(no subject)
I don't think I've ever done this before. I priced out the cost of a dinner.
My SIL was on her way out the door yesterday morning and, by my count, we were going to have 13 people for dinner. "Do you have a plan you want me to execute or should I make something up?" I asked her. I ended up at the Mexican market near her house spending $25 on white rice and black beans, pasilla chiles, canned tomatoes, garlic, bell peppers, limes, avocados and mangoes. It's just never come up for me before that I shopped for one meal and for one meal only and was not relying on my pantry for any of the main ingredients. I'm figuring that the leftover limes, avocados, beans and rice made up for the cost of what I pulled from my SIL's pantry (cooking oil, cumin, salt, pepper) and maybe the summer squash I got from her garden. So that's about $2 per person for dinner. I don't think you can a whole lot cheaper than that for a fresh healthy dinner for 13.
*
"Basically, that was a ten-hour water fight," my brother said, almost as if he wasn't the guy who went to Walgreen's for a package of 450 biodegradable water balloons. For the Fourth of July, we had B and AB, plus a couple of other boys their age from my brother's neighborhood. For a couple of days my SIL had been relating the dustup on the neighborhood email list about water fights during the 4th of July parade. There was intense (is there any other kind of email dustup?) back-and-forth about how it scares little kids and should be banned and about how it is an integral part of the 4th of July to have supersoaker battles during the parade.
The waterfight started during the two or three hours the boys spent in the morning filling up the water balloons. At one point, my brother stalked into the kitchen, grabbed the bucket he used to mop the floor and started filling it in the sink. "That's it, game on. I'm going to get that guy," he said.
"Who?" I asked.
"AB. He got me with the hose." My brother (remember, 38 years old) hauled the full bucket over to the side porch and dumped the whole thing on AB. "Haaaah!" my brother shrieked in his crazy I-got-you laugh (which he uses several times a day because he's overinvested in getting people).
I was pulling a red wagon full of water balloons and the float had even more, and by the time we got to the end of the eight block parade route we were completely out. The boys reloaded their supersoakers and spent several more hours attacking and defending the plastic toddler play equipment in my brother's back yard. They were at it for another two or three hours. When the little kids arrived for my nieces' birthday party (their birthday is July 6th) the middle schoolers were slowing down, so they taught the preschoolers to use the supersoakers.
My SIL was on her way out the door yesterday morning and, by my count, we were going to have 13 people for dinner. "Do you have a plan you want me to execute or should I make something up?" I asked her. I ended up at the Mexican market near her house spending $25 on white rice and black beans, pasilla chiles, canned tomatoes, garlic, bell peppers, limes, avocados and mangoes. It's just never come up for me before that I shopped for one meal and for one meal only and was not relying on my pantry for any of the main ingredients. I'm figuring that the leftover limes, avocados, beans and rice made up for the cost of what I pulled from my SIL's pantry (cooking oil, cumin, salt, pepper) and maybe the summer squash I got from her garden. So that's about $2 per person for dinner. I don't think you can a whole lot cheaper than that for a fresh healthy dinner for 13.
*
"Basically, that was a ten-hour water fight," my brother said, almost as if he wasn't the guy who went to Walgreen's for a package of 450 biodegradable water balloons. For the Fourth of July, we had B and AB, plus a couple of other boys their age from my brother's neighborhood. For a couple of days my SIL had been relating the dustup on the neighborhood email list about water fights during the 4th of July parade. There was intense (is there any other kind of email dustup?) back-and-forth about how it scares little kids and should be banned and about how it is an integral part of the 4th of July to have supersoaker battles during the parade.
The waterfight started during the two or three hours the boys spent in the morning filling up the water balloons. At one point, my brother stalked into the kitchen, grabbed the bucket he used to mop the floor and started filling it in the sink. "That's it, game on. I'm going to get that guy," he said.
"Who?" I asked.
"AB. He got me with the hose." My brother (remember, 38 years old) hauled the full bucket over to the side porch and dumped the whole thing on AB. "Haaaah!" my brother shrieked in his crazy I-got-you laugh (which he uses several times a day because he's overinvested in getting people).
I was pulling a red wagon full of water balloons and the float had even more, and by the time we got to the end of the eight block parade route we were completely out. The boys reloaded their supersoakers and spent several more hours attacking and defending the plastic toddler play equipment in my brother's back yard. They were at it for another two or three hours. When the little kids arrived for my nieces' birthday party (their birthday is July 6th) the middle schoolers were slowing down, so they taught the preschoolers to use the supersoakers.