Money Woes

Lately I've had to fight the urge to spend money frivolously. All I want to do is go to the grocery store and buy steak, fancy cheese, good wine, some avocados. Heck, I really just want to buy some turkey and provolone and make a sandwich. After that, I want to go to the local mall and buy about 4 dresses, new shoes, and new jeans. All stuff I don't "need" at all I just "want"

The truth is, I wish I was above these selfish feelings. When I look around me, I see people who make it with so much less than I have. They didn't grow up with the luxuries that I have had and they don't have the emotional and financial support from their families that I have always had. I am only human though, so it's natural to have some selfish desires.

After 10 months of this however, I am just tired. I'm burnt out. I am getting so tired of being on such a tight budget. The reality I have to face though, is that I am going to be on a tight budget for awhile. Maybe not as tight, and maybe not for the next decade. But realistically, I will have to budget tightly for some time. For comfort, I keep telling myself that all of this budgeting and stressing about money will make me appreciate money when I have it. It will make me be smart with money when I have it. If I can make the little money I'm making now stretch so far, I will be able to make more money stretch even farther.

I just hope that's true and that this experience will truly prove to be as beneficial as I want it to be.

End of the School Year

Last Thursday was the final week of school. It was really sad for me. It's making me realize how little time I have left down here. I also know how much I'm going to miss the kids and I'm realizing how much of an impact they have made on me.

Here's a picture of the last day of school, which also happened to be 5th grade graduation.



Eccence, Me, Natayshia, Shaumarie


Now that it's summer I am still working at the school. Except now I am answering phones in the front office. I miss the kids a lot! My job is not as much fun. I need to be challenged to be happy and excited for work and I don't have that right now. It's only temporary though. I also picked up a babysitting job for every Monday and Wednesday night for this adorable 2 year old girl. So I have been keeping busy.

I may have outdid myself with how stingy I made this months grocery shopping. I have Fridays off now so I had the time to go to a bunch of different grocery stores to do my shopping. Luckily, most of the grocery stores are really close to it's not a huge deal.

First I went to Bi-lo. I had to get olive oil because I am a HUGE spaz and dropped an entire new bottle on the floor the other day. Gahh
But it was originally $9.96, it was on sale for 3 dollars off, then I had a dollar off coupon, so I ended up paying 5.49 for a huge thing of olive oil.
Then apples were by one get one free so I got two bags for $4.00
I also got cottage cheese, on sale for $2.00

Total -$11.47

Then I went to the bread outlet and got my english muffins for $1.80

Then I went to Publix where I just got
Ego Waffles - 2.99

I had a target coupon and Publix will take competitors coupon so I only paid $1.99

Total - $1.99

After that, I went to Food Loin
Lean Cuisines were on sale for $1.99. I got 4 of them and used a coupon I had for $1.00 off - $7.00
Then I got Kraft 100 calorie cheese cubes. They were on sale for 2.79 and used a coupon for a dollar off- $1.79
Then I got a skinny cow ice cream cup- They were 1.25 and I had a dollar off coupon.. so I got it for 25 cents

The total was $9.00


So I think I did pretty good. I also cooked some pulled chicken in the crock pot today. The recipe for that is-


1 cup canned tomato sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
2 tbsp. plus 2 tsp. brown sugar
2 tbsp. plus 2 tsp. cider vinegar
2 tsp. garlic powder
red pepper flakes

mixed the above in the crock pot. Then I halved four pieced of raw chicken (that I had bought a couple of months ago on sale...) and coated them in the sauce. Put it in the crock pot for 7 hours, shredded the chicken with a fork, then put back in the sauce.

It's sooooo good!

Field Day!

Today was the last full day of school. It was also Field Day. In my opinion, Field Days are one of the most fun days of the year. Even a thunder storm couldn't ruin the fun of today! I really had a wonderful day watching the kids play and compete against eachother. One teacher put it best when she said to me "It's so nice to hear such happy sounds in the hallway on a rainy Tuesday..."



