We had a gelato order today, so I stayed at work longer than planned. I had to go to Walmart to get some frozen strawberries, so I thought I'd get something for lunch there. This was easier said than done.
I generally avoid PHOs in most things and HFCS in things that are supposed to be healthy (like bread, vegetable soups, ketchup) and have been known to gasp loudly whenever I come across a food that contains one of these ingredients, particularly if I wanted to buy it. I considered throwing a tantrum when I realized that ALL of HyVee's french toast sticks contained PHOs. (Did I need french toast sticks? No. Do I LOVE french toast sticks? YES.) Dexter and Keriann don't really like grocery shopping with me anymore.
Recently, I've realized that almost all low-priced canned soups contain HFCS (although I've only really looked at ones that don't contain meat broth). So, I skipped to the frozen foods aisle and found the Healthy Choice section. The meal I picked up had PHOs in it. So did a California Kitchen individual pizza. I'd finally settled on a potato/broccoli/cheese frozen dinner, but then I turned around and saw Green Giant's individual sized "Weight Control" mix. (I'm not super concerned about my weight, I just hoped this would indicate "healthy.") It was only $1.48, so I looked at the ingredients. Sugar snap peas, edamame, black beans, and carrots tossed in butter and salt. I went for it.
I microwaved it and eventually opened the package by pulling on the parts of it that said "pull." (My college degree which includes a reading specialization didn't serve me as I opened the package.) It was delicious! I felt healthy! I got 10 grams of fiber! I got 10 grams of protein! I felt satisfied when it was gone!
At home, I got a $.50 coupon here.
I know that prepared foods aren't the most economical thing in the world, but I was happy to find something that would meet my last-minute food needs more cheaply and healthily than fast food. And I am really tired of peanutbutter sandwiches.
I rounded out my lunch with a Kashi bar (chocolate plus 5 more grams of fiber) and an apple (3-4 grams fiber). I'm really not obsessed with fiber--I just happened to notice that they were key players on the nutrition labels of all the foods in my lunch today. I'd also been thinking about them since Leah and Alicia recently posted about fiber.
Do you have any favorite/healthy/easy/cheap food secrets?
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Can I Link You?
I'm going to put up some links to the blogs I read. Can I put up a link to you? I'll give it a few days, and if you don't want me to, let me know. Email, facebook, comment...I'm happy to help you keep your anonymity if you're aiming for it.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Yogurt
One of my favorite breakfasts is yogurt and granola. It’s up there with oatmeal with pumpkin, brown sugar, cinnamon and raisins. Or with fried eggs on toast. It’s simple, but so delicious.
Unfortunately, HFCS has invaded many mainstream brands. Even in brands that don’t use it in vanilla yogurt, it shows up in fruity flavors. Other problems for people with animal cruelty concerns are the source of the milk and that much yogurt contains gelatin. What’s a health-conscious vegetarian girl to do?
One day I wondered, “Could I make yogurt in a crockpot?” I did a google search and found the. best. website. ever. Maybe not ever, but it’s awesosme. It’s got step-by-step yogurt-in-your-crockpot instructions, as well as a ton of gluten-free crockpot recipes.
LR tried making yogurt using the instructions on this website before I did. I bought my milk before she did, but I let it expire in my refrigerator. She inspired me to get serious about trying it.
The awesome thing about this yogurt? I did it wrong, and it still came out as yummy yogurt. Instead of cooking the milk in my crockpot for 2.5 hours on low, I cooked mine on high for 1.5 hours and on low for 2 hours. (I have a problem where I read directions, but not very well.) It came out fine, with only a few bits of milk skin that didn’t stir back into the milk. This is incredibly easy to do. The hardest part for me was to find a time when I’d be home at the key points, since the process takes so long.
I sweetened the batch with honey (lightly whisked it in so the yogurt wouldn’t get too runny) and ate it with granola every day. I will make this again and again. Next time I make it, I’m going to do the math and figure out how much it costs per 6 ounce serving.
The Crock Pot Lady suggested starting out with whole milk until you get the hang of it because lower fat milks may produce runnier yogurt. She suggested adding gelatin to thicken it up. In her post about making jam, she used pectin (plant-based) as a thickener. I plan to experiment to see if this helps runny yogurt.
