One way to simplify meal planning is not to be home for dinner ever. I’m only half joking when I say that. I haven’t necessarily meant to do it but that’s what’s been happening lately!

The tag line for my blog is “living a frugal and fulfilling life.” The two can certainly go hand in hand, but there will be seasons when one adjective wins out more frequently than the other. It’s not frugal to eat out several times in a week, but it frees up space for fulfilling activities. (And often the food and the fulfilling activity are concurrent.)

This week, we’re going to a friend’s place on Tuesday for a Passover Seder. On Wednesday, we’re going on a belated anniversary date to eat at Barrelhouse and go see The Lion King at the Fox Theatre. Thursday is another meal at a friend’s place, and Friday is a friend’s birthday party. What?! That’s the whole work week right there, and only two dinners at home!

We’ve been running hard for the past few weeks, and it’s exhausting, but it’s also exhilarating. And, it makes my life much simpler to not feel like I have to make dinner happen at home. It’s much less stressful to just succumb to the rollercoaster and eat where it makes sense to, whether that’s at whatever social event or meetup we’re attending or whether it means grabbing something on the way to or from.

I’ve been spending a bit less on groceries accordingly, but definitely not as much less as we’ve been spending on convenience. And we’re okay with that for right now. It’s not worth it to be stubbornly frugal at the expense of your sanity.

I’d been trying to simplify dinners lately, so it’s kind of amusing that on the heels of that came these crazy, crazy weeks. Life is less simple in other ways, but dinner sure has been easy!

How do you cope with times when your schedule blows up? What’s your go-to convenience dinner?

I know you were wondering what on earth you were going to read on the Internet today. HAVE NO FEAR! A new feature is here. These are some of my favs from the web this week.

[On learning to avoid the trap of unnecessary perfectionism](http://unclutterer.com/2014/04/10/three-organizing-lessons-i-learned-30-years-ago/): *"...the story has since become my touchstone when I find myself veering back into unnecessary perfectionism. “Are you doing the river thing again?” I’ll ask myself."* I think I might adopt that.

Life is good for [the bookstore cat](http://www.bustle.com/articles/20375-12-bookstore-cats-who-prove-life-is-better-on-the-shelf). If only they could read.

Loving [this song ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8e5VTlzXgU) by Sarah Bareilles right now. *"We are not perfect / We'll learn from our mistakes / And as long as it takes / I will prove my love to you"*

[Vegetable alfredo pasta bake](http://www.budgetbytes.com/2014/04/vegetable-alfredo-pasta-bake/)...sounds like comfort food to me!

Making friends as an adult is hard. [I've written about it](http://unpunctuatedlife.com/making-friends/). And I keep finding more posts along the same lines. Erika's first of [nine reassurances](http://allthingseblog.com/making-friends-adult/)? "You are not alone."

A cute printable for your closet! ["Put on love."](http://www.viewalongtheway.com/2014/04/put-love-free-printable-controversial-stance-nudity/)

And finally, [new shoes](http://www.zappos.com/naturalizer-bromstad-ursela-paparazzi-pink-leather-tan-shiny?PID=4441350&Pub_Name=rewardStyle&AID=10273706&utm_source=2975314&zlfid=2) to add to my shopping list, thanks to [Sarah](http://www.yesandyes.org/).

My week in tweets:

What do you like to do on Sunday evenings to prepare for your week? I'm going to pack my lunch for tomorrow and prep the crockpot.

— Laura Lindeman (@lclindeman) April 6, 2014

belted dress feeling awfully constricting after eating lunch please send help

— Laura Lindeman (@lclindeman) April 10, 2014

Just having a jolly old afternoon changing passwords and re-logging into everything on my phone...you know, as one does.

— Laura Lindeman (@lclindeman) April 12, 2014

Follow me for more of the same. You know, wit, wisdom, and unparalleled beauty…

4 years ago today…

When you’re 21, you don’t know you’re 21. I’ve always been mature for my age, and I scoffed at the thought that we were “getting married so young.” I thought I knew what I was getting into. And in many ways, I did. But what a lifetime together means gets brought into stark relief when it’s four years later and you’ve both grown up a lot. I’ve given up on the cookie cutter I expected my life to be cut with. And it’s richer. It’s so much richer.

It’s dessert. I don’t need dessert, but it makes a meal more enjoyable. I like having someone to come home to. I like being the one who someone else comes home to.

Our first dance was to the Rob Thomas song “Little Wonders.” I hadn’t heard it in years until I listened to it while I wrote this post. Yet I can still understand exactly why I picked it. It still gives me the chills I got on our wedding day, swaying awkwardly in the middle of the big dance floor, these little wonders of the weighty words we had just exchanged.

