market day

it's a new month... which means it's time for a new grocery envelope.



original artwork credited to MGB. one of the comments we've gotten repeatedly about this part of our financial plan is people's uncertainty about carrying envelopes with cold hard cash in them. it's not horribly structured or anything... we have a grocery envelope, an entertainment envelope, a restaurant envelope, and an envelope for presents for people with birthdays, weddings, and baby showers in October. oh, and a Christmas envelope we add to every month. most other things we handle via debit card, online payment, etc. I've never been scared about carrying cash vs. debit card, even before we met Mr. Ramsey... I actually prefer cash, as it tends to save time. one of the things I hope to teach any future children I may have is to always carry some cash... you never know when you'll need it, but if you need to pay to park/take the toll road/pay back a friend/pitch in for the check/give it away/etc. you'll be glad you have it. the nice thing about the envelope system is that you know exactly what you're budgeting/spending - once the envelope is empty, you're done. or you play the 'raid other envelopes' game. :)

LB met up with us this morning to head out to grocery shop... we hadn't seen her in awhile, and in addition to enjoying her company we needed to do a bit of shopping for her upcoming birthday dinner (Mom, yours is almost here, too!). we started the day at t'afia:




sampling local cheeses:

the guy over there on the other side of this curtain is local and makes THE BEST andouille sausage! holy smokes, it's very very special. and currently in our freezer.

next door to him was the local Indian food booth. part of us going back to t'afia this week with our brand new grocery envelope was to nab the andouille and the refrigerated chicken samosas. so flipping good.

up next was Canino's, where M's brother M joined us (there he is, in the blue shirt):

everything was so pretty, I just wanted to take pictures of it.

spices, spices galore:

tamale fixin's, spicy cinnamon sticks, and peppers everywhere:

this guy said he'd picked his oranges a couple of days ago... they didn't look so hot, frankly, but who are we to not buy local oranges offered in October?!

as is evidenced in above photos, so many of the vendors sell the same produce that they all seem to be vying for the title of 'prettiest display'. who wouldn't want these gorgeous, artistically positioned carrots?! except you can't split them up... and that's a lot of carrot for two people.

since we've been baking our own bread the last few weeks, I was happy to find this local wheat flour, for a very reasonable price. you should've seen the selection of dried beans.

we left Canino's and went to Central Market to do a bit more shopping... as posted on CS's comments, I can't wait to break out the Pumpkin Spice decaf. upon arriving home, we talked about how we still sometimes experience a bit of sticker shock at CM... we know why we're buying certain things there and we're choosing to do it on principle (organic/fair trade/free-range/local/etc), but it's still an adjustment and balancing act. for example, my organic maple syrup... made of 100% pure maple syrup... is SO much more expensive that the old Aunt Jemima Lite with it's crazy list of fructosed cellulose sodium hexametaphosphate.

what I'm mostly thinking about at the moment, though, is the truly astounding amount of food I've seen (and tasted) today, and about how there are places where so many are struggling to find enough food to eat. not that there aren't people in the U.S. who struggle with feeding themselves, but this girl is in a place most of us can only imagine. her blog has a link for donations but if you'd like to do something extra to help that ministry check out this blog (see her latest post, plus her initial post about katie on 9/15). thanks, Jenn @ buildingmommymuscles, for making me aware of both of those blogs.

I've got to go work on scarves.

-m.y.