745am: I get up just long enough to let the dog outside to do his morning biz, see the kid is still conked out and crawl back into bed.

9am: I head to the local grocery store with the kid to forage for breakfast and food for a BBQ with our two best couple friends later that day. I return home with donuts, breakfast sandwiches, ice cream and apple pie. $24.89 I forgo my normal weekend activity (riding my leased horse out on private timber lands for endurance training) and instead tackle the overgrown garden the previous homeowners left behind.

145pm: I can already tell I’m going to hurt tomorrow! It’s been hours with the scattered “help” of kid & dog, but I can finally tell what’s growing in the garden, and the compost bin is full of weeds. I’ve discovered kale, corn, tomatoes, snap peas,  and some super happy summer squash. I post on a gardening FB page to “treat me like a newbie” and get tons of solid beginner advice to keep nurturing the garden now that I’ve unearthed it.

2:30pm: We pack up and head north for an early dinner with friends. We’re exhausted but the ribs and company more than make up for the long drive through summer construction traffic. We polish off three racks of homemade ribs between the seven of us (and the dog!) plus apple pie and hard cider I left in their fridge a few months ago.

630pm: A quick trip at Home Depot to secure gardening supplies; the first being a ton of mulch to protect the plants, as we’re looking into another, even hotter heat wave this week! We invest in watering timers for the front and back yards as well, plus a few other things we never had to worry about before. $147.55.

730pm: I can’t believe we’re all in the backyard (our backyard!) working in the cool of the evening after the week and busy weekend we’ve had, but here we are! The kid runs around barefoot playing with the dog while the husband sets up a sprinkler just for the garden and we both mulch and compost the plants. We seriously underestimated how much we’d need, so I have to find some more, hopefully more along the lines of “free” mulch, but it’s a start! I get the timers for the water set up, so I don’t have to remember to turn the sprinklers on every morning, and we’re all asleep super early. Kid complains that he needs another weekend day; I hear ya man!

Bills & utilities: $552

Household: $300.39

Food & drink: $183.34

Travel: $232.48

Gifts and other: $133.60