Let it go,
Let it roll right off your shoulder
Don’t you know
The hardest part is over
Let it in,
Let your clarity define you
In the end
We will only just remember how it feels

Our lives are made
In these small hours
These little wonders,
These twists & turns of fate
Time falls away,
But these small hours,
These small hours still remain.

Marriage means making that promise over and over again, every time you change jobs, every time you move, every time you fight, every night you sleep together, every time you stress out over health insurance, every time you pack his lunch, every time you clean the bathroom.

Let it slide,
Let your troubles fall behind you
Let it shine
Until you feel it all around you
And i don’t mind
If it’s me you need to turn to
We’ll get by,
It’s the heart that really matters in the end

Our lives are made
In these small hours
These little wonders,
These twists & turns of fate
Time falls away,
But these small hours,
These small hours still remain.

Every time. We remain.

Going to a conference is exhausting! I was so far off my normal routine this past week. On Wednesday and Thursday I attended the Great Wide Open conference here in Atlanta. Then on Friday I traveled to Athens with two friends to volunteer as a coach at the Rails Girls Athens event. (Likely more on both of those later). Both were really good experiences, but man did I feel worn out by the time Sunday morning rolled around! It didn’t help that it was grey and dreary outside. I managed to get myself together to make the grocery list and meal plan as usual, because it does make such a difference once the work week starts, but I got in some good relaxing time as well. This week is shaping up to be a little crazy again, but I’ve come to embrace Laura Vanderkam’s conclusion that there are no typical weeks.

SUNDAY
leftover pizza

MONDAY
I have jury duty, so I have no idea whether I’ll be free to go to work for part of the day or whether I’ll be at the courthouse all day! Or if I’ll end up on a trial all week…eek!
creamy taco soup
chips and salsa
sliced avocado

TUESDAY
oven-roasted sausage and potatoes
salad

WEDNESDAY
pizza at the Atlanta Ruby Users Group

THURSDAY
Andy and I are going to an event near my work, so he’ll make his way there beforehand and we’ll grab dinner somewhere.

FRIDAY
hashbrown and sausage casserole
biscuits
fruit

SATURDAY
beef with broccoli
brown rice
frozen dumplings

What’s on your plate this week?

I know everyone always says the book is better than the movie. That may be true sometimes, but for me, the two complement each other. Having read the book enhances my experience of watching the movie. And in some cases, I almost feel like having read the book is necessary to understanding the movie!

Andy and I went to see the first Hunger Games movie when it came out, I having read all three of books and he having read none, and he had a lot of questions for me throughout the movie to clarify things. In fact, he was inspired to almost immediately read the book because the movie only served to pique his interest! (He got fed up with Katniss and never finished the trilogy, but that’s beside the point I’m making here.)

It’s also really fun to see how different characters and places are brought to life. Often it’s very different from how you’ve been picturing it in your head! A trivial example: along with many others, while I read the Harry Potter books, I thought one of the main characters was named “her-mee-own.” So imagine my surprise when I arrived in the theatre to hear everyone addressing “Her-my-oh-nee!” Sure, often things aren’t how you pictured them, or you don’t like the actor who was chosen to play the character you had a crush on in the book, but that keeps it interesting.

There’s also a sense of community in the movie theatre that you don’t get from sitting at home reading a book by yourself. You feel like you share a certain kinship with everyone else in the auditorium. To add a layer even on top of that, my book club has taken the opportunity a couple of times to read a book together just before a movie version comes out, and then go see the movie together. That way, we can talk about the movie and the book in tandem. We did it last May when The Great Gatsby came out, and this past Saturday we all went to see Divergent together. We were excited to see a preview for the movie of The Giver, and it’s likely we’ll read and go see that when it comes out in August!

Books and movies are just inherently different. I love getting lost in a book, savoring the language the author uses, and I find I become more invested in characters in a book than in a movie. But I also love getting swept up into a movie, carried along by the action, the settings, and the costumes. I’m more likely to cry at a movie than at a book. I’ll most likely always read the book first, but if I hear that a movie version is coming out you can bet I’ll be there. Some people are wary of watching the movie version of a book they loved, but comparing the two is half the fun for me.

The next book-to-movie adaptation coming out that I’m planning to see is The Fault in Our Stars. I’m already storing up stock of Kleenex to take with me…

Do you like seeing the movie versions of books you’ve read? What’s the best literary movie you’ve seen?