I like to make Stir-Fried Green beans every year at about this time if I have access to garden-grown green beans. The recipe is in the More With Less Cookbook, and it's a tasty way to use a pound of green beans for a dinner. You can use the large-but-not-yet-woody/rubbery green beans for this dish and it comes out well. Green bean gardeners, you know what I'm talking about. Those beans seem to come around later in the season after you've already eaten your weight in small tender beans. You don't really want to throw them away, but they just aren't as good (in my opinion anyway) as the smaller beans.

We visited our farm friends this past weekend, and they gave us about 7 pounds of green beans. I froze five pounds, used one pound for Stir-Fried Green Beans and still have a pound in the fridge.

One slight. . . issue with this dish is that the green beans must be julienned. (Julienned? Is that a word?) That means cut in long skinny pieces. My mom has a gadget that will do this. I don't have that gadget and it takes 30-45 minutes for me to cut them by hand.

The recipe calls for 1/4 pound of beef chuck (steak, I'd guess). I used 1/2 pound of a steak that was given to my husband's work at Christmas time (it's been frozen since then - not in the fridge!). I served this with brown rice for an inexpensive and good-tasting meal.

After a blogging break I'm going to get back at it.

Daisy has gone to "away school" for the first time and we are all adjusting. She seems to be enjoying it though. The school's quite a distance from our house; some of the fun for her is the carpooling arrangement with four of her friends. At this time I'm not planning to go back to paid employment, but if she goes to "away school" next year I will look into it.

Mr H and I continue on. . . business as usual in many respects. Here is a sample conversation:

Me: Today I bought shoes and books. I will pay for them out of the money my mom gave me. (** Unlike many women I don't buy many shoes. I have problem feet and have found only one brand, besides sneakers, that is comfortable. They last well, but cost over $100 per pair. I bought three pairs of shoes and spent over $300.)

Mr H: Why are you telling me this?

Me (inwardly sighing): I spent a significant amount of money and want to keep you informed.

We have had a few conversations about budgets over the summer but there was no discussion as to how money would be spent in September. Unfortunately it looks like we're back into our monetary free-for-all. I'm going to think about strategies to help this situation. Big, sweeping changes and sitting down to have a budget conversation every month. . . don't look promising. Little conversational "hits" every couple of days look like they'll have more effect.