This marks the 10 week mark of the shopping hiatus. Since this, at the beach, series is pre-posted I can only tell you how well I did through Friday. Well, I did great. No real buys, just necessities for the beach like sunscreen. I must admit it will be very hard not to shop while on vacation. We are close to a Crewcuts and a J. Crew outlet so I can't see it going very well. The good news is that a very close friend gave me a visa gift card as a gift for my helping with the re.do of their home. It's almost done and I will be posting it soon. Anyway, what I did while not shopping was learn how to roast a chicken. I love the idea of being a brilliant cook, but that does not seem to be the case with me. My husband does the great majority of the cooking because I am really that bad.

This is my friend, who gave me the gift card, and I preparing our chickens. Easier than I thought it would be too. We actually were roomies in college way back when. I love that we remained friends.

This is that same friend stuffing her chicken with lemons.

These are the hands of our lovely instructor/friend chopping up the bread to make home made croutons. This was harder than I thought. I burned a few.

This is the three of us. I love having such amazing friends. The one in the middle finds out what her second child will be today! She married one of my good friends in college and she and I have become the best of friends over the years. Oh, and she is also an amazing cook and she is teaching us the wonders of her ways.

This is my completed project. Looks good, right? My family loved it all except the asparagus. I thought it was good, but I guess we will go back to broccoli for next time. Oh, and this was all served with brown rice, so over all this meal was very healthy.

Okay, so this really doesn't have to do with the beach, but it does have to do with the person who has given me money to shop while at the beach. Close enough. Besides I couldn't wait to share my new cooking adventure with all of you.