I haven’t tried making granola yet. Does anyone know if it really ends up being cheaper than buying? Nuts and dried fruit can be expensive, so I’m wary. Also, the other day, Walmart had some Cascadian Farms granola with “$1 off if you buy 2” coupons stuck to them. Also, the banana and date flavors of Sunbelt’s granola cereals are PHO and HFCS free. (These sell for $2.50/box at Walmart and a little more at HyVee). Their other two granola flavors are polluted. I was so mad when I read the nutrition facts, I’m thinking about writing a letter.
Unfortunately, HFCS has invaded many mainstream brands. Even in brands that don’t use it in vanilla yogurt, it shows up in fruity flavors. Other problems for people with animal cruelty concerns are the source of the milk and that much yogurt contains gelatin. What’s a health-conscious vegetarian girl to do?
One day I wondered, “Could I make yogurt in a crockpot?” I did a google search and found the. best. website. ever. Maybe not ever, but it’s awesosme. It’s got step-by-step yogurt-in-your-crockpot instructions, as well as a ton of gluten-free crockpot recipes.
LR tried making yogurt using the instructions on this website before I did. I bought my milk before she did, but I let it expire in my refrigerator. She inspired me to get serious about trying it.
The awesome thing about this yogurt? I did it wrong, and it still came out as yummy yogurt. Instead of cooking the milk in my crockpot for 2.5 hours on low, I cooked mine on high for 1.5 hours and on low for 2 hours. (I have a problem where I read directions, but not very well.) It came out fine, with only a few bits of milk skin that didn’t stir back into the milk. This is incredibly easy to do. The hardest part for me was to find a time when I’d be home at the key points, since the process takes so long.
I sweetened the batch with honey (lightly whisked it in so the yogurt wouldn’t get too runny) and ate it with granola every day. I will make this again and again. Next time I make it, I’m going to do the math and figure out how much it costs per 6 ounce serving.
The Crock Pot Lady suggested starting out with whole milk until you get the hang of it because lower fat milks may produce runnier yogurt. She suggested adding gelatin to thicken it up. In her post about making jam, she used pectin (plant-based) as a thickener. I plan to experiment to see if this helps runny yogurt.
I haven’t tried making granola yet. Does anyone know if it really ends up being cheaper than buying? Nuts and dried fruit can be expensive, so I’m wary. Also, the other day, Walmart had some Cascadian Farms granola with “$1 off if you buy 2” coupons stuck to them. Also, the banana and date flavors of Sunbelt’s granola cereals are PHO and HFCS free. (These sell for $2.50/box at Walmart and a little more at HyVee). Their other two granola flavors are polluted. I was so mad when I read the nutrition facts, I’m thinking about writing a letter.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
I saw this book at Barnes and Noble last month, and, in a moment of profound logic and self-control, decided to check it out at the library. I even remembered to renew it before being fined.
You probably already know that I love food. I love reading about it in stories and watching stories unfold around it in movies. Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp (husband) and Camille Kingsolver (daughter) proved to be the brilliant marriage of a good, food-based, true story with a plethora of thought-provoking information about food and the food industry. Be forewarned—Barbara Kingsolver has been named seventy-fourth on a list of one-hundred people who are destroying America.
The book takes you through Kingsolver’s family’s journey to eat only home- or locally-grown food for one year. They move to their farm in Appalachia one January, start their experiment in March, cultivate an enormous garden, harvest and preserve, and survive through the following Spring true to their challenge. They buy flour from local mills, make their own bread, yogurt, and cheese (I SO want to try this), frequent local farmers markets, and raise their own chickens and turkeys for eggs and meat. Each member of the family gets one item to cheat with on the condition that they could learn a way to obtain it that benefits the grower and the land where it grows. Kingsolver writes, “We hoped to establish that a normal-ish American family could be content on the fruits of our local foodshed.”
Kingsolver scatters humorous details throughout the book that assure the reader that things are absurd enough to be real life. For instance, she plans to make mayonnaise from a recipe she received in her high school French class that instructs one to “whip heartily for two minutes while holding only pleasant thoughts in mind” (33). She also hearkens the person who helps Thanksgiving turkeys (which are bred too stupid to reproduce on their own) reproduce as a job to add to the list of “unsavory jobs” (90) to threaten your children that they’ll be stuck with if they ditch school.
