On Sunday, my wife and I decided to drive up to New York City to spend the day in Lower Manhattan, walking around Battery Park and cruising around New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty and the surrounding waterways. It was a beautiful day in the Big Apple, a sunny and breezy 73 degrees – simply amazing weather for a July day in the Northeast. I couldn’t pass up the chance to be out on the water with my family enjoying such perfect conditions, so we made the drive (in record time – one hour and forty five minutes from driveway to parking garage) and spent a good six hours living like city folk. While there we all got a good workout walking for a couple hours along the Hudson River, the best kind of exercise for me – I could walk that city for days.
Yesterday was the first day in months, it seems, that I did not spend a penny on food at work. No chocolate milk from the vending machines, no soft pretzel from the cafeteria, nothing at all! I felt quite good about that small accomplishment. I also felt good about surprising my wife at home during lunch. I whipped her up a big salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, shredded carrots and a scoop of tuna salad on top. I also hung out with our one month old for a bit, allowing the Mrs. to enjoy a relaxing mid-day shower. Yeah, I was super-husband on Monday (I like that role every now and again, to remind my wife why she decided to marry me). For dinner, I was forced to come up with something from basically nothing since we once again had no real food in the house (since we spent the entire weekend out, we never went food shopping). I made scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese, diced ham, red peppers and Vidalia onion, serving that with pita bread perfect for making little sandwiches. Quite good! As faithful readers of my writing over in the Families.com Fun Blog section would know, we love breakfast for dinner – my gang tends to fall back on breakfast food at night at least once a week.
Unfortunately, Tuesday did not start out as well. I stopped at the French bakery near my daughter’s school and picked up a croissant and had lunch out with an old friend. I had a fairly healthy soup/salad/half a sandwich combo at a locally owned, sit down restaurant. I spent almost $20 on lunch and the post-lunch ice cream cone we decided to splurge on. The whole not spending money on food thing was just like the Chocolate Oreo ice cream – good while it lasted!
Dad’s Losing It articles are published every Saturday and Tuesday. Follow Jeff’s journey during the rest of the week in the Dad’s Losing It Forum. In the Forum, Jeff discusses his individual workout routines and soundtracks, among other tidbits and musings from the week.
Jeff is a Family Fun blogger. Read more of his posts here.