Rajon and Me




Indoor Field Day = Improvising at its finest




Some 4th grade girls being silly

Black Bean Burgers

So in an effort to use ingredients I already had I decided to make homemade black bean burgers. It's something I've wanted to do for awhile, I was just a little intimidated. I looked at a few different recipes online and then just kinda winged it from what I had on hand. This is basically what I did:

1. Cooked brown rice
2. Drained a can of black beans and smashed them with the back of a spoon (This took forever.. there has to be a better way!)
3. Sauteed an onion, a couple cloves of garlic till they were brown. I seasoned it with cayenne pepper, more garlic, oregano and basil.
4. Lastly I added a cup of the brown rice and the onion/garlic mixture to the bowl of smashed beans. Then I just mix it as thoroughly as I could.



This is what it looked like


It wasn't staying together too well so I tried to refrigerate it for 20 mins to see if that would help. I made a ball in the shape of a burger and cooked it on the stove top with some olive oil. All seemed fine until I tried to flip it and it just completely fell apart. I just kept trying to put it back together as best as I could but it wouldn't really hold the shape.

I still ate that "burger" on an english muffin with tomato and some homemade bbq sauce, and though it was messy, it still tasted really good.

To try to salvage the problem for the remaining mixture I mashed up a bunch of ritz crackers and made "bread crumbs" and then made five more balls out of the mixture and froze it. I'm hoping the combination of the crackers and cooking from frozen will keep them together.

So all in all, it tasted good and I didn't have to go out and buy anything I didn't have so I am going to say it was a success. However, I didn't feel confident enough to bring them to the Memorial Day BBQ I was going to that night which was sort of the original plan. Next time I'm going to try to drain the beans better. I also need to figure out a better way to smash them without some fancy food processor.

I'll still enjoy them today for "Meatless Monday" which I almost forgot about since it's Memorial Day!!


Update** They were delicious the next day. Not sure if it was the freezing or the crackers that did it, but they held together perfectly the next day. I made mini burgers and ate them open on top of a toasted english muffin with salsa and hot sauce. Great Success!

My horoscope

Well, I was thinking that I would write a long post about this week and how emotional it's been, but then I saw my horoscope. I'm not a huge believer in this kind of stuff, however, this particular horoscope I read in the morning and it's scary accurate (sometimes...) So this was mine this morning-

Leo
By Rick Levine
It's one of those days when you are hyper-aware of the difference between the events in your life and your inner processing. You understand what's appropriate now and are able to move through a situation without having to bring up what's troubling you. Keeping conversations simple is a good idea. The fewer words you say, the less likely you'll open a can of worms.


Hmm. I better save my thoughts :)

I'm just walkin'

I found this blog this morning. It's written by a guy who is walking from New York to Oregon. It's really interesting and reminded me of a similar adventure that my friend Carl's brother went on. His brother biked from Seattle to upstate New York I think.

Anyway, this guy just really loves to walk and just kinda hit a 20 something crisis where he didn't know what he was doing with his life. So, he came up with this idea as a way to recharge. I can relate in the way that when I need to recharge or clear my head I like to go on long walks. I could never do this though!

http://imjustwalkin.com

K wang wit it

I promise a more indepth update later, but to give ya'll a good laugh I'm posting the dance that I'm doing with 10 other teachers tomorrow for the reading celebration. Reading Celebration is an all day carnival for the students who read 25 books all year. And know that the kids who don't read their books (and do book reports) on time stay inside and do homework. For real. There's a bunch of things going on, and part of it is some dances that the teachers do.

The dances we are doing are a step, Mary J Blige's "Just Fine", Cotton Eyed Joe, and K WANG WIT IT. Video here-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJq4_MUXPF4&feature=related

Please watch and laugh. Everyone knows I have no rhythm. More to follow.

Ps- MOM, to watch the video you have to select the url up there, press copy, then open a new window and paste it in your browser. :)