The book had a prominent serious tone at times, discussing the environmental and social issues related to conventional farming. I knew that buying local food is good for the local economy and that many local farmers grow food organically, even if they’re not certified, which is good for the environment. I’d never considered that buying locally grown food is good for the environment because of the fossil fuels that aren’t used to transport them. In one of his mini-essays, which usually appear in each chapter, Hopp tries to explain away the higher cost of local and organic foods, referencing the petroleum subsidies (paid through our taxes) that support the growing, processing, and shipping of industrial grown food. This comes to a total of about $725 per household per year. If we make the decision to buy locally, it seems that we are only paying more: subsidies through our tax dollars, plus higher priced produce. Perhaps if we begin to support local food with our pocket books, we will make enough of an impact to communicate to our legislators that this is not how we want to spend our hard earned dollars.
Kingsolver also had some interesting things to say about vegetarianism. She writes, “I find myself fundamentally allied with a vegetarian position in every way except one: however selectively, I eat meat. I’m unimpressed by arguments that condemn animal harvest while ignoring, wholesale, the animal killing that underwrites vegetal foods. Uncountable deaths by pesticide and habitat removal—the beetles and bunnies that die collaterally for our bread and veggie-burgers—are lives plumb wasted” (222). She points out that vegetarians often cite that an acre that grows crops will feed more people than an acre used to raise animals—that their choice is helping the cause of world hunger—as a reason for abstaining from meat. However, for some families, having a goat to supplement their small farm in an area where farming is difficult allows them to turn food that grows naturally in their area that is inedible to them but edible for their animal into human-edible milk and meat.
These pages didn’t contain any information so compelling that I’ve become a strict locavore (Kingsolver’s term for local-food-only-eater) or to begin eating meat responsibly again, but it did provide surprising new information that I will use as I make my food-buying decisions in the future. I will make it a priority to buy some local food and free-range or grass-finished meat may end up on my husband’s plate every once in a while. But, I’m not quite ready to stop going to the grocery store or to give up bananas altogether.
If you’ve read this book, what did you think? If not, what sources have impacted your food buying choices the most?
You probably already know that I love food. I love reading about it in stories and watching stories unfold around it in movies. Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp (husband) and Camille Kingsolver (daughter) proved to be the brilliant marriage of a good, food-based, true story with a plethora of thought-provoking information about food and the food industry. Be forewarned—Barbara Kingsolver has been named seventy-fourth on a list of one-hundred people who are destroying America.
The book takes you through Kingsolver’s family’s journey to eat only home- or locally-grown food for one year. They move to their farm in Appalachia one January, start their experiment in March, cultivate an enormous garden, harvest and preserve, and survive through the following Spring true to their challenge. They buy flour from local mills, make their own bread, yogurt, and cheese (I SO want to try this), frequent local farmers markets, and raise their own chickens and turkeys for eggs and meat. Each member of the family gets one item to cheat with on the condition that they could learn a way to obtain it that benefits the grower and the land where it grows. Kingsolver writes, “We hoped to establish that a normal-ish American family could be content on the fruits of our local foodshed.”
Kingsolver scatters humorous details throughout the book that assure the reader that things are absurd enough to be real life. For instance, she plans to make mayonnaise from a recipe she received in her high school French class that instructs one to “whip heartily for two minutes while holding only pleasant thoughts in mind” (33). She also hearkens the person who helps Thanksgiving turkeys (which are bred too stupid to reproduce on their own) reproduce as a job to add to the list of “unsavory jobs” (90) to threaten your children that they’ll be stuck with if they ditch school.
The book had a prominent serious tone at times, discussing the environmental and social issues related to conventional farming. I knew that buying local food is good for the local economy and that many local farmers grow food organically, even if they’re not certified, which is good for the environment. I’d never considered that buying locally grown food is good for the environment because of the fossil fuels that aren’t used to transport them. In one of his mini-essays, which usually appear in each chapter, Hopp tries to explain away the higher cost of local and organic foods, referencing the petroleum subsidies (paid through our taxes) that support the growing, processing, and shipping of industrial grown food. This comes to a total of about $725 per household per year. If we make the decision to buy locally, it seems that we are only paying more: subsidies through our tax dollars, plus higher priced produce. Perhaps if we begin to support local food with our pocket books, we will make enough of an impact to communicate to our legislators that this is not how we want to spend our hard earned dollars.
