Week 1-Buy Nothing-visit to home state

Crunchy Chicken requested that we make Sunday confessionals. Mine is late because I was traveling this week-end.
CONFESSION: I bought, at a Game Stop in a mall, a video game for my sister that she picked out. It was a used game so I feel ok about that. She also picked out a silver pillow at JC Penny for her new bed set. I had thought about not buying her stuff and teaching her a lesson but she will be turning 12 and I don't see her often so I just wanted to spoil her.
I do feel good that I wanted some more hemp lotion from Body Works and passed it up.
Note: I didn't purchase anything from April1-3

Crunchy Chicken commented on the stance of eating out for the challenge so I'll post my eating out as well. Crunchy commented that there was no specific rule but it should depend on if your goals are to buy less to reduce waste or save money. I didn't have a goal, I just thought this would be a neat challenge. I always try my best to reduce the amount of waste when eating out. I usually travel with my own coffee mug but this was a Fri-Mon trip and I didn't want to bring too much stuff.

Friday I flew into Home State and City for my Grandma's 70th Birthday Party.
Friday morning I purchased a muffin-no bag just tissue-, and a coffee at the airport. In fact I brought my own coffee cup to this shop before and the women said they weren't allowed to use a customers cup. I should write the management. Bloody Mary on airplane. I have these free coupons for Southwest and well, I was going to visit my family. I also indulged in some free crackers. I didn't take any more drinks. On the flight back I had coffee twice, but I asked and they reused my cup. Yeah! but she gave me a new stir stick. I didn't have any plane snacks on the way back.

When arriving in home state my other grandma came to pick me up. I was a little upset because I had told her ahead of time that my plan was to go to her house and work, that I didn't have a lot of time to visit. But, in the car she told my grandpa to call my uncle to see if they were home so we could visit. I told them I had a lot of work to do and didn't want to stay long, and we didn't. Then we stopped by a Quizno's for lunch. Grandma bought and we ate there. THEN my grandma tells me that her sister is having a bday party and asks if we could go there for dinner tonight. I reluctantly say ok because her sister is less than half a mile down the road from my grandma's house but when we get to my grandma's house I learn the party is somewhere else, about 30 mins away. Oh well. I get a few hours of work done at grandma's and I actually was pretty productive on the plane. The party was fun I don't usually see this side of the family. We got home too late for me to work anymore.

Saturday I woke up at 7am and went for a short walk with Grandma. She lives on about 5 acres of land and all the homes near by have a similar amount of property. The neighbors have mules, sheep and an emu. Then I got a few more hours of work done and grandma made her famous blueberry pancakes. They have become more healthy over the years. When I was young we use to put blueberry pie mix and whip cream on top of pancakes. Now she puts fresh or frozen blueberries in the pancakes and I pass up on the whip cream. I get a little more work done until my mom and sister pick me up at noon.
They take me to where the party will be and I helped decorate and set up. I had a little bit of down time so I worked some, but I forgot to recharge my laptop so I only had half a battery on my flight home-which made me sad.
My mom, sister and I drove down to a grocery store and bought lunch. We got a salad for my aunt, my mom and sister got Chinese food in a Styrofoam looking container and I got a sandwich from the deli. My mom bought and we didn't get a plastic bag when we checked out.
I had a lot of fun at the party. It was good to see family.

Sunday was the day we went to the mall, in addition to my confession I bought grandma (who turned 70), mom, sister and myself Starbucks. For lunch we went to a restaurant, my mom and grandma split the bill. We all too home leftovers. The boxes had recycle 7's (or 6's) on the bottoms so I'm not sure what the material was.
Then I we went to my cousins house who has a one year old. I stayed with him for the rest of the day and my mom and sister drove back to their town, about 150 miles away. My cousins little girl walked for the first time that day. My cousin didn't know what to do about telling the baby's mom. Mom stays home during the week and is a EMT driver on sat/sun. What are the odds that her baby would take her first steps when she is at work. I told my cousin that he had to tell her when she got home, so he did, he showed her. They are such a great family.

Ok-so that's my confession and a synopsis of my trip. I leave this Thursday for dissertation town so I'm sure I'll be eating out a bit but I don't plan on any other purchases. I'd like to buy something for my godson but he is pretty spoiled and his mom told me that we should stop buying gifts for each other on bdays and xmas so we can save money to fly around and visit each other.