Epic Fail

Well, South Beach Diet ended in an epic fail, I think.  We did great for about 10 days...then a fiery, crash & burn.  We shall chalk it up to a birthday celebration and stress.  Yes, stress...new stress actually.  We were getting adjusted to the fact that Corey was going into work every day, some long hours and barely getting home in time to eat before leaving for play practice, but we were figuring it out.  Then his car started overheating and shaking like crazy.  He let office co-workers know he wouldn't be in until figured out the car problem and took the car to the mechanic. Water pump failure causing the overheating and unstable axle causing the shaking, get an estimate, gasp & almost cry, but must be fixed...go ahead.  Hours later another call, due to where the water pump is located & the extent of the failure it has caused issues with nearby parts and something is damaged & must be replaced as well...adding to the price.  Egads, choke some more, authorize the go ahead.  :-/  We've officially put in as much with this repair as the car cost us (used).  :-(  Totally sucks but we absolutely can not swing a car payment at the moment and Corey must have a car to get to work...and I must be able to get the kids around to their classes & activities.  So here we are...stress.   Thankfully, we had money tucked away in savings (guess this is what savings is for?) and so it didn't break us to get everything taken care of.

Play practice has been going well, although Corey actually had to miss practice because of work & being on call...crisis after crisis.  We made cupcakes for Morgan's birthday & brought them to practice on Thursday night.  We are getting closer to performance time!

On Friday, we all took Alex to open fencing in Cool Springs.  Corey and I attended a parent meeting about tournaments & such and Morgan helped Alex when needed & watched him fence.  We got to see him fence 1 bout and ref 1 bout.  He is doing great.  Next Friday he will be in his first tournament!  He's excited.  :-)  I will post pictures.

Saturday was Morgan's birthday celebration...going to the mall with her best friend and going shopping. Corey took the girls to lunch first and then to the mall.  Morgan got a feather put in her hair (the kind that last 5-6 months, you can wash them, curl them,etc), and various other things.  She had a really good time.

Today, Corey did the grocery shopping and Morgan treated me and Alex to a movie (Contagion).  We had a nice afternoon, making some sugar-free pumpkin muffins and just relaxing.  All-in-all, a good weekend.

Back to the epic fail.  When we opted to bake cupcakes for Morgan's birthday...and go out to lunch & dinner we all went way off.  I tried to get back on track but had totally lost momentum.  When we were making our menu plan and grocery list for the next 2 weeks, I decided that we weren't going to be doing South Beach.  I'll cut out what I can but the reality is that it costs much more to follow that way of eating (at least for us, right now).  This is after we get our meat and produce from our CSA.  We don't usually buy much from the grocery store (it is a lot less this year than in years past).  But trying to get foods for South Beach, we doubled our grocery store bill!  We will have to do better without spending that much more money.  Our CSA costs more than the same items at the grocery store but we are paying for MUCH better quality & taste & keeping it local...that is worth it to us.  It isn't worth it for us to pay more into the grocery store.  I guess our epic fail is really a work in progress?