Oddly enough, it's not cold at all !

(wry grin) Got all the bills paid – well, all the bills we could  pay ! – and if I thought we were on the Austerity Plan last week, let’s just say we’re really on it now. I have a few bucks to splash out on frivolities solely for me, but very few. Dearest Son gets more in his allowance ! But, hey, a pattern is a week of inspiration, and nothing is more inspiring than digging through what I already have. At least this time, we’re not preparing to move somewhere ! And next week will be much easier. 

Kinda ticked at our Library. Used to be, they’d give me an e-mailed heads-up three days before our books were due. Not anymore. I get a note ten days after they’re overdue now, with a note totaling our fines. Once it’s over five bucks, you’re blocked, ya can’t check out anything else or even use the website to renew your books, so you tote up more fines ‘til you can get ‘em turned in. So, I dumped ‘em all off today, one of which I  never got to read, but maybe I’ll get it again later. Sometime after we pay our $7. in fines. Giving serious thought to that ‘use what you have’ until their annual “food for fines” drive. Goss knows I got plenty of thrifted books I haven’t read yet – and lots I love to re-read. Haven’t even really dug into those collector Barbie books I got at the Flea Market, now that I think about it. 

Slept in, had a simple hash-brown breakfast, and Beloved Hubby made us hamburgers to order for lunch. I had dainty ‘demi-burgers’ on French bread with A-1 sauce and a sprinkling of Dollar Tree dried onions. Yum ! I was still stuffed hours later, after grueling, endless online shopping, when it was time to prepare for dinner at the IL’s. They wanted to make a roast for his birthday a couple months back, and planets aligned for it to happen tonight. I volunteered baked beans and surprised FIL with a plate of his favorite devilled eggs. He loves my slapdash ‘recipe’, which is funny – I can’t stand mayo or Miracle Whip, so I’ve never tasted them. Beloved has to tell me if the filling’s good or needs something. It was a good excuse to clean up the heirloom egg plate MIL gave me, see if she wanted it back now that she’s all moved in. Yup, it’s still there, but I do hope to get my square Pyrex casserole back soon. FIL was gratifyingly grateful and ate most of the eggs within ten minutes, yaaay ! 

Dinner was nice, especially the fresh corn on the cob, but I started to wheeze from their five cats, so we were home two hours later. They gave us another bag of groceries (i.e., pantry rejects) – we won’t need rice, spaghetti, peanut butter, or Mac & Cheese box dinners any time soon, yaaay ! – and I put them away and rested a bit. Tried the bag of fried plantains. Unexpectedly salty, but not bad. Wipe off the salt, add a thin smear of Aldi’s knockoff Nutella, and they’re really good ! 

Then I was right back to shopping. Soon found a set of patterns – 11 of ‘em ! – for AG dolls, on 75% markdown. Most were super-simple variations on the same theme, but there were four I liked, and at that price, I don’t have much of an issue buying them to alter them. So I used a chunk of my fun funds and snagged the lot, for $3.75. After I stitch up Version 3s of Dearest Son’s commission dress and the Halloween costume, I’m sooo gonna make that cowl-neck dress ! I still have lots of thrift store t-shirts to tear into !