rosarugosa -- another vote for the fabulousness of the bread maker! We use ours all the time -- you will not regret the purchase!

bke -- good luck with reseeding your lawn -- it's one of those things you can definitely do yourself so totally worth it to save a few hundred bucks!

A sort of frugal/non-frugal day here. I was scheduled to go to a meeting early this morning so was going to meet a friend for breakfast afterwards. Then had a lunch meeting later on. All three events were in the same vicinity so it was a good way to limit my driving. Well, I bailed out of the early morning meeting because, honestly, I was too exhausted and stressed to get up that early. Fortunately, it was not something critical so my absence didn't create an issue for others. But I did want to still meet my friend for breakfast. Unfortunately, the place that we usually go doesn't really have anything gluten free. I was planning to just order hot tea and eat the snacks I had stashed in my bag, but it turns out they have macaroons now and those are gluten free. So I indulged with a macaroon for breakfast! It was only $1.50 so not too much of a splurge, but still...I did get tea, too, and I had to pay for parking. Oy. As I was leaving to go to the lunch meeting I got a text message asking if we could reschedule. Ugh. Saved me on the cost of lunch, but now I have to find another time for that meeting and drive...again. Fortunately, these are all fairly small inconveniences and expenses, so I really shouldn't complain.

In truly frugal news...I essentially depleted my stockpile of tea. I have one small bag of loose tea that I need to finish up. I opened it this morning and...wow...it is really not very good. But I will drink it. To make it more tolerable, I printed out (on the backside of a used sheet of printer paper, mind you!) a 15% off coupon for Barnes & Noble and I stopped there in my travels to buy a one of my favorite teas. (I'll alternate between so-so tea and my favorite tea to get everything used up.) Spent $8.47 and that should keep me for a few weeks, which means I can now order more of my other favorite tea online and wait for it to be shipped as opposed to paying an inflated price at Whole Foods!

Not much else to report other than my usual frugal activities. I've been diligent about using my tea pot and travel mugs for mass tea consumption. We've been pretty good about eating at home most of the time. My dearly beloved, not so much, but I can't control his choices, only my own. He's pretty good, though, overall so I can't really complain. Doing all the laundry with cold water (except for when the cat peed on a towel). Need to get better about hanging things on the line, though. I've been a slacker in this arena. We've done so well with keeping our energy use low enough to be covered by our solar panel production that it's hard to see the benefit of line drying, but I know it is there! I've been pretty diligent about re-using the backsides of printer paper when I need to print a bunch of stuff. And we've got a pretty good stockpile of "good" printer paper, too. I did get a coupon from Staples for a free ream, so if I remember, I will take advantage of that. Might as well build the stockpile if it's free!

I think that's pretty much it. As more comes up I'll report in!