Money, Money, Money, MONEY… MON-NAY January 17, 2010

Believe it or not, this is not me.

I made a few mistakes over the last few months, and my bank account is suffering. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in dire straits, but I prefer to have a FAR bigger cushion than I currently have.  That’s why I’ve decided (after a wonderful party last night that was totally worth it) to not spend money until the end of February.

I’m allowed to spend money under four circumstances and five circumstances only:

1. Bills
2. Grocery
3. Gas for truck (so I can get to work and earn money, duh)
4. Fast food ONCE in Jan and ONCE in Feb.
5. Snow pants

The first three are fairly self-explanatory.  #4 is for a couple reasons…  I’ll be eating (supposedly) healthier.  It will also challenge me to make sure I’m not being lazy.  It means bringing food to work, even when I don’t have dinner leftovers. In the meantime, I think I need to be coming up with as many brown rice recipes as possible, because if The Hippy isn’t around, I ought to be eating the uber healthy and filling things that I can’t get away with sharing with The Hippy.

#5 is probably most baffling.  You see, I have no snow pants.  But I NEEEEEED snow pants.  I need them before winter is up so that I might do awesomely free activities such as ice skating and sledding.  I would preferably like to get them ridiculously cheap, because, well, duh.  But I need them.  I’ve actually even toyed with the idea of making them, but I’d have to make sure I can get an amazing deal on the fabrics.  Actually, if I wanted to go that route, this weekend would be a really good time to do it…. 50% off coupons!

In regards to #2, I have been thinking about doing at least some of my shopping at Aldi’s.  For some reason I’m scared, even though I’ve heard really great things.  I almost feel like I need someone to hold my hand!  Help!  Any tips?

The dinner bell tolls, and it tolls for me to use my oven squirrel to retrieve my Shepherd’s Tot Pie (recipe sometime this week).

Oh my life is so boring… February 12, 2009

I wanted to blog the other night.  I’m pretty sure I had something incredibly important to say, but I might have wanted to extoll the virtues of Cheese Sauce.  Alas, I was without internet, and therefore unable to post.  Granted, I was without internet partially by choice.  I neglected to tell The Hippy it wasn’t working, and I also neglected to poke around on our network computer to see if the password was saved.  I still don’t know, to be honest, because sometimes I really need a reason to keep the computer turned off.

So instead I sewed a little (will blog about that later) and decided I would take up yoga.  I’ve had a beginners yoga video for years that I got at a thrift store.  I’m pretty sure I saw the screen that told me I would need props and said “screw this.”  But I decided there was no time like the present, props be damned.  As it turned out, I could have used the props, but I just improvised.  I may or may not look into a block, but it may also be that I scrounge around the house until I find something block-like.

Proud Warrior--harder than it looks...

I thoroughly enjoyed yoga.  Way more than I ever thought I would.  I would truly like to keep it up, simply because I have longed to be flexible my entire life.  I like to think it will also help my posture.  And it can’t hurt my bowling.  I’m blogging right now when I should be doing yoga and ball exercises–I only have so much time before The Hippy comes home and laughs at me for exercising.  But the house was too cold, and I was getting too hungry.  I will.  I promise.

But first, I still need to extoll the virtues of cheese sauce.  I made my very first cheese sauce last week.  I’ve never been one to shy away from a gastronimical challenge, so I certainly wasn’t going to allow myself to be daunted by a cheese sauce.  And I’m so glad I didn’t!  I followed this recipe and used brown rice instead of pasta.  I also used frozen peas and broccoli.  And I ate the whole damn thing myself.  Over the course of a few days, natch.  The Hippy doesn’t know what he missed.  He wasn’t home for dinner, and he has an irrational fear of leftovers.  Which works well for me.  I don’t have to make lunches anymore!

Mmmm… Cheese sauce.  (Seriously, given my love of nacho cheese, why are we surprised I loved this recipe?  Hmm, now I want a cheesy double beef burrito……..)

Why do I bother? January 30, 2009

I decided not to buy groceries this week because, well, I just didn’t want to.  That means dinner was anything I could scrounge…  Meatloaf sandwich, frozen pizza (I don’t know why I love Jack’s Pizza so much, but I could have eaten a whole one the other night), and canned food stuffs.

Last night The Hippy told me my dinner was really good.  He repeated it again this morning.  What was dinner?  Brown rice and Hormel Turkey Chili with Beans, topped with Cub brand Colby/Jack cheese.  Actual amount of time cooking was less than 10mins.  The rice cooked while I was in the shower.

Remind me again why I cook real meals?