I am having crazybrain. Not the type where I think cats make for good eatin' or that the imaginary ants crawling on me would die if I suffocated them underneath a train, but the crazybrain that comes up with a new thing to do every three minutes or eighteen different budgets. Or makes me feel I am deprived and poor because I cannot buy a car, pay off my HELOC and have an emergency fund over $10K at the same time, while at the same time I eye the veal scallops at the meat counter thinking "say, I could afford that.."

Birthday boy flipped a coin last night to determine whether we go to the kinda pricey but delicious (and bad for my endocrine system) pizza, or if we go to the cheesy cheap family restaurant for his birthday. Happy to say the cheap family restaurant won out, so we went to a frozen custard place afterward. I had baked apple cookies and chocolate bars for his class, in lieu of a cake, so that saved us some $$ as well.

The craziness I believe is the binge-purge mania of my budget. I have some $ left over from the last payperiod, it gets divided into debt and savings. On the weekend we buy whatever, as long as we need it, and for the weekdays I either aim for no-spend days or I set a limit of $60, and divide what I don't spend that day on debt and savings. I feel I should work more at building up the cash reserves, but I argue with myself: do Savings Bonds count as cash reserves, or is it just money market account, savings accounts, and Certificates of Deposit? Then I think of my friend who is not paying off her HELOC but rather investing in the stock market, and I think but I have to diversify, and how can I do that when I have maybe less than $100 each month to give to: stocks, stock trading, retirement, etc. I am reminded that savings should never be the final or leftover item on the budget: I try to make it the first and last, seriously.

Our family agreed on the idea of having more vegetarian entrees more often. We still love meat, but more beany, legumy, tempeh and fungus dishes will help us make food faster and more cheaply, and then we can regard veal scallops and bay scallops as sweet luxuries. We did spend $107 at the meat counter in the Public Market today , right next to the world-famous Flying Fish dudes, then $113 at the supermarket for Halloween candy ($1.50 off), cat treats ($0.75 off), fish (one whole salmon plus 2 lbs dover sole), cheese, apples, juices, bread, butter, pretty much everything that was obviously a great deal that we regularly consumed). The $$ for the boy's field studies on the peninsula has been taken by the school, but $300 still remains on the VISA card and must be paid off in three weeks.

In addition, what is driving me crazy is seeing money go everywhere EXCEPT toward a newer car, and a better wardrobe for me. I have three pair jeans and one pair velvet pants. I tossed out two pairs of ratty shoes, a pullover and a cardigan that did not fit, and I did not give myself some $$ to check out the consignment and thrift shops for bigger, fluffier, less threadbare sweaters.

So if you wisely scrolled past all the diarrhea, I am looking for GOOD vegetarian cookbooks. I have _More with Less_ and _Feeding the Whole Family_ which have lots of veg. recipes, but want to see what is out there.

Oh yeah, I reduced my risk of breast cancer today by taking vitamin D3 and serving steamed chard for dinner with kielbasa and sauerkraut.