I hope everyone is having a great Friday and looking forward to the weekend! We start school next week so we are savoring this last bit of free time before life as we know it ends. You know the routine- living in your car and running your children from activity to activity, homework battles, and trying to keep up with all those papers. I am hoping to offer some solutions for the back-to-school craziness in the next couple of weeks since it is something we have been working on over here and I plan to share some of this year’s solutions with you!
In the meantime, here is what is making me happy this week!
Boots That Don’t Break the Bank
Fall is just around the corner and that means boot season is around the corner. I have had the same pair of chocolate colored boots from SEARS that I got for $29.99 for the last six years. On my last trip, the zipper just finally gave out. I loved these boots so much and remember being in New York and people asking me where I got them and me saying, “SEARS,” but kind of trying to pull that French accent that people do with Target. It sounded all kinds of wrong- I don’t know how I can make that name sound fashionable (even though my boots were!).
I decided I could go boot shopping this year and needed a pair of chocolate and black riding boots. Can I just say that boot prices are outrageous? $200 on up to $1K for a pair of boots? Nope. I refuse. Now that I am an old lady, I rely on Naturalizer for my shoe needs and discovered 6pm.
Have you heard of 6pm before? It’s like the world’s best shoe warehouse and they carry my Naturalizer brand for my wide foot & old lady back issues. Last season’s $200 boots that I wanted so bad (but refuse to pay for) were marked down to $89.99. That’s still an awful lot for boots for me, but if I can rock my fancy Sears boots for six years, I can surely get that many out of a really good boot. From now on, I’m doing my shoe shopping on that site- I can’t recommend it enough for savings.
I’m pretty excited for my boots being delivered this week and I know I will be having happy feet all Fall long!
Mastering the Steak
We decided to have a little celebration dinner for the end-of-summer with our kids. I took my kids the Gucci grocery store in town and asked them what they would like to eat. We settled on steaks and they loved a fun appetizer of mozzarella balls, salami, and kalamata olives that they had on skewers for us to sample while we were shopping. We bought beautiful filet mignons, fresh berries, heavy cream, and baby asparagus to go along with our steaks.
I forget that all of the fancy dinners we eat typically are on date nights and out with my husband. My kids don’t get to enjoy foods like that very often and they were so excited to help prepare it with me and to experience some of the foods that are our special occasion foods.
I’m proud of how far I have come in my cooking abilities, but my proudest moment this summer is finally mastering the technique for a beautiful steak. It has taken a bit of the fun out of dining out and getting a steak because now that I have it down, I think I do a better job than most of the places we have been to.
We threw Carole King on the record player and ate the best food ever together, as a family, and it was pretty much perfect.
Then we said in fancy voices that we should have Filet Fridays instead of Pizza Fridays.
Then we remembered we have to live on a budget.
And we aren’t that fancy.
I wear Sears boots for six years, for goodness sakes.
It was a beautiful thing to share together.
Spinning Plates
I know that last week I shared about our love for the documentary, “Tiny,” on what was making me happy. I am in a bit of a documentary mood in the evenings and we watched Spinning Plates together as a family. As a disclaimer, there were two swear words (which my children pointed out), but overall, I felt this one is very family-friendly and so worth a viewing if you have a Netflix account like we do.
Here is why I think you should watch this one. This movie is about people who are passionate about food and what sacrifices they make when running a restaurant. It is about the most successful restaurant, a failing restaurant, and the most intriguing community-driven restaurant I have ever seen. It is heartwarming and beautiful. The passion for food is contagious and discovering the why behind their cooking is a beautiful journey.
I would say this is a good one for fans of Jiro Dreams of Sushi (and if you haven’t seen that yet, you haven’t lived!)
I was teary-eyed a bit through this one, but seeing people’s passion for food makes me so happy. I hope you can catch it if you haven’t already!
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