So I continue backsliding in my efforts to quit drinking Diet Coke. The past two mornings, I’ve stopped at Sonic to get a Diet Coke. This morning, the guy at the window says, “OK, the medium Diet Coke is $1.74, but if you get a large, it’s only 99 cents.”

Say what?

Yes, they had a drink sale going on at Sonic, whereby the large drinks were the cheapest ones available. You can’t just pay for a large and get a medium, either, which would seem to be an even better deal for Sonic. You have to agree to take the large drink.

It’s really large, too. You might have guessed that, though.

So I bought the large. I have no idea why I drank the whole thing. I saved 66 cents, though.

This year I’ve been helping to organize the vendor area for the Tomato Art Fest, East Nashville’s premier neighborhood event. Just 5 years old, the festival became everyone’s favorite event right after it started. It’s a little funky, fairly unpredictable, and very, very East Nashville. I mean, there’s a contest where you can dress a tomato.

Check out all the details for this fun day and join us on Saturday, Aug. 9!

This is the time of year where I normally have a freakout about everything that’s going on. What? OK, OK, so I have that freakout 3-4 times a year.

• Let’s see…work is breathtakingly busy. Has been for weeks.
• We’ve had something to do every weekend since before the wedding. And we have something fairly big planned every weekend until Aug. 30-31.
• School starts in 6 days.

On the positive front:

• The 3yo is definitively potty-trained.
• Ashby starts teaching at Hunters Lane High School tomorrow, so all adults in the household are once again gainfully employed.
• School supplies are purchased and the 9yo has a closetful of uniforms.

On the more-insanity-to-come front:

• The 9yo is taking dance lessons again this year.
• I’m teaching piano lessons again this year.
• The 3yo starts soccer at the end of the month.
• And Ashby has some yet-to-be-defined evening classes to take for his certification.

You don’t even want to see my Google calendar, because that’s not even all. Don’t mind me; I’ll just be here in the corner hyperventilating.

Don’t be alarmed, you’re still at Fixin’ Supper. I’m in the middle of moving things to WordPress. Well, the blog is there. You’re reading it! But I’ve moved some of my domains to a new registrar, and I have some more work to do on my total web presence. Part of which involves, trying to decide exactly what I want to do. Stay tuned….we’ll see what I come up with.

So my parents gave us this really nice ice cream maker for our wedding present. Ice cream makers have a long and happy history in the Creekmore and Norment families. I don’t remember any family reunions that did not include homemade ice cream. My uncle Bev is the legendary ice cream maker. His peach will blow your mind.

Speaking of, I think peach will be my next flavor.

But at any rate, our historic family ice cream makers were White Mountain electrics. I’m sure there were hand cranks back there in the past, but I don’t remember them personally. When my parents moved to Florida several years ago, my dad was in charge of dealing with a lot of their stuff, since my mom was already working there. And he gave me what he and I believed to be my grandmother’s old ice cream maker.

The 9yo and I enjoyed it for a couple of summers, but then it died a natural death. It was quite old when I got it.

So after it died, my mom heard of this, and said, it wasn’t Creek’s ice cream maker, it was ours! Which always seemed beside the point to me. But you know, the things we harass family about don’t have to make sense.

So Ashby and I got married and my parents said, well, what would you like us to give you for your present? And there was this one thing we’d registered for that I really, really wanted. A Cuisinart compressor ice cream maker. I wasn’t sure what my mom would think about that present idea. But she just laughed. And, here it is!

• Stop Motion Spaghetti Cooking Video
  It’s tomato-themed — so appropriate for the season….the Tomato Art Fest season! Watch this fun video to get in the mood now for Aug. 9.
  (tags: tomato TomatoArtFest)

• Freakonomics: Don’t Throw Away Your Capitalism Just Yet
  Great post. My dad and I were discussing the house bailout today — we both think it’s dumb. It’s such a moral hazard, screws up the marketplace.
  (tags: economics capitalism)

Attention world!!

It is NOT TOO LATE to get a booth at East Nashville’s premier community event, the 5th annual Tomato Art Fest.

BUT IT IS ALMOST TOO LATE.

Artisans? Food vendors? Busineses? Nonprofits? People with cool stuff and ideas to share?

Download a booth application and contract here, now. Preference is given to applications received by Friday, July 25. That’s the day after tomorrow.

Today Ashby [I gave up coming up with a cute name for him. He's stuck with the real thing.] asked me for the instructions to check our voice mail on the home phone. I emailed him the number and password, then I wrote,
"I haven’t checked it in. Umm. Two months."

Eek.

I don’t like voice mail in any form. It scares me. You never know what’s hiding in there. It could be any kind of bomb. [Sure, I know this is irrational. Nonetheless, it's true.] So I avoid it at all costs. At work, I screw up my courage to check every time the message light comes on. I am at least responsible about that. But at home — well, if you really needed me, you’d email, wouldn’t you? Or call back when I’m home?

In fact, I’d prefer a phone without voice mail, but it came with the phone service. And Ashby seems to like it. So tonight, I put him in charge of it going forward.

But if you need me, just send some smoke signals or a telegram, mmk?

So I had the best weekend. Haha you are going to laugh. It’s OK, everyone else has, even the 9yo.

I made a list of about 50 products that we buy a lot. Everything from milk to laundry detergent to tomato paste. And I went to Kroger, Target and Costco to compare the prices. Then I came home and entered them all into the spreadsheet I’d built to see which was cheapest.

It was so awesome.

The upshot: I’ve learned that of the things we buy most, except for laundry detergent, Costco is the cheapest — in most cases, lots and lots cheaper. Of course, there are a lot of things you can’t buy at Costco. And we’ll still be buying all our fruits and vegetables fresh (and organic) at the Turnip Truck. But I will be making at least a weekly trip to Costco from now on — many of the things we will buy there are perishable.

It’s awfully close on the laundry detergent, but it does make sense to buy it at Target.

Next up: Checking Harris Teeter and Publix against Kroger. I have a feeling I know what I’m going to find, but we’ll see.