Kingsolver also had some interesting things to say about vegetarianism. She writes, “I find myself fundamentally allied with a vegetarian position in every way except one: however selectively, I eat meat. I’m unimpressed by arguments that condemn animal harvest while ignoring, wholesale, the animal killing that underwrites vegetal foods. Uncountable deaths by pesticide and habitat removal—the beetles and bunnies that die collaterally for our bread and veggie-burgers—are lives plumb wasted” (222). She points out that vegetarians often cite that an acre that grows crops will feed more people than an acre used to raise animals—that their choice is helping the cause of world hunger—as a reason for abstaining from meat. However, for some families, having a goat to supplement their small farm in an area where farming is difficult allows them to turn food that grows naturally in their area that is inedible to them but edible for their animal into human-edible milk and meat.
These pages didn’t contain any information so compelling that I’ve become a strict locavore (Kingsolver’s term for local-food-only-eater) or to begin eating meat responsibly again, but it did provide surprising new information that I will use as I make my food-buying decisions in the future. I will make it a priority to buy some local food and free-range or grass-finished meat may end up on my husband’s plate every once in a while. But, I’m not quite ready to stop going to the grocery store or to give up bananas altogether.
If you’ve read this book, what did you think? If not, what sources have impacted your food buying choices the most?
Bibiophilia
During college, I thought I lost my ability to read fiction. I barely had time to read anything not school-related, and when I did, I couldn’t find the right balance of focus and relaxation to allow me to plow through a mystery or novel like I could in the past. I still read the Bible and a few other books you might find in the “Christian Living” section of the bookstore, but you’d rarely find me reading for fun. I could read novels for the English classes I took, but I was always making intertextual connections and identifying premonition and analyzing things from a historical perspective, which, although I enjoyed it, was far from relaxing.
I loved to read as a kid and took pride in calling myself an avid reader. (Other people had other names for this tendency.) In college, I could usually still count on being one of the only people in a room who had read the book that the period movie we were watching was based on. But I worried that my pleasure reading days were over forever.
After graduation, when our post-graduation chaos had subsided and I was still waiting for my sub applications to go through, we began getting a lot of Hercule Poirot dvds from the library (and forgetting to return them on time, making the free library rental idea much less worthwhile). After watching a few of these dvds, I decided to venture back to the bookshelf and pulled a Poirot mystery from the shelf. I read half of it that night and finished it the next day. Whew! I was glad to find out that my fiction aversion had subsided as soon as forced reading subsided.
For a while, I thought that I was going to have abundant time to read, sitting at home in my immaculate house, waiting for the phone to ring and take me to work. This is not the case. I am still capable of making a big enough mess each day to keep me busy whenever I have free time, and I’ve been working so much that I’ve had to refuse jobs to catch up on things at home. But, I do have the luxury of deciding what to do when I get home each day, and I am confident that this will include reading.
After Poirot, I started a nonfiction book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsovler. One benefit of forgetting how to read fiction was discovering my love of nonfiction. Now, I’m on to Mansfield Park, a Jane Austen novel I’ve read before. I imagine I’ll keep alternating between fiction and nonfiction to keep my mind sharp.
What’s been on your reading list lately?
I loved to read as a kid and took pride in calling myself an avid reader. (Other people had other names for this tendency.) In college, I could usually still count on being one of the only people in a room who had read the book that the period movie we were watching was based on. But I worried that my pleasure reading days were over forever.
After graduation, when our post-graduation chaos had subsided and I was still waiting for my sub applications to go through, we began getting a lot of Hercule Poirot dvds from the library (and forgetting to return them on time, making the free library rental idea much less worthwhile). After watching a few of these dvds, I decided to venture back to the bookshelf and pulled a Poirot mystery from the shelf. I read half of it that night and finished it the next day. Whew! I was glad to find out that my fiction aversion had subsided as soon as forced reading subsided.
