End of the day

The first day wasn't too bad.  I got most of the office cleaned out, and carted piles of old papers to the trash.  I've got a bunch of empty boxes, empty shelves, and a pile of stuff to throw on eBay.  A bunch of toys, some old laptops, and plenty of other stuff that i just need to take to goodwill later this week.

I stopped about 3:30, though - a while back i picked up a paving stone just a bit wrong, and threw something out in my back.  the pain was reminicient of a corkscrew being twisted into my spine, though with some exercise and some cortisone shots i was able to bring it into control, at least for a while.  I fell back into my old ways over the past year, and in the past couple of months it was flaring up a bit.  So for the next few weeks I'm going to a physical therapist to work on back exercises to strengthen things up a bit and make it stop hurting.  I hope that this can be later translated into the equivilent exersize time later on.  

Tonight's dinner was a chicken stir fry.  One of the things I am wanting to build the habit of is to cut a lot of the eating out at restaurants that we do as a family.  In a normal week we eat out lunch and dinner ten to twelve times.  even at a fast food place this will be around $20 for the three of us, and anything past that will run $30 to $40 a meal.  i figure we were spending over $300 a week on eating out.   So, rather than do this, i figure i can prepare meals here and cut that, while not all the way to zero, at least by 70 to 80 percent.  We'll still eat out every once in a while, though.  i like pizza and the odd chili dog every once in a while, and there are times when eating out is necessary due to scheduling conflicts.

To help me do this i've started planning out a menu for the week.   Nothing complex - mainly a quick mention of the main dish, and possibly a side or two to go with it.  This will also let me eat down what is in the freezer and pantry.  Digging through there is sort of like a Norwegian archealogical expedition.  There's something there that resembles food, but it is ice covered, frost bitten, and probably been there a while.  I can probably prepare them into sommething, though.  Brisket can be prepared with beans, vegetables can be mixed with pasta in a lighter dish, and that cup full of red popsicle stuff can be conveniently tossed out when no one else is looking.  

Tomorrow i'll finish cleaning the office, start on the dining room, and take a load of stuff to goodwill, or put it on eBay.  

And have leftovers.  That refrigerator isn't going to clean itself out.

So today the takeaways are create a plan, health care is expensive, and meals are a quick way to cut some costs.