A Good Grocery Trip and More Plans

In the past few months as we have tightened our budget and our belts in preparation for buying a house, we've gotten smarter about our grocery shopping strategies. You might not have thought there was much strategy involved in grocery shopping, but you were wrong. If you know either one of us very well, you know we love to eat out, (especially me at Freebirds about every 7-10 days) and eating out several times a week can really add up. That is one habit we are still working hard to change, but we have gotten it down to a minimum. Usually in the past we would be eating out as a result of a conversation like this:

"What do you feel like eating tonight?"

"I dunno, what do you want?"

"I don't know.... I don't really feel like cooking."

"Let's just go get something somewhere."

In order to curb this behavior, like I said, we came up with a strategy that helps us avoid being in this situation. We started planning out our meals for two weeks at a time before making a trip to the grocery store. This doesn't necessarily mean that I am going to cook every night for two solid weeks. We might schedule a night where we just eat leftovers, or make ourselves a sandwich, or eat the occasional bowl of cereal for dinner (don't deny it, you do it too). We also take into account anything we might have going on during the week, for example an evening we know we won't be at home but the occasion might include a meal. We usually schedule one night a week for ourselves to eat out, typically Friday night. I also try to make enough food that we will have leftovers to take for lunch, but we also buy groceries to pack our lunches for when we don't have leftovers. This systems has worked great for us because it takes the burden off of myself for deciding what to make for dinner that night and knowing if we have all the proper ingredients. It completely avoids a situation where you revert to eating out for lack of better options and knowing you will get to eat out on Friday night gives you something to look forward to.

This systems is also great because we found that when we make short, sporadic trips to the grocery store we end up spending a lot more than when we make one big trip. That's not to say that we still don't have to make the occasional trip to the store, but they are fewer and far between when we have done our planning right. So I am pleased to announced that tonight we went to HEB and spent EIGHTY ONE DOLLARS on two weeks worth of groceries for lunch and dinner!!!!!!! This is a world record!!! Ok, I have to admit some of the meals we planned involved foods we already had at home (i.e. frozen burger patties) but seriously, 81 dollars??? I'm pretty proud of ourselves. And as a reward we get to eat out the next two Friday nights. :)

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On to bigger and better things. Tonight I'd like to unveil to you all (drum roll please) my plans for our formal living/ dining room. While this room probably won't get as much use as the family room, I'm really glad to have an area where we can serve a larger meal and entertain as well. It may take a little longer than the family room for this room to come together, but when it does it will be a great space. Here are a few photos of the room, some from the real estate listing and some that I have taken.

















When we lived in Virginia some family friends gave us furniture they didn't want anymore because they were moving into a new house. This furniture was almost brand new and looked like it had come right from the store. At the time we didn't have any room for it but we didn't want to turn it down either. We have had it in storage at various places for the past 3 years so I am really excited to finally get to use it. They gave us a nice sofa and matching arm chair that are very attractive and formal looking. It's not the kind of sofa you could curl up on and watch a movie, but it's perfect for a nice formal sitting area. The sofa is being stored in our garage right now and has about a hundred boxes stacked up on it, but the chair is in our bedroom so I took a pic of it to show on here. You can get an idea of the styling of the sofa from the chair. We are using Castle Stone as the paint color in this room, which is pretty neutral and will compliment the blue very nicely I think. I am looking for some occasional tables to use in this sitting area. I need to find a coffee table, sofa table and console table (possibly just 2 of the same to use for both purposes) for this room. I'd like to find something with a darker maybe cherry colored finish to match the wood on the legs of this furniture. I have seen a group at Target that I actually like a lot and are a pretty good price so they are the number one choice. I want something that looks nice but I don't want to spend a lot of money. If anyone has any good suggestions on where to find tables let me know!

This room opens up to the kitchen and then onto the family room so I wanted to keep the pineapple theme going throughout the whole first level. The colors in the pineapple fabric really wouldn't work with the blue sofa and chair so I had to come up with a solution. Don't worry my friends, Country Curtains never dissapoints! They sell the cutest lace curtain with pineapples in the lace! I'm normally not a big lace fan, I think it looks kind of grandma-ish in a lot of cases, but this lace is SO not grandma! It's really whimsical and cute and the perfect way to carry the pineapples over into this room. They even sell a curtain rod in a pewter finish (it will be a close match with the brushed nickel fixtures) with pineapple finials! Here are the pics off the website.




















The pineapple lace shown in the picture is the "natural" color. Since the paint color in that room is going to be a beige-y color, we will be using the lace in white. It's really going to pop against the walls and look so cute! I can't wait to see it all done!

The formal dining area will be in front of the HUGE window shown in some of the other pictures. We have a dining table (also a hand-me-down) with a leaf that came with 6 chairs but 2 have since been broken! It is a nice table but sooner or later we are going to want something a little more modern and with 6 matching chairs! For now it will have to do with four chairs and maybe someday if I'm lucky we will get a new dining set.

Of course being the over-planner that I am, I had to design a layout for this room as well. Off to the right side of the room are the stairs leading to the second level. There is also a powder room and coat closet off of this room. I've added in the tables that I'd like to have in here, so hopefully we can find something that will work for what we are looking for!


Well that's all for tonight. Sometimes I wonder if anyone even reads all of my ramblings, but even if no one does, it sure is nice for me to get it all out of my head and onto paper... or screen... whatever. ;)

Goodnight!