In which I rationalize blowing all my fun money....

on payday. This is why we pray "and lead us not into temptation": because we can find ourselves!!!! Or at least I can.

I went for the Costco run and to see if the shoes on sale at Lands End were similarly on sale at Sears in town. But since Sears is so very close to Barnes and Noble and I had a little money left on a gift card plus my teacher card, surely I should pop into B & N and pick up the less expensive of the two preserving books I wanted? You know- to save on gas money. So I left with a copy of  Well Preserved for a mere $9. Look at me! Aren't I thrifty! Snort.

Then I went to Summit Spice and Tea. This is dangerous. Their web site is sad and blah but the store certainly isn't. I knew that a re-stock on Tea and Spices were both in order so this part of my spending wasn't quite as injudicious as it might have been but did I really need a jar of raspberry curd, a second small infuser, or the little cup of duck demi-glace reduction? Uh, well...no. Not really. As I was cringing my way through check out, the nice clerk assured me that I was nowhere near the point of her feeling it prudent to do an intervention. I had used all the restraint I could muster - and I bribed my children with the promise of Carl's Jr.

Yes- for those of you sure that I serve only organic local veggies with beef I raised and killed myself - I bought drive-thru burgers today. And there was silence for 5 whole minutes and it was good. Until the war of the kids meal toys began and I paid for my sins.

During the actual Costco part of the day, which was the reason I went to the city in the first place, I was again being very restrained. There was a lot of whining about the total absence of organic fruit of any variety. The children also complained. I flirted with the idea of picking up some of the organic ground beef because the price is $2 a lb less than my local farmer but stopped upon reading the disclaimer saying that it contained meat from cows from the US, Canada and Argentina. I recognize the irony of doing this as a Carl's Jr burger was digesting in my belly, really I do. But I decided that I would rather spend a little more and vote for local. However, my chickens won't be ready until October 1st so I grabbed a pair of organic whole chickens and some of the chicken breasts then some wild caught shellfish to make Thai curry for the now-canceled Birchtree potluck.

All was going well until I walked into the crack den...I mean book section. There at the top of a tidy pile was the book, the one I really really wanted, which I had just virtuously passed by at B &N because I could get it more reasonably on half.com: Williams-Sonoma the Art of Preserving. $ 18.

As that book was jumping (all by itself! I swear!) into the cart and I was for the 14th time denying T2 permission to sample a Gogurt or some other sugary thing, I spotted Fun Stuff Silly Snacks and decided that it would be so very useful for lunches. Or something....

The good news is that Sears did not have the on-sale shoes so I had extra budgetary wiggle room. The bad news is that I partially melted my everyday, knock around shoes when we went fishing but I slunk home without replacing them this afternoon so that I could get lost in my new cookbooks and a cup of tea. The Lady Grey is excellent and I am dying to get my hands on some good apricots and meyer lemons.