Weekend

I had a great weekend this past week. On Friday Katy and her boyfriend came over to the house. My roommate Michelle cooked a delicious vegetable curry, I made a salad and Ashley made cupcakes. It was nice to have a relaxing night.

On Saturday I took Eccence and her sister to a block party in a local neighborhood that just won an award for "green" construction. There were house tours, live music, food and games for the kids. We had a lot of fun! Then later that day I went to the Riverdogs game. The Riverdogs is the local minor league baseball team. We won the game in over time after being down by six runs, so it was a very exciting game to be at.

Then on Sunday I spent the day at the beach. After that a friend and I went to a picnic at the Angel Oak tree on Johns Island.


Isn't that gorgeous? It must be one of the most interesting trees ever. I don't really know much about it, but they put a gift shop next to it to make it a little tourist spot.

Later that afternoon I had a double header softball game. It was about 95 degrees and sunny out. We won one and lost one. But I really like the group that I play with because although they want to win, we still have fun if we lose!

Chili Update

The consensus is that soy crumbles are good, but you gotta put it in something with a lot of flavor. Figuring out what else to make with this will be a nice little challenge for me! The chili turned out pretty well. I forgot to mention that I used a can of plain tomato sauce in the chili (the 44 cents can) I probably could have left out the 1/2 cup of water because it's a little runny, but all in all it's very good. My dad was skeptical about the soy crumbles because they have almost no fat, and he thought that the fat added flavor that the chili needs. However, I think that because it's on the spicy side, the flavor is still there.

I'm glad I like it since I'll be eating it every day for awhile! haha

Budget

So I haven't been doing super great with my budget the last couple of weeks. I've been in Summer Mode (only 2 weeks left till the end of the school year!!) We just completed the state testing and the attitude of the school is "We're done" You can feel it in the kids, feel it in the teachers, and feel it in the administration. Everyone knows there's no point in teaching kids anything new with only 2 weeks left before summer vacation and the feeling is definitely contagious.

I've been going out and socializing more, and everyone knows that socializing costs money. I've also been working out less and eating like crap. In my defense, when I am out socializing and starving, I feel guilty getting a chicken sandwich and fries for 10 dollars when I can just get a side of french fries for 3 dollars that will still fill me up. That combined with having little time to grocery shop or make food has left me eating unhealthy. It's not a huge deal and I know I can get back on track. I'm starting today! I went grocery shopping today and this is what I came up with:

Food Lion:

MorningStar Soy Crumbles- $3.50 (on sale from $4)
Iceberg Lettuce - 99 cents (sale from $2.99)
Chicken Breast- $6.99 (on sale from $12.99)
Red Kidney Beans- 79 cents
Carrots - 99 cents (on sale from $1.29)
No fat Cottage Cheese - $2.69
Tomato Paste- 44 cents

Total $17.98

Not too bad. I decided to make a huge thing of Chili in the crock pot, even though it's 90 degrees outside. I didn't follow any recipe because I've made chili a bunch of times. I've never tried to Soy Crumbles but Hungry Girl uses them a lot and she never steers me wrong. I had to admit that when I tried it today I was a little put off by the texture, but I'm hoping I won't notice it as much in the chili.

Basically this is how I made it:

Chopped up a whole onion, cooked it with about half a bag of the soy crumbles and a leftover taco seasoning packet I had, put it in crock pot.
Added a can of tomatoes with green chili, corn, and the kidney beans. Then I had about half a jar of salsa left over so I added that too. I added a half a cup or so of water. Then I liberally added chili powder , garlic, and red pepper flakes. I was gonna add hot sauce but I thought it might be a little too spicy with the other stuff, so I figured I could add more later.

I hope it's good because I made a whole huge pot and I plan on eating it all week. The whole thing must have cost around 10 dollars and I made enough to last at least a week. I'll let you all know how the soy crumbles work in the recipe!

Week Roundup

Following the fun weekend I had a very fun week! On Tuesday, my friend's Kelly and Celia had their recital for the improv class they'd been taking for the last seven weeks. This was their second class, so they are pretty much experts at that point. They were so funny! I think I can be funny but improv is challenging because you have to be able to think fast on your toes. The host asks for audience suggestions and they have to immediately go from there.



There's a shot of Kelly. I'm very impressed with her!

On Wednesday I met up with my Dad's good friend Richard "Pitch" Picciotto He was in town giving a speech. He was the highest ranking Fire Fighter to be pulled out of the World Trade Center when it collapsed. He wrote a book about his experience "Last Man Down" which was a NY Times Best Seller. (http://www.kepplerspeakers.com/speakers.aspx?name=Richard+Picciotto) I heard his speech when he spoke at Siena back when I was the speaker's chair. It's very inspirational.
On Wednesday night I met Pitch and the group at Boone Hall Plantation. It was cool because we got to tour the house and plantation. There was an open bar and a very delicious dinner. There was also bands and dance groups. We had a lot of fun and the weather was beautiful.




Pitch and I near the water




Pitch said these were the best oysters he's ever had.


