, and some of these kids are full MEN and already 15 years old.

Here I am watching the meet with a state runner up

Coop was WINNING THE MEET for 2 rounds on Saturday before the wheels fell off (he got EIGHTS):

Listen to me at the end of this dive

But! This was awesome from Friday:

And here is where he punched his nationals ticket

Look how happy!!

5 on a Friday: Getting back into the swing is HARD

 1. I joked last month when I got to my office and saw the hall drinking fountain outside my door had been ripped out (presumably to install a new bottle filler drinking fountain-- YES!) that there was asbestos in the wall. AND THEN I CAME BACK THE MONDAY AFTER BREAK TO THIS:

LOL. I mean DUH. I spent the day in the museum lobby and at the student center. Good views abounded, and it was lovely to walk around campus.

2. I have embarked on a new fitness routine centered around NOT BUYING ANY MORE GD CADBURY MINI EGGS. Things are not going super well so far.

3. I used Jack's breakfast sandwich maker to make Cooper an egg white and sausage English muffin sandwich after dive the other day and was TERRIBLE at it. I used 4 eggs to scramble the whites, but then I had the sandwich maker out together wrong, and when I poured in the egg, it ran all over the counter and cabinets. Then when I was trying again, I accidentally touched the hot part of the machine and flung an egg on the floor. Then I finally did it right, but I opened the cooker before the sandwich was ready and again got runny egg white everywhere. AND! Have you seen the price of eggs these days? That was a $12 sandwich.

4. Literally fed the girls Culvers in the car in the high school parking lot on Wednesday before we ran inside to watch Jack's speech performance.

5. This is the face of a kid who rolled her window down in the car wash.

Room Makeovers!!!!! WE ARE DONE! (except for one picture for over Minnie's bed)

 WE did it!! By WE I mean BEN who painted, laid laminate planks, and assembled the bed and vanity ALL BY HIMSELF. (Coop put together an IKEA book shelf).

Ok! First up, Dorothy's room. 

Here is the before:

And here's the after!!!!

I LOVE IT SO MUCH!

All the new stuff in Dorothy's room meant that Minnie got a glow up, losing her toddler bed and Newton crib mattress (LOL FINALLY) and gaining some cool stuff

Old Minnie room:

(Can you even with tiny Annabel??)

NEW MINNIE ROOM!!

I love both of them so much, and so do the girls

Next up: we make our storage room into a 6th bedroom/den, and the boys all shuffle-- stay tuned!!

March: What I Read

 

Solid Meh

Mercy by Jodi Picoult: I mean, even a bad Jodi Picoult book is better than most books. **Audio

Elphie: A Wicked Childhood by Gregory Maguire: I just... didn't like this or feel like it added anything to the story. And! I have seen Wicked on stage 4 times and read the OG book the year it came out. I AM A FAN. **2025

The Wife Upstairs by Freida McFadden: You guys know this is a weakness of mine, these terrible, terrible books. **Audio

Back After This by Linda Holmes: I really like this author, but this was not the book for me. **2025

Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney: I really could not get into this one. I might listen to it and like it better? **2025

Better than Meh but Worse Than Good

Close Your Eyes and Count to 10 by Lisa Unger: I liked but did not love this thriller. **2025

The Snowbirds by Christina Clancy: I liked this one sort of. **2025

Deep End by Ali Hazelwood: THIS WAS WAAAAAAAY TOO LONG. **2025 **Audio

Some Backlist Gems

Abide with Me by Elizabeth Strout: Oh this book!! I recommend. **Audio

The Senator's Wife by Liv Constantine: This was so entertaining because the bag guys were wretched people. **Audio

The Means by Amy Fusselman: HILARIOUS AND WONDERFUL. The author also writes for McSweeney's, and you can totally tell.

In the BOTY Race**

The Good Mother Myth by Nancy Reddy:  Part Madison memoir (that's the part I loved), part quasi scholarly writing on motherhood-- this is great. **2025

The Dollhouse Academy by Margarita Montimore: SO entertaining. I love this author and her wildly original books. **2025

Show Don't Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld: I am not usually super into short stories, but I can make an exception for Sittenfeld. "A for Alone" and "The Richest Babysitter in the World" were my favorites, but I liked them all. **2025

Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks: This is just beautiful. **2025

The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan: LOVED THIS ONE!! **2025 **Audio

Three Days in June by Anne Tyler: What a treat it is to read a new Anne Tyler≥ She's incomparable, and this book is perfection. **2025

BTM: 17

Book books: 11

Kindle Books: ZERO **shame shame shame

Audio books: 6

2025 books: 12

BTY 44:

Book books: 24

Kindle books: 2

Audio books: 18

2025 books: 16

**I mean, listen. I always fall victim to recency bias, so probably my BOTY picks will all be from November.

Money Monday and Staycay Day 5

 Listen. This day was just errands with a couple pf fun things thrown in. What can I say? Solo parenting for 3 days just hits differently when no one goes to school.

Minnie has enough hair for just one braid again-- she was excited.

We drove to a nearby teeny town to hit up a truly bananas shoe store (parrots just flying around!) because Dorothy and Cooper needed new tennis shoes (Minnie needed no shoes, but she got some anyway because she could not resist the pink "birGenstocks" as she calls them.

But then! We added Culvers and a super fun park to make the day seem less errand-y

We park hopped when we got home and walked Annabel to the school playground

I listened to the news on my way to the grocery store and shopped accordingly.

And! I lucked into this at the library (the tl;dr is that it;'s not very good , but I was so excited to sang it**whomp whomp**)

I tracked my spending last week to see if I could put a price tag on fun, AND I CAN.

 

All in, I spent $684, which is solidly cheap, IMO, since it counts 3 pairs of shoes! But does NOT count the 400 other dollars of random spending last week (all that wine, some finishing touches for the girls' rooms, a water filter for the fridge that will probably die before the filter runs out, etc) and of course doesn't count the groceries I bought for the week, etc.

Even buying $6.35 movie tickets, we spent over $100 to see Dog Man and gorge on junk food-- not sure if that was a good spend or not.

We also spent another $160 for food (mostly pizza and ice cream LOL) out and over $250 on stuff (stuffies, 5 below novelties, sweats, shoes).

Definitely worth it, though, because the week was almost entirely stress free.