For a while, I thought that I was going to have abundant time to read, sitting at home in my immaculate house, waiting for the phone to ring and take me to work. This is not the case. I am still capable of making a big enough mess each day to keep me busy whenever I have free time, and I’ve been working so much that I’ve had to refuse jobs to catch up on things at home. But, I do have the luxury of deciding what to do when I get home each day, and I am confident that this will include reading.
After Poirot, I started a nonfiction book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsovler. One benefit of forgetting how to read fiction was discovering my love of nonfiction. Now, I’m on to Mansfield Park, a Jane Austen novel I’ve read before. I imagine I’ll keep alternating between fiction and nonfiction to keep my mind sharp.
What’s been on your reading list lately?
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Happy Birthday Keriann!
I never would have guessed that the sister whose finger I bit when she was two (just to see if I could bite hard enough to make her bleed or for it to come off) would be my best friend as an adult? Who would have guessed she would forgive me when I confessed that the traumatic memory we both had of falling down the stairs as children was not merely an accident--but that I'd pushed her down for fear she'd beat me to the top and then rolled down the stairs myself so I wouldn't get in trouble for pushing her? (Ah, the innocence of children.)
My mom likes to attribute our friendship to the nagging (that's what she called it) she did, telling us we would want each other as friends when we were older, so we shouldn't be mean to each other now. Since nagging is a pretty effective way to get anybody to have a change of heart, this is obviously true. Our friendship could also be the result of God giving us such similar interests (vegetarianism, the environment, cooking shows, following the Lord) and neurotic tendencies. Keriann also has an urban, sophisticated sense of style that I envy. I need her to approve my apparel purchases. I have the benefit of the stereotype that older sisters exist partly to share their wisdom with younger sisters. I pray, and try to live up to the standard.
Keriann, I hope you're 20th year is great! I'm sorry for posting your picture, but I think you're beautiful! Please don't die early from the ridiculous amount of butter in your cake.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Goals
I really appreciated your advice and encouragement on my Discipline post. It makes me happy to know that even you can be lazy or unskilled or behind in your housekeeping. If you live nearby, you can also probably expect a dinner invitation in the coming months.
With the comfort of company in my imperfection and with the motivation of dinner guests in mind, I've decided to set some goals to develop good housekeeping habits. When you see the simplicity of my goals, you may then be able to imagine what my house usually looks like. I got the idea to set these goals from this blog. It has some interesting tips and advice. The most recent post right now seems a little bit like feel-good inspirational crap to me, but I love the caption underneath the picture: "Get all ninja on your actions." The/A (?) writer on this site suggested developing particular habits by choosing one, posting this goal visibly, and after conquering it for two weeks, move on to the next. I have so many bad housekeeping habits that I felt like I wouldn't make a lot of progress. So, I modified it into my own system. I have one goal for each room, plus a personal goal and a goal for the whole house. They say if you write down your goals, you will more likely achieve them. They also say that if you share your goals with other people, you will be more likely to achieve them. So, here they are, digitally written and shared with you.
Whole House Goal: Paint each room in the house (1 down, 4 to go) and unpack everything.
Motivator: I can get a dog when this is done.
Kitchen Goal: Only take on a non-essential cooking task if there is time to clean up afterward. Always clean up after dinner. If there is not time right after dinner, then dishes must be done before I go to bed. (Ideally, clean these up right away anyway and avoid a cranky, tired husband when I get home.)
Living Room and Office Goal: Dishes must be removed from these rooms and washed immediately.
Bathroom Goal: Buy another spray bottle for my vinegar cleaner to store in the bathroom. Store rags in the bathroom. Store plastic grocery bags here to use as garbage can liners. Touch up the bathroom approximately every other day.
Bedroom Goal: When I change clothes, they must immediately be hung up or folded and put away for rewearing or put into the hamper. "Deciding later" is not allowed.
Personal Goal: Wake up at 5:30 every day.
Motivator: I'm thinking of telling myself I can't do any recreational reading if I sleep in past a certain time, but I'm not sure how effective that will be. Because I can waste a lot of time on things I don't enjoy as well.
Hopefully, I will get these posted and accomplished soon. Then, when you come over for dinner, I won't look as frazzled!
