Observations on things that are related to weight-loss and money:

1. Subway sandwiches are a surprisingly good value. A five dollar footlong feeds both of us a healthy meal that requires no prep and no cleanup. I’m not sure I’d be able to make a comparable sandwich at home for that price.
2. Weight-loss encourages eating out less, because just about every restaurant in the world either makes you fat, or charges an arm and a leg for healthy options.
3. Fat-free foods are surprisingly good. Making them is surprisingly fun.
4. 20.00 a month for starting Weight Watchers is a good deal. I’m really hoping that Mr. MD feels that he can go without the program by the time our introductory price expires, because 40.00 a month is a lot of money.

However, even though I didn’t have a working lawn-edger, I did have a set of steak knives. I knew that steak knives could be used to trim lawn edges because I read about it on the rants and raves section of Craigslist, which is just about as high an authority as you can get on the Internet. Mr. MoneyDummy was skeptical about my prospects for success, but I got out there and started hacking and gouging away. The results were a definite improvement, so chalk one up to what can happen when you’re broke, clueless, and fed up.

Having gone that far, I just couldn’t stop, I attacked the front of the lawn, where the previous homeowners had placed bricks and tons and tons of river walk to line the walk. I’m sure that at one time they were pretty and useful, but by now they had sunk into the lawn and were pretty much good only for breaking the blades on the lawnmower and providing places for the weeds’ roots to hide from the weed and feed. I had no great skills or knowledge about how to get them out of the ground, but I did have a flathead screwdriver. Prying bricks out of dirt with a flathead screwdrivers is surprisingly fun, and ripping out the weeds nested around them is downright gratifying. I was incredibly sore the next day, but I felt great. The boys helped by piling up the bricks. I wasn’t sure what the purpose of this was, but they assured me repeatedly that it was what Bob the Builder would do.

No after pictures yet because only time can bring this lawn up to snuff, but we’re getting there slowly. It was fun to realize that when I get fed up enough with something, I can find a way to fix it, even if I’m broke and clueless.

It’s battered and bruised and needs some TLC, but it’s solid, genuine wood, and it has a drawer for my journal and an under-compartment (is that what it’s called?) for whatever book I’m reading at the moment.



Its best feature, though, was the four-dollar price tag. I bought it with the intention of working some shabby-chic spray-paint voodoo on it, but the more I let it sit there, the more I warm up to the battered-wood look. I think I’m going to scrub the dust and grime off and shine it up a little; then I’ll see what I think of it. Until then, though, I think it’s working beautifully with this eighteen-cent placemat–very fortunate that it matches the wall, eh?–and this ten cent basket. I feel like it’s my own little oasis in the middle of an often chaotic life.

So yesterday I went to K-mart searching for a wading pool that I could fill with sand and use to “mine for gold” at BabyMoney’s very first Halloween party, and while I didn’t find a swimming pool, I did find some of these herb gardens in the back clearance room. The larger kits were originally marked at fifteen dollars, a ridiculously overinflated price. The smaller basil kits weren’t marked at all. “What the heck,” I thought. “Might as well scan them and see how they ring up.”

“Ten,” the associate told me, peering confusedly at the screen.

“Wow,” I said. I thought that ten bucks was a little high, but I figured K-mart could charge whatever they wanted for their items.

“Yeah,” she said. “Ten cents is what they’re ringing up as.”

Ten cents? Ten cents? Marked down from fifteen bucks to a dime? I will take it!

I giggled all the way home. May I have an herby winter.

I’m scouring the Weight Watchers website and www.hungrygirl.com for delicious recipes. I’m interested, to say the least, to see how this whole thing turns out.