Money-Free Weekend #8

I have not posted here in a month. We have been continuing to save money and live our weekends to the fullest we can, but I’ve become too distracted living life to write about it. September has been beautiful in South Carolina. The humidity vanished and the sunshine remained. The sky burned bright with that blue that September seems to have some kind of special monopoly on. Every evening when I got home from work, the wood floors and pear colored walls in our house glowed comfortably in the lazy sun beginning to slip into evening. We loaded up on Asian pears, and I’ve made buttery pear cakes that we ate with hot coffee. We’ roasted asparagus, caramelized cauliflower and boiled new potatoes and then dressed them in olive oil and yogurt. I don’t want to place too much emphasis on my feelings or risk taking myself too seriously, but I think I have manage to shake of this bout of restlessness and discontent.

This past Saturday we woke up in Atlanta. We had gone down Friday night to help my accomplished sister Rebekah celebrate the successful completion of her CPA exam. Daddy paid (read moochers), and Matt and I stood nearby to let some of the fruit of her labor rain down on us as well. I always enjoy staying at my sister’s Atlanta townhouse. It’s like staying in a boutique bed and breakfast where you are the only guest, and you are related to the proprietor. She has the poufy guest bed with soft sheets and a fluffy duvet that is perfect for burrowing when you don’t want to face the sun. The room also has a unique alarm clock in the way of her birds who will sing you into wakefulness if you continue to ignore the sun. Her shower has thundering water pressure and her towels are like big velvety blankets. Then of course, there is her wardrobe which I like to scavenge through and her array of makeup that makes Sephora’s sample tables look stingy. Rebekah brews us lattes and makes us food. It is truly lovely.

We didn’t leave as early as we had planned (see above description of blankets, makeup and lattes for explanation), but were able to tear ourselves away in order to be home not too late after lunch time. I immediately jumped into organizing mode. Atlanta is not only home to the largest aquarium in the world and Coke; it is also home to The Container Store. I have been eyeing Rebekah’s nifty containers for quite some time and gradually made my way to their website, but this was the first time I was coming home with Containers of my own. When I was in junior high/high school, my mother’s nickname among their friends was “the Tub Lady.” It seems I am not impervious to the inevitable fate of turning into my mother. Matt had given me a budget and I was seventy cents under! That takes skills. Loaded up with my bins, I organized all the bathroom drawers and under the sinks of both bathrooms. Inspired by my own organizing prowess, I also cleaned all the surfaces and mopped the floors. I stopped short at vacuuming, because I consider it the most unromantic of all common household chores. How can you escape into the world of Jane Eyre on your headphones or pretend that you are Marie Antoinette in prison if you have to maneuver a huge plastic sucking motor around your carpets? Matt is not, however, hindered with these sensibilities and stuck his head around the corner to ask, “Are you going to vacuum?” Translation: Please vacuum; the carpets are dingy, darling. I decided that vacuuming for Matt is almost romantic, and obliged.

Black-Out Weekend #1

In retrospect, I really wish I had named this a "Frugal Weekend Project" or a "$20 Weekend Project;" but it's too late now. The "money-free" aspect is an illusion. It seems no matter now carefully I fill up our gas tanks or load up on groceries on Friday nights, we still spend money. This weekend, my supportive, deeply committed husband was beginning to feel the pressure of my project. No man works hard all week just to be told that he can't spend any of his loot on his two days off. Additionally, my sister had suggested having a monthly "Black-Out Weekend" in which we did what we wanted and spent what we wanted without feeling the need to share it with the virtual world. As she pointed out, there is nothing wrong with occasionally spending the whole day in bed and then getting up and going out for an expensive meal. And that's hardly something anyone should be blogging about. So let us draw a curtain across this weekend's money-spending dubauchery and focus our attention on other matters.

I had originally planned to do a special post on sugar-free recipes, but Matt encouraged me to spend the time on my novel instead. It has been slow going! I struggle with getting the ideas down on the paper in a rough draft form. It is too tempting to edit just one page to death without never moving on to the next page. The extra two hours afforded by not blogging afforded me three pages of novel! However, next weekend will be another fabulous frugal weekend, and I can't wait to write all about it.

