Chat GPT Could Never | How Much Did I Spend Last Week? May 15-21, 2023

Remember when I wrote about what was wrong with America, and I included chicken salad as one of those things? Well, as predicted, I have changed my mind. I have tasted the mayonnaisey, perfectly rounded scoops of chicken salad from the newly opened Chicken Salad Chick and I am now a fan. Give me a few weeks – as I wait for it to be added to Doordash – and I’d say we’ll be able to upgrade “fan” to “addict”.

Also, I know I deleted Doordash a few weeks ago. I truly had the best of intentions! But maybe life is too short to live without takeout food, have you ever thought about that?!

Monday

Another week, another Monday – which means Atlas is off to daycare for the morning and I have a looong to-do list to get through while he’s gone.

He wakes up at around 8am and we go downstairs and have breakfast – toast, strawberries and some grated cheese for him, and baked oatmeal for me, made by my beloved husband (because he finished the batch I made last week without even telling me).

Weirdly, the baby doesn’t like the baked oatmeal and I had convinced myself that it was because of the texture – “I think maybe he has some sensory things around food,” I said, knowledgeably – before realising that he will literally eat fistfuls of guacamole with his hands so, you know, maybe he just doesn’t like it.

I drop him off with little to no drama today; there are a few tears as I hand him over, but Robin reports back that he’d stopped crying within minutes.

Then I’m back home to get to my to-do list: I have a few content pieces to get started and finished, some book publishing stuff to follow up on and I’m also finishing editing tomorrow’s podcast.

I pick Atlas up at 12.30pm and he goes straight down for his nap when we get home. He has his lunch at daycare at 11.30am and we get a little report card every day letting us know what he’s eaten (or not eaten). Let me tell you, he’s a big fan of toasted cheese, but his peas almost always end up mushed and discarded (possibly not a sensory thing but who knows).

He’s awake at around 3.30pm and I give him some crackers and yogurt puffs before heading to Kroger ($111.61) to get some groceries before we pick up the boys from their mum’s. I’m also on the lookout for some eye drops or stye treatment as my eye is getting redder by the minute, having started to give some tell-tale stye signs yesterday morning.

The pharmacist tells me just to do hot compresses and lubricating eye drops, which I guess is cheaper than whatever stye stuff I was looking for, and, according to her, just as effective.

After we pick the boys up we head over to Bea’s for a swim, but we’re a bit later than I thought so it’s almost 5pm by the time we get there, and the sunny day has got distinctly less sunny, so we decide not to swim which, as you can imagine, goes down really well.

It’s late when we leave, so I swing by McDonald’s ($23.07) to get dinner for myself and the boys (Brandin opts out, the fool) on the way back while he takes them straight home, then it’s time for baths and bedtime, which also, as you can imagine, goes down really well.

Daily total: $134.68