With the comfort of company in my imperfection and with the motivation of dinner guests in mind, I've decided to set some goals to develop good housekeeping habits. When you see the simplicity of my goals, you may then be able to imagine what my house usually looks like. I got the idea to set these goals from this blog. It has some interesting tips and advice. The most recent post right now seems a little bit like feel-good inspirational crap to me, but I love the caption underneath the picture: "Get all ninja on your actions." The/A (?) writer on this site suggested developing particular habits by choosing one, posting this goal visibly, and after conquering it for two weeks, move on to the next. I have so many bad housekeeping habits that I felt like I wouldn't make a lot of progress. So, I modified it into my own system. I have one goal for each room, plus a personal goal and a goal for the whole house. They say if you write down your goals, you will more likely achieve them. They also say that if you share your goals with other people, you will be more likely to achieve them. So, here they are, digitally written and shared with you.
Whole House Goal: Paint each room in the house (1 down, 4 to go) and unpack everything.
Motivator: I can get a dog when this is done.
Kitchen Goal: Only take on a non-essential cooking task if there is time to clean up afterward. Always clean up after dinner. If there is not time right after dinner, then dishes must be done before I go to bed. (Ideally, clean these up right away anyway and avoid a cranky, tired husband when I get home.)
Living Room and Office Goal: Dishes must be removed from these rooms and washed immediately.
Bathroom Goal: Buy another spray bottle for my vinegar cleaner to store in the bathroom. Store rags in the bathroom. Store plastic grocery bags here to use as garbage can liners. Touch up the bathroom approximately every other day.
Bedroom Goal: When I change clothes, they must immediately be hung up or folded and put away for rewearing or put into the hamper. "Deciding later" is not allowed.
Personal Goal: Wake up at 5:30 every day.
Motivator: I'm thinking of telling myself I can't do any recreational reading if I sleep in past a certain time, but I'm not sure how effective that will be. Because I can waste a lot of time on things I don't enjoy as well.
Hopefully, I will get these posted and accomplished soon. Then, when you come over for dinner, I won't look as frazzled!
Praise
As I was applying for sub jobs, I had this fear that I would never ever get called to sub and that we would have a deficit each month that would drive us deeper and deeper into credit card debt and that Dave Ramsey would come yell at me. Because, could I really trust God to provide for us? Let's take a look at his track record over the past 3 months:
November: We received a substantial anonymous gift that allowed us to get through the end of the semester, through the holiday season, and to Faithwalkers.
December: Christmas and graduation gifts galore in the form of money.
January: Tons of hours at Capanna, plus getting called in on short-staffed days when I wasn't working, plus having Mike and Joe be super flexible about when I can go in to make gelato so I can sub as much as possible.
So, all of this adds up to about a months worth of expenses in monetary gifts, plus a really flexible work schedule that allows me to work as much as possible. But really, I knew that this period of people just giving us money for nothing had to end, and the school systems couldn't be under the control of the Almightly Sovreign.
Fast forward to January 23rd. My sub applications are all in the mail or in the hands of school HR personnel. My doubts about ever subbing are consuming.
January 28: I get a call from an automated system to sub in Solon. I haven't received my password for this in the mail (they sent it yesterday) so I hang up and go back to bed, confused. Then, I get a call from a human because they need a sub so bad, and I work a half day.
January 29: Call from Lone Tree about subbing for my former cooperating teacher in a Kindergarten class in a few weeks.
January 30: Call from Lone Tree to sub today.
All this equals that in my first week of subbing, I earned enough money to cover the deficit we'd have for 1 month. Since then, I've subbed 3.5 days and have 4 jobs lined up for the next three weeks, I've been called by multiple districts on the same day, I scored a job for 2 days in the same class in May, and there have consistently been openings in the evening and morning on the online sub site that I can accept at the click of a button.
Yeah, God is pretty good, especially to this doubter.
November: We received a substantial anonymous gift that allowed us to get through the end of the semester, through the holiday season, and to Faithwalkers.
December: Christmas and graduation gifts galore in the form of money.
January: Tons of hours at Capanna, plus getting called in on short-staffed days when I wasn't working, plus having Mike and Joe be super flexible about when I can go in to make gelato so I can sub as much as possible.
