‘Ain’t Got No Home Phone & No Mexican’ Blues
Thursday, January 29th, 2009As a part of our “cutting back” due to Bryan’s company adopting that same policy, we have endeavored to find ways to minimize the loss of income by cutting out some of the things that don’t fall strictly into the necessary category.
The first item up for auction was our home phone service. At over $50 bucks a month it was fairly easy to dump. We both have cell phones which (we think) have plenty of minutes to handle our phone needs–business and pleasure. The only possible complications were regarding our satellite TV and our DSL. But it was no problem. Our satellite doesn’t need to be hooked up to the phone line at all and our DSL provider now offers a land-line-free DSL service. One short phone call later and bye-bye to our land line. I must say that making that jump was a little scarier than I imagined it would be. I now have to keep my cell phone charged at all times and it is astonishing how quickly the little battery icon loses bars. Other than that it hasn’t been so bad at all.
The other category that was up for grabs in our most recent money-saving scheme was our restaurant patronage. We *love* to eat out. We don’t generally go for fancy places. Okay, that’s probably giving us a little too much credit. We generally eat at our local Mexican restaurant. It’s where we go for Margarita Night. It’s where we wind up when we’re feeling tired, lazy, stressed, happy, sad…well, you get it.
I don’t actually mind the process of cooking–when everything goes well. I *hate* deciding what we are going to have, planning my day around the preparation process and thinking of sides. I *hate, hate, hate* it. Bryan, on the other hand, being half-gay, loves planning, preparing and eating meals. Nothing makes him happier than to find something with obscure, expensive ingredients to prepare and feed (or not, as the case may be) to me and the kids. In fact, I often find a ‘Gourmet’ Magazine or ‘Crockpot’ magazine stashed next to his Guinness Beer when he’s gone to the grocery store. He is the one in the house who actually reads the hand-me-down “Southern Living” magazines for the recipes. (I don’t actually read it at all.) So, If I were being perfectly honest, I would have to declare him ‘mostly gay’ in regards to his foodie tendencies. Alas, he doesn’t get to cook dinner because by the time he gets home, spends a little time with the monsters and has some breathing time, it’s already well past time to have eaten. And also possibly because whatever he makes generally takes around 4 hours to prepare and serve. No, he never goes for the 20 minute spaghetti. It’s the Bok Choy, Ginger and Cabbage marinated pork with a luscious nestling of wilted baby spinach and baked radish rosettes with a serving of lightly steamed brussel sprouts topped off with a zesty lemon-fennel spritz.
(By the way, if Bryan reads this I know that at this exact moment, he is thinking, “Wow! That sounds pretty good, actually. I wonder if she got that off of Epicurious’ website.” Note: I pulled it out of my ass, which is probably exactly what it would taste like.)
So anyway, we decided to challenge ourselves to forego eating out for an ENTIRE MONTH. Let me just say upfront that I do believe we will fail. I cannot imagine getting dinner together every night for an entire month. This from the family which generally eats out at least twice a week. Like twice a week is the low end of the spectrum. I cannot imagine that Bryan can resist Texas Margaritas and El Burrito De La Roqueta for more than a week and a half. I just don’t see it happening. But I’ll be damned if we blow it on our THIRD day which is exactly what Bryan wanted to do on Wednesday. He called at around 4:30 pm and said that his resolve regarding the eating out thing was weakening and I was all, “Babe, we’re on DAY THREE, fercryinoutloud. How can you *already* be losing your resolve?” And his shamed reply was, “I think we need to go to The Hat (which is what we call our favorite haunt).”
BUT, as soon as we got off the phone, I started on dinner. (It was a quick, throw-together sort of bean soup that Bryan LOVES.) I even whipped up some shortbread crumbles (which were supposed to be cookies but ended up being crumbles) and garlic Italian bread. So when he called back at around 5 to tell me he was on his way, I answered with, “I circumvented your lack of resolve.”
After a few mumbled curses and what I believe were the words, “We’ll see about that…”, we got off the phone.
When he got home, the kids were so excited about the cookies that they breezed through the soup and Bryan admitted that he was glad I cut him off.
So basically, four days down (my Mom cooked enchiladas for us tonight) and…um…24 days to go.
What?!? February is a short month!