March Goals / February Goal Review

Better late than never? I thought so, too.

February Goal Review

Eating Better: We've really slipped up on sugar intake. But we are getting back on track.
Eating Better: I haven't succeeded in getting DH to eat very many fermented foods.
Eating Better: Figured out what I was doing wrong with my yogurt. Yay! It was perfect last batch.

Finances / Eating Better: My garden progress is pretty pathetic. I've started a few seeds indoors, but I really need to get my peas started pronto! As in yesterday. Hoping to do that this week.
Finances: I kept a better eye on our budget. And I definitely used Mint.com weekly to help me succeed in that. Yes! For February we came in $3 under both eating out and grocery budget. After a month or two of struggling, this felt great!

Personal: I really did clean out the closet! What, you can't tell? But I did...
Personal: I did this... But my better system sits in the kitchen at this moment chock full. So full the lid doesn't close anymore. Sad.
Personal: Driving did not happen this month. I don't know what to do about this.
Personal: Posture. Ha. Funny.
Personal: I did not really do much brainstorming about simpler meals to do, but I did find a couple by accident. Wait, scratch that. I found at least 3 meals that are fairly quick to prepare which I have added to my repertoire. My subconscious did this without me even trying. Eat it! (I did. It was good).

House: We decided not to get a house right now. A lot of my friends are getting one and I really, really want one, but DH and I talked about it and we decided it's much better financially to pay off our debt first... And that leads me to our goal with which we are replacing our "buy a house" goal.


March Goals / New Yearly Goal

Revised Year Goal

Debt: Pay down 16.5k in debt by Christmas. This will be between 1/3 and 1/2 of our debt. I am really excited. We just sunk our 5k we had saved up for housing expenses into it, so that leaves 11.5k to go. Bring it, debt. I will own your a$$.


March Goals

Eating Better: Get better about DH packing lunches / meals to work so he eats good, hormone-free, junk-free food even at work. This also applies to my weight loss goal for DH. Yay.
Eating Better: Eat wild-caught fish or liver once a week. (Dreaming, probably)
Eating Better: If my book on raw milk ever gets here, read it and talk DH into switching. :)

Financial / Eating Better: start the rest of my seeds.
Financial: Continue vigilance on budget. Any time I can come under budget in a category, that means faster debt payoff which means less time until we get a house.

Personal: I'm really discouraged in this area, so I'm only posting 1 goal. Follow Project Simplify's weekly projects to whip my apartment into shape. I only found out about it today which means I am a week behind, but since I am almost done with all my homework for the week, I'll be able to do last week's project tomorrow and then have the rest of the week for the current week. I am really excited about this.




PS, our auto insurance almost cut itself in half now that we've hit the 6 month mark of having insurance with a "real" insurance company. More dollars to go towards debt!

I Might Have a Small Problem

I think I like food a little too much. I realized it today. I look forward to menu-planning time. I get excited about what new things I will make. I'm eagerly anticipating the Spring when I will start my crazy process of growing my own food on my balcony. While I'm eating one meal, I think about how to use my leftovers for something else new and interesting (or I'll be excited that I'll have leftovers of the same thing to eat again!).

Today, I am dreaming what I will do with the 2lbs of chopped butternut squash I have sitting in my fridge from Monday's cooking adventure. I am also enjoying leftovers from said Monday adventure for my dinner, actually. I really wasn't expecting to like squash this much.

I found some good ideas from Whole Food's blog here. I'm thinking of doing their soup or their not-salad-even-though-it-sounds-and-looks-like-one option they suggested. Honestly I might have to freeze some of because it's just so much food. But after reading how long they can last before you cut them if you leave them in a cool dark place, I am also thinking of buying a few more before the season is over so I have them for a while. It's really high quality food.

I'm thinking I'm going to come up with something really tasty and bring it as a dish to family thanksgiving. This also gives me an excuse to buy more squash. I'm thinking of buying 3 or 4. Is that excessive? 2 for our own consumption, and 2 for thanksgiving cooking (I have 2 families so one for each).

I Survived my Insane Week

Hello everyone,

Updates About my Life
I just wanted you to know, I am still alive.
I turned in my homework on time and got a B. Not bad considering.
I got my big project done for work (except clean up) by my deadline of today.

Food / Menu Planning / Stuff
I've made my menu plan for next week so I can go shopping tomorrow.

I think I will still come in under / at budget even with all the crazy extra things we bought, because I focused on using up a lot of pantry food I've been avoiding.