So, all of this adds up to about a months worth of expenses in monetary gifts, plus a really flexible work schedule that allows me to work as much as possible. But really, I knew that this period of people just giving us money for nothing had to end, and the school systems couldn't be under the control of the Almightly Sovreign.
Fast forward to January 23rd. My sub applications are all in the mail or in the hands of school HR personnel. My doubts about ever subbing are consuming.
January 28: I get a call from an automated system to sub in Solon. I haven't received my password for this in the mail (they sent it yesterday) so I hang up and go back to bed, confused. Then, I get a call from a human because they need a sub so bad, and I work a half day.
January 29: Call from Lone Tree about subbing for my former cooperating teacher in a Kindergarten class in a few weeks.
January 30: Call from Lone Tree to sub today.
All this equals that in my first week of subbing, I earned enough money to cover the deficit we'd have for 1 month. Since then, I've subbed 3.5 days and have 4 jobs lined up for the next three weeks, I've been called by multiple districts on the same day, I scored a job for 2 days in the same class in May, and there have consistently been openings in the evening and morning on the online sub site that I can accept at the click of a button.
Yeah, God is pretty good, especially to this doubter.
Frustration
I shopped at ALDI once after we first got married. I'd never been there before and didn't know any of the rules. Dexter and I walked around, picked out a few things (because where were the carts?!--on the side of the building I didn't see from where I parked) and then the lady at the checkout was rude to us when I touched the cart she'd put our stuff into. It was a really uncomfortable experience, and I was more than willing to sacrifice the few pennies I'd save by shopping there to show them that I wouldn't put up with that attitude.
Today, I decided to conquer my pride and try again. I came, armed with a quarter, figured out how to get my cart, and got inside. Just inside the door, I found a great deal on V8 Splash, then on spices, and was looking forward to buying some beautiful yellow bananas for $.45/lb. I was a little disappointed by the rest of the selection because it seemed like about everything I picked up was PHO-filled. And the bananas were neither beautiful nor yellow, but I put them in my cart because I assumed that the inside was still banana-y. I headed for the registers and got in line behind 9 other people at the one register they had open. Finally, someone else came out to help the poor lone woman at the open register. My items were rung up and I was just about to celebrate a triumphant trip. I swiped my Discover card, and was dismayed when it asked for my PIN. The cashier (who was at least polite this time) cancelled my order and I went over to the side to dig through my purse for my debit card, a little flustered and irritated. I couldn't find it and realized that I hadn't put it back in my purse after getting cash (which I did not have with me either) earlier in the day. I walked out of the store, frustrated and disappointed that my maturity in overcoming my ALDIsdain was not more rewarded.
So, I feel like being done with ALDI for another couple of years--or just telling myself that I don't have to try again even then. Are you a faithful ALDI shopper? Were your first attempts their as irritating as mine? And, most importantly, do you think you find great enough deals to make the trip to ALDI worthwhile?
Today, I decided to conquer my pride and try again. I came, armed with a quarter, figured out how to get my cart, and got inside. Just inside the door, I found a great deal on V8 Splash, then on spices, and was looking forward to buying some beautiful yellow bananas for $.45/lb. I was a little disappointed by the rest of the selection because it seemed like about everything I picked up was PHO-filled. And the bananas were neither beautiful nor yellow, but I put them in my cart because I assumed that the inside was still banana-y. I headed for the registers and got in line behind 9 other people at the one register they had open. Finally, someone else came out to help the poor lone woman at the open register. My items were rung up and I was just about to celebrate a triumphant trip. I swiped my Discover card, and was dismayed when it asked for my PIN. The cashier (who was at least polite this time) cancelled my order and I went over to the side to dig through my purse for my debit card, a little flustered and irritated. I couldn't find it and realized that I hadn't put it back in my purse after getting cash (which I did not have with me either) earlier in the day. I walked out of the store, frustrated and disappointed that my maturity in overcoming my ALDIsdain was not more rewarded.
So, I feel like being done with ALDI for another couple of years--or just telling myself that I don't have to try again even then. Are you a faithful ALDI shopper? Were your first attempts their as irritating as mine? And, most importantly, do you think you find great enough deals to make the trip to ALDI worthwhile?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)