Day One

Day Two

8 a.m. — Walk the dog to our usual weekend coffee place, get two iced lattes and two BBQ brisket kolaches (not the Czech kind — the Texas kind, which is kind of like a pig in a blanket but with various types of meat. So delicious, so bad for you). We get a free latte today for filling up our loyalty card, which happens far too frequently.10 a.m. — Go to the grocery store to pick up food for a BBQ at our friends’ house, and for the rest of the week. On the menu for the week is: sweet ginger chicken thighs with roasted veggies (three meals each for lunch); meatloaf burgers topped with caramelized onions, cheddar cheese, and BBQ sauce with roasted green beans (two meals each); lemon garlic fish with roasted potatoes (two meals each), and red curry pork with snow peas, carrots, and bamboo shoots over rice (two meals each). We pick up ingredients for spinach artichoke dip and rosemary lemonade to bring to the BBQ tonight, plus a six-pack of craft beer, which makes the weekly grocery shop a bit more expensive. We also grab milk, eggs, and other essentials. I pay (my husband and I trade off).12 p.m. — We eat leftover spaghetti with garlic bread from last week’s dinners for lunch.6 p.m. — Head to our friend’s BBQ to eat smoked pork and ribs along with spinach artichoke dip. We ended up spiking our lemonade with bourbon, and it was a huge hit — and extremely boozy, so we stay out way too late.8 a.m. — Wake up and make breakfast. We eat some eggs, French press coffee, and some frozen waffles. We're trying to clean our our freezer before Friday to make room for a quarter of a steer and a lamb that I bought at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which is a charitable organization that helps provide scholarships for kids. You pay fair market value per pound of meat, and then an additional amount as contribution for scholarships, the latter of which is tax deductible. I paid about $1,000 for 60 pounds of meat, but I get to deduct $900 of that from my taxes.10 a.m. — Head to REI to check out hiking gear for a trip to Peru later this year. We’re hiking the Inca trail, so this is definitely not a normal purchase. Buy two pairs of hiking boots and two pairs of wool socks for my husband and myself. I pay for everything, and hubby agrees to buy the backpacks at a later date. Why is being active so expensive? At least everything is on sale.12 p.m. — Grab lunch at Chipotle on our way home because we’re starving and I have a BOGO coupon that expires today. So one burrito and a burrito bowl with guac only comes to2 p.m. — Head to a friend’s place to take advantage of her pool and lay out. She provides drinks, but I only have one beer because it’s way too hot out to really drink. I mostly stick to water.6 p.m. — Make dinner of roasted potatoes and lemon-garlic fish. Also prep the marinade for the ginger chicken to throw on the grill tomorrow and cook all the veggies for lunch.7:45 p.m. — Run to a local ice cream place for some snacks prior to Game of Thrones tonight (we’re obsessed and, fun fact, I walked down the aisle to an acoustic version of the GoT theme song; it sounds amazing). Coffee and salted caramel for the hubs and chocolate brownie over a unicorn-bait cookie (sugar with rainbow sprinkles) for me.