My not so secret spendthrift shame & new shoes & PBS reality shows and discount pancakes

My husbands job requires him to travel quite often for a few days here and there. I readily admit that I am not cut out to be a single mother. I am also lucky enough to be married to man that shares 50% of the parenting chores when he's home. And I am used to that so when he's not here I go into survival mode. I don't really cook unless it's really quick like malt o meal or mac and cheese. And I do things that I don't normally do like order delivery pizza, ppv movies, and buy junky food. I don't know if I'm appeasing my children or myself. I think I should probably come up with a better plan for when he's gone.. but, I just haven't yet.
And then there's the Shrek 3 toys at McDonalds. I love Shrek. So does my 4 year old. We havent' gone to see the movie yet because we're waiting for the cheap theater. But, I have made it a quest to get all of the Shrek characters. So we order a cheeseburger happy meal (sans the burger patty) once or twice a week. I always ask what the toy is and have even made the pick up window person sort through happy meal boxes to find the wanted toy. I am shameless. I have two toys tucked away secretly that I'm going to put in her Christmas stocking. I'm hoping the dvd is out by Christmas. We have collected: Shrek, donkey, one of the babies, Fiona, Puss (hidden for stocking) and the Prince (hidden also). I still need Dragon, Gingerbread man, and the two babies.

Yesterday was a lazy day. We relaxed and just enjoyed being together since my husband had just gotten home from his trip late the night before. We have a big list of tasks to accomplish this weekend but, got almost none of it done except to buy mulch for the front yard. But, I took my chance and had my sweetie drop me and 4 year old at TJMax to look around while he got the oil in my car changed. Oh TJMax has some of the cutest kids dresses. I came so close to buying dresses for Julia. But, I couldn't justify it. Today I'm going through her closet and checking it out. I just may go back and buy one of them. It's 12.00. Hmm.... do we need it? I did find a cute pair of turquoise birkenstock like shoes on clearance for 12.00 that I've been wearing since yesterday. They are so comfortable and cute. I really need a pedicure.
After TJMax we took a quick spin through the Petsmart to look at the creatures. Of all the cute and furry animals in there she tried to talk me into a pet snake.
Um, no. I have been considering a pet guinea pig in a year or so but no snake. Well, I was considering a pet guinea pig. Petsmart wanted 32.00 for one. No, thank you. Not when I can get a feeder mouse for less than 2.00.

We ended the evening with watching Texas Ranch House on a library dvd and eating microwaved popcorn in the basement play room. I love the PBS series like Frontier House and Colonial House. So, this is like candy for me. We are starting the second dvd tonight. Is it totally lame that I am excited about that?

This morning I made a yummy batch of pancakes out of mashed brown bananas and clearance buttermilk from Save a Lot. I found a half gallon jug of buttermilk for .39 there. So, I divied it up into pancake recipe portions and am freezing it for later use. I make pancakes almost every weekend. Most of the time I use the Aldi baking mix and it's pretty good. Last weekend I used the recipe out of Miserly Moms. And it wasn't too bad.

I'm still looking for a great pizza dough recipe. I bought pizza dough from the local Italian deli yesterday for 2.29. I just want to see how much better it is than the dry mix from Save A Lot for .29. For 2 dollars more I hope it's really good. But, no matter what I know it will be tastier and healhier than delivery pizza.

And now I must get started whittling away on the to-do list.

(as of August 2008 the Save-A-Lot pizza crust is now .49 cents. Ouch! I'll be making scratch from now on)