Overall, not a bad week, from what I can remember--just insanely busy! I still managed to get by with NO food waste. And I finally found a recipe I liked to use some of the sauerkraut I made forever ago. I was terrified it turned out wrong and I would die if I ate it (ok, not really) but I tasted it today after it's been chillin' in the fridge for a few months now and it tastes decent. I am going to use it in some kind of random casserole recipe I found. I'll let you know how it turns out.
I'm still having a hard time sometimes hitting my goal of at least one, preferably two meatless meals per week. This week I only have one planned.
On the other hand, I am getting better about using less meat in the food I do cook.

Other Random Undertakings
I'm making croutons this weekend.
I'm making my first big batch of yogurt this weekend.
I'm actually going to check my bank account to figure out exactly how much I've spent on groceries this month before I go shopping tomorrow, just to make sure I'm doing ok.
I started my compost bin today! I don't have enough stuff in it yet. I'm thinking about asking the grounds crew where I work if they have any yard trimmings I can have. As I live in an apartment, it's going to be hard for me to enough "browns" for my bin.
I also transplanted some of my tree seedlings to bigger containers, and while I was doing so, i found two little seeds sprouting in my bag of dirt I bought from Home Depot the other day. So I planted them, too. What the heck, right? It's not like it's going to be a strain of super-plant that will take overtake my entire apartment building and then the world, right? Can't be...

Daydreaming of Spring... Already!

How sad is that?

It's scarcely Fall, my favorite season, mind you, and I'm already pining for Spring. To be honest, I think it's because I'm so excited to garden this Spring. Reading everyone's wonderful Fall posts about their harvests has made me even more aware of my burning wish to have a garden. I've already gotten my pots for my balcony garden. I've priced out my dirt. I've been reading about compost bins and different veggies.

One of the things I want to do with this garden is keep track of how much I'm spending, and the kind of yield I'm getting. I want to know, am I really saving money, and is it enough to be worth the countless hours I will be sinking into it. I am hoping to be able to increase our veggie consumption, while spending a lot less to do it. If possible, I want to grow organic seeds, without the use of fertilizers and pesticides.

So far, these are the things I'm thinking about growing.

Spinach
Carrots
Tomatoes
Bell Peppers
Hot Peppers
Pumpkins (just for fun / ambitiously, pumpkin pie?)
Broccoli
Garlic (just for fun?)
Herbs? Like maybe basil

We eat a lot of broccoli, so I definitely want to grow that. I dearly love spinach, but it's kind of pricey ($3 / package). We eat a LOT of carrots. I use tomatoes in all kinds of stuff. I want to grow a lot and can them, but I don't know if I'll be able to find a cheap pressure canner or not. Bell peppers--we chop these up and freeze them and we use a LOT of them. We both love a good kick to our sauces / pastas / soups, so hot peppers would be a natural extension of that.

I'm also trying to grow several trees, mostly for the heck of it, but also eventually I would like to have my own fruit trees for some things. these seeds I am using now I got from inside the fruit I bought at Walmart, so I realize these are not high quality and, to be honest, the seedlings are struggling right now, but it's mostly for learning so that later, if I buy organic fruit seeds, I will know how to take good care of them. Plus, if a few of these seeds actually make it past the pathetic stage they are in now, maybe they will eventually produce good fruit? Ok, so I'm dreaming... Anyway.

I've been pricing out organic seeds and it's really not that much more expensive than non-organic. A small package of organic spinach seeds is about $4 online, compared to I think a package at Walmart is about $1.20. For either package of spinach seeds tho, I am getting enough spinach for the entire year (freezing, canning, eating fresh). So, while it is about 3x more expensive, compared to $3 for one medium-sized package of spinach, both are really good deals. Why not invest pennies more per pound and get a much better product?

What do you think? do you have any advice for my container gardening? What veggies would you recommend? Do you know of any places to find a cheap pressure canner?

What I do when I'm Bored

I have no reason to be bored. At all. I've been running around like crazy since school started (first time I've been in classes in 2.5 years). but for some reason, that just isn't enough to keep me occupied (ha! I'm insane), so I've started saving seeds from my fruits and learning how to make them germinate.

So far, I have 3 granny-smith apple seeds and 2 lemon seeds that have all sprouted and just got moved to their dirt homes just within the past day or two. Also, I'm trying to grow an avocado pit. I have more seeds still incubating including more lemon seeds and some other type of apple that I forget. I also "seasoned" 3 honeylocust seeds, but I don't know if it worked or not. As soon as I seasoned them, the instructions I found online said to plant them right away. So I put 3 in one pot and I am waiting to see if any take root. Ugh, suspense.

I am going to need more dirt and more pots I think.

PS, speaking of seeds, if you are looking to grow awesome tomatoes, check out this website! It's so much fun.