In the lag time, a few things have transpired that are worth noting. Some humorous, some a little disappointing. You can be the judge of both. It doesn't matter to us.
Also, another month has passed on the calendar. Woo hoo!
First off, in our ground rules, we were allowed to shop or purchase, or dine for any event pre-ordained on the calendar before January 1st, 2015. Easter fell into this category. Knowing that we would either be hosting, or attending Easter dinner and bringing a dish to pass, shopping was a near certainty. During Holy Week, my gracious sister and the rest of the fam hammered out plans for the post-church Easter feast. I asked what we could bring. I volunteered to bring a side dish and a dessert. Luckily, I had most of the ingredients on hand for the dessert that was requested. For the side, it was requested that we bring a dish of our grilled asparagus. Simple, decently healthy, and downright delicious. The problem however, was that we did not have any asparagus. Knowing this wasn't breaking any rules, since it was pre-arranged, I headed to town to get a few bundles of asparagus from our fruit and meat market of choice. Seemed like a no brainer.
I was in the store for probably ten minutes, tops. I bought five, one-pound bundles of asparagus. In the time it took to put the asparagus in my grocery purse (shopping basket), pay, and get out the door to the truck, magical things began to transpire. My phone started ringing off the hook. It was a number I did not recognize, so I ignored it. I drove the twenty minutes or so, home.
When I walked in the door, the house phone was ringing, and we had a blinking light on our voicemail box. I played back the messages. Same number as the one on my cell phone. SEVEN missed calls between the cell phone and the home phone. It was the fraud department of my bank.
I returned the call.
"Chase Fraud Services, how may I help you?"
"Uh, I have a bunch of messages regarding fraudulent activity."
"Yes, let us verify who you are." (asks and answers security questions)
"Yep, that's me."
"We're you just at such-and-such Fruit and Meat Market in such-and-such-a-place, Michigan?":
"Yes."
"Did you make a purchase for $14.53?"
"Yes."
"OK. That's all we need to verify. There has not been activity at a place like this in a long period of time."
"OK, thank you."
"Thank you, have a nice day, and thank you for banking with Chase." (click)
Seriously? My purchasing ASPARAGUS set off the red flag FRAUD WARNING SYSTEM for my debit card? Too funny. Glad they were on top of it, though.
Easter dinner was fantastic, by the way.
Here's the parts that may let you down: We cheated. Not a lot, but a little. We went to dinner last Friday. We aren't particularly sorry, and we aren't making a regular thing of it, but it happened. We feel as if we should confess.
We had just completed a somewhat stressful walkthrough on a home and property that we are considering purchasing, and we went straight from work to meet the realtor. We were there about three hours, and were super hungry when we left the meeting. We went to a local diner for a quick dinner. Jay had a burger, and I had a coney dog. It wasn't fancy, but we mutually decided to go. No regrets.
To be honest, we are missing our occasional trip out for dinner here and there. We may allow ourselves to cheat every now and again when it comes to a trip out. One time in four months isn't too awful, is it?
Again, not sorry.
Are we back to buying groceries? Not even close. Did we bend or break some rules? Yep, we did.
Will we still eat our dinner out of the canning supply and freezer tomorrow?
Youbetcha. There's still lots of dinners to be had in there.