Also this week, we received a notice in the mail that the show "Army Wives" would be taping in our front yard. Way to ask permission, right? But my roommate and I took the opportunity to be nice and nosy and the crew didn't mind. We got to see a scene be shot (it took forever) and poke around in one of the houses they tape in. It was pretty interesting. They even paid us $100 to use our driveway over night. Here's some pictures I took-







We didn't know who that woman was, but we figured she must be famous because someone was following her with an umbrella



Pretending I'm famous hehe

Family Time

I've felt different these past few weeks. I'm feeling a little lighter, a little happier. I feel like a pro at my job and I've been spending more time with the people I work with. I feel comfortable. It does make me wonder if it's normal to take 9 months to feel comfortable. Granted I did move to a new city, far away from home, by myself and started my first real job. But it still seems like a long amount of time.

I had a really good weekend last week. On Saturday I participated in the "Superintendent's Tennis Cup." Basically every school in the district made a tennis team and we got points for different things. We got points for making a billboard, for having a pep rally, and for other staff members to come out and watch us. We practiced once or twice a week leading up to the tournament. It was nice to do a different work out and I had forgotten how much I liked tennis! The tournament was really nice and although we didn't win, we had a lot of fun participating.






The next day I traveled up to Charlotte, NC for my mom's cousins son Christening. It was a really nice ceremony and great

to see some family. The Murphey's are always a good time and this occasion was no different. Tommy and Lisa had a very nice after party back at their house and I got to catch up with a lot of cousins. It was particularly nice to spend time with my Aunt Jane.

Meatless Monday

I was already planning on writing about this today when I saw that one of my new favorite blogs just wrote about it too! http://fedupwithschoollunch.blogspot.com/2010/04/guest-blogger-meatless-monday.html

It's really cool what NYC is doing, especially the entire notion of giving parents this kind of voice in a public school. Basically, NYC public schools are giving parents an option to create a wellness team and request to meet with their SchoolFood manager from the Department of Education's Office of SchoolFood. This Wellness team in particular was concerned with the heavy amount of fat from meat and cheese in their children's school lunches. One of the changes they made was incorporating "Meatless Mondays" into the menu. And I'm not talking about grilled cheese and fried fish like Siena used to serve during Fridays of Lent. The NYC school's meatless Mondays consist of healthy vegetarian food such as Vegetarian Chili with rice and African Gumbo. Ummm if my school served this for lunch I would actually buy the school lunch at my school!

But I've been hearing a lot about the Meatless Monday Movement. San Francisco's Board of Supervisors approved a resolution pushing for more vegetarian offerings on Mondays, without requiring them.http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/homestyle/04/26/meatless.mondays.green.healthy/index.html?hpt=Sbin

So I've been thinking it's a good idea for a number of reasons. I'm not doing it because of animal rights or anything like that. For me, it's more of a money issue and just the challenge to see if I can do it. I think it will help me be a more creative chef as well. Is anyone else up for the challenge? I would love a buddy to do this with - (Michelle, you are my #1 buddy as a vegetarian every day)

This is what I ate today for my first Meatless Monday:

Breakfast- Oatmeal (quaker quick oats) with Almonds and Splenda and Green Tea
Snack- Pistachios
Lunch- Corn and Potato chowder I made yesterday, an orange, and a chocolate chip cookie
Snack- Grapes and 100 calorie bag of popcorn., I also had another cookie, whoops.
Dinner- I made a black bean quesadilla. I sauteed onions and spinach with taco seasoning then put it in one whole wheat, high fiber wrap (only 100 calories and it's huge!) then I smothered it with black beans and canned corn. Then, since I stopped buying shredded or block cheese (it always got moldy before I could finish it)I shredded and cut up a light string cheese and topped it all with hot sauce. Grilled that on the George Forman for about 10-15 mins then I was done! I ate it with salsa and it was awesome and filling.

Meatless Monday= Success!

A huge shout out to my Grandma (who is very computer savvy) and my Aunt Jean (you are too!) for sending me the most amazing care package today!! This may be the best one to date! Peanut M&Ms are my favorite and with this cold I got the chicken noodle soup will be perfect tomorrow :) You two are the best, I love you!!

Food Budget Update

Part of the reason I wanted to keep up the blog about my food budget is so I would stick to it. Accountability will hopefully act as a motivator!

I worked more hours than usual this week so my eating has suffered. We had a lot of extra pizza at work so I ate Domino's like three days last week. Can't turn down free meals!

But I also made a huge portion of a pasta dish that lasted for about a week. All I did was make a box of penne whole wheat pasta and I added cooked broccoli, onions, zucchini, and squash. I melted some laughing cow cheese in there and then added pasta sauce. I used a ton of spices- basil, garlic, red pepper flakes, oregano.

So this weeks grocery shopping consisted of this-

Target- Salsa- $2.00 (don't take ebt cards)
Costco- 4 pack of Healthy Choice Frozen Meals - $6.02 after my coupons (also don't take ebt cards, so sad)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bi-Lo
Thomas multi grain, 2 for $5.00
Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream -$1.85- It was on sale, I couldn't say no
Spinach - $1.97

Total- $8.81 which leaves me with $6.44 till the end of the month.