Christmas came and went without much drama. Christmas present is a little weird for me, with my kids celebrating much more materialistic Christmases than I ever did in Christmas past. It did seem like one of my sons scaled back a bit this year, which is good. Last year I was so embarrassed about my modest giving. This year I gave more, though I managed to keep my costs down to about what I did last year. Just more planning, more "snowflakes," as some would say.

I think next year I will set an "value" amount for each person and keep track of it. I did a lot of stressing this year about whether the gifts were equivalent in value. The actual costs were all over the place.

Boxing Day was more my kind of day. My son and I played a game which I had given him, and we had Chinese food and leftovers. At the end of the day I went to the grocery store for the first time in two weeks. I spent $25 on food (plus a bit more on kitty litter and paper towels). I think $25 would be a good number to shoot for each week. That would make my monthly spending about $100, and $25 worth of groceries seems to be easy enough to carry up the steps!

For my $25 I got three cans of crescent rolls (had a .55 off coupon for three), a pound of ground beef, a can of tomato sauce, 64 oz. of almond milk, coffee creamer, a dozen eggs, a liter of Dr. Pepper, a bag of spring mix salad, and a 3-lb. bag of cuties. I will use the beef and tomato sauce to make stuffed pepper casserole (already have the rice and green pepper). I will use some of the crescent rolls to make ham rollups for my grandsons, when they stay over on Monday night. I already have the ham. I have three quarters of a broccoli cheddar quiche in my fridge, and two cups of carrot-cauliflower cream soup in the freezer. The eggs and salads will serve well for dinner, too.

Most of my breakfasts will be Wolferman's English muffins, as I have a big supply in my freezer. Lunches will be leftovers from dinner.

So I think I am pretty well set. I am only working today and New Year's Eve this week, so I will have time for cooking and planning.

I had such an awful morning. I overslept, skipped my shower so I could catch the train, fell on the ice (raising a lump on my knee) and missed the train, the next train was cancelled. Then when I got downtown, there was a 40-minute wait before I could get a train to work. I got to work so late. But my co-worker gave me a plate of home-baked goodies which really brightened my day. Unfortunately I had just eaten a bagel which I got from Dunkin Donuts at the downtown station. I used the last bit of my DD gift card and only paid $2.32 for a bagel with cream cheese and coffee, but if I had only known I could have waited a bit.

I'm spending another $10 for lunch -- we are ordering in Chinese -- and I didn't want to left out. In fact, I'm looking forward to it very much! Oh, it's here! YUM!