Money-Free Weeeknd #2

Before heading off to work this morning, I had to say goodbye to my parents and my three youngest siblings who have been visiting us this week. Since leaving for college nine years ago, my time with family has always been marked with relative brevity and goodbyes. It doesn’t seem to be getting any easier to say a meaningful “goodbye” or to translate my love into a parting hug, although the tears have decreased between my freshman year and now. I am so grateful that they put the time and effort into visiting as frequently as they can. One of my sisters lives in town and another sister lives two hours away, so they are able to fit many visits in one trip. This visit they also extended trip down to see some friends on Hilton Head Island. They left Thursday and had intended to return Friday night, but Matt and Dad put their heads together and proposed that we drive down Friday night, stay with them, and spend Saturday (Matt’s birthday) together at the beach. My mom’s first response was to ask, “What about the money-free weekend?” I am flattered that at least one person takes this so seriously, but I figured I would just do a special “mooching” edition of Money-Free Weekends and enjoy my weekend at the ocean.

Hilton Head Island is my favorite place in the world. I love the salt-marshes busy with frisky fiddler crabs watched by unmoving snowy herons; I love the sea food prepared fresh by unpretentious cooks; I love the bike and running trails that stretch on for miles and miles shaded by trees and dotted with “Don’t Feed the Alligator” signs. Most of all I love the beach. The grey waves of the Atlantic sweep in and out of the white sand which at low tide is packed as hard as concrete. At Coligny Beach there is a wheelchair mat laid out from the boardwalk to the water line. Matt can wheel down the beach as easily as he maneuvers the bike trails, and we can take walks down the beach hand in hand as naturally as anyone else. Our preceding times in Hilton Head were in the off season when the beaches are nearly deserted. We make our way down the beach hand in hand until we come to a small pools skimming rippled sand where Matt looks for orphaned sea creatures to throw back into the ocean and I read a book until he’s saved all the ocean life he can and is ready to move again. This was our first time being there in the summer, and there was a drastic difference. I still loved it, but I loved it with about three thousand more people.

Money-Free Weekend #1

In anticipation of our first money-free weekend, I went to this recommended website for ideas. There aren't any ideas listed for Greenville, but I did discover information on free botanical gardens in Clemson. The project was born partly out of my own discontentment and partly out of seeing the restlessness of my husband who often complains on Sunday nights, "We didn't even do anything this weekend." It's taken me almost three years to figure out that "doing something" means being outside. Matt's interest and knowledge about nature and wildlife always makes our time outdoors more enjoyable. I love seeing and learning from his enthusiasm. Anything that we can do outside is guaranteed to be healthy for us physically and emotionally. A day spent exploring botanical gardens and nature trails seemed like a good starting off point of the project.

Saturday morning, the alarm went off at 7:30. However, after turning off the alarm, Matt pulled me over next to him, and I didn't resist falling asleep again with my head on his shoulder. Sleeping is, of course, a money-free activity and was perfectly appropriate for the weekend. When we got up around 8:00, we filled up on Little Red Wagon granola, which Matt informs me is "man granola," and got ready for the day. We got to the South Carolina botanical gardens around 10:30. After a few false attempts to find the parking lot, we parked in shady spot from whence many winding paths led off into sunny parks and woods. We gave our little pug dog some water, and set off. Right off the parking lot is a park with a big red caboose. I now want my own. We couldn't go inside, but Henry and I peered in the windows, and it is all set up with a little table, chairs, a bed, and homey curtains. The way I imagine it would be living in a caboose is, I'm sure, more romantic than realistic, but it was fun to imagine.

There are paved paths all throughout the gardens. The twists of the paths and the groves of trees make it impossible to see where each path is leading, making each path a possibility. All along the paths are greenery and flowers arranged in a way that shows craftsmanship but suggests happenstance. And I finally understood the appeal of hostas which were ubiquitous throughout the park. Just looking into the gentle green of them made us cooler. Waterfalls flowed into duck ponds which we knew were man made. but we pretended they were natural. We saw very few people in the park, which made the experience even more our very own.