Today I had a dentist appointment.  I had to have 4 bitewing x-rays, and then had a cleaning and an exam.  Everything looks great, but there might be the start of a chip on one of the pointy bits of the tooth behind the incisor.  So we'll have to watch.  I wear a mouth guard, but I still grind my teeth like crazy.  It mitigates the damage, but doesn't always stop it.  Since there is a $50 deductible for the year, plus we have to pay for a portion of the bitewings, it ended up costing $88.  This comes out of our FSA debit card, which we are free to use up to the full amount for the year and they deduct pre-tax from DH's paycheck every payday through the year.

After that I came straight home and got here about ten minutes before my son's follow up appointment with the doctor.  Right now he is doing a blind study and ADHD meds.  Unfortunately they put them all in dark purple capsules so you can't see through them.  DS is allergic to dyes, so it is affecting him somewhat, regardless of whatever is in the capsule.  He is having to live on dye free Waldryl and we have to monitor him closely for the rest of the study in case he starts to have suicidal thoughts or violent mood swings.  The pills themselves, if he gets put on one, will be white.

It is so weird to see some of the issues arising from his past that had been cured by cutting artificial dyes and artificial sweetners out of his diet.  I think he must be on the placebo this week, though.  There is no increase in focus.  If anything, he is more spacey than usual.  And he's pacing a lot.  At least the placebos and actual drugs are gluten free so he doesn't have to deal with that on top of everything else.

The eat from the pantry challenge is still going great.  Tonight for dinner I made French Onion Chicken.  I haven't made it in a long time, but it is still as amazing as the first time I made it.  And while it is time-consuming, it is simple, and a lot of the wait time I was just on my computer so it went by pretty fast.  It is definitely not a set it and forget it meal.  But it was so yummy and I even dipped my broccoli in the broth, which added so much to it.

I did alter it slightly because I did not have Muenster or Gryere cheese.  I used Jarlsberg, because that is what I had on hand.  I thought I had Gryere and in a normal month I would have just sent DH to get some, but instead I made do.  The Jarlsberg gave it a slightly different, but nice flavor.

I cut up some extra onion while I was at it so there is about one onion's worth of slices in the fridge ready for some recipe later in the week.  I also had to shred the Jarlsberg for this recipe, so I went ahead and did a big brick of parmesan and a big wedge of Romano.  They have been in the fridge for a long time, so it was nice to use what I had and put it in a more accessible form for meals in the upcoming weeks.

We did do a little bit of grocery spending, though.  My husband got my daughter some Simply Cheetos and some Dietz and Watson deli ham and then 2 loaves of bread.  We agreed at the start of the challenge that bread was one of things we were going to buy and that we would allow a couple things for my daugher post surgery, so the ham and the Simply Cheetos were for her.  We've found that the Simply Cheetos quell her nausea.

The ham was just so she could get something easy without help from others if she woke up in the middle of the night and wanted to eat something.  She wakes up when the pain meds wear off and then likes to eat a little something with the pain pills so she is not taking them on an empty stomach.

That came to $24.24 of grocery spending so far this month.  I may end up spending another $25 this month, because we are out of oranges and I started the last head of lettuce and possibly milk.  We still have half a gallon and we don't really drink milk, we just use it in things or on cereal.  I really would like to be able to put $750 in the beef envelope out of a $800 monthly grocery budget.  Even $700 would make me very happy.