I'm Moving

Goodbye Blogger! I'm moving to Wordpress for cuter layouts and improvements I have yet to understand.

Please update my web address in your blog reader: http://mrsdexter.wordpress.com.

February Meal Plan

January was the first month I've really stuck to a meal plan for an entire month. I bled into this month's grocery fund by $15. It was a little disappointing, but compared to my grocery budget blowing in the past, $15 is nothing!

This month, I've lowered my weekly allotment by $10. I'm a little daunted since I didn't come in under budget like I was hoping last month, but we're really trying to tighten the belt to really get our debt snowball moving. So here's to a challenge!

The plan for this month:

1-Moroccan Lentil Soup, bread, peas
2-Egg casserole, pancakes
3-Soup from the freezer, green beans, bread
4-Broccoli & Pasta Bianco
5-Pizza *Date Night*

8-Hot & Sour Soup, homemade egg rolls
9-Pasta with marinara, salad
10-From the freezer: Vegetarian curry, white rice, mango smoothie
11-Breakfast Risotto, fruit, eggs
12-Pork chop (for the man, leftovers for me), mashed potatoes, corn

15-Black Bean Soup, whole wheat cornbread, salad
16-Baked Ziti, salad
17-Out to eat! My little sister's 21st birthday!
18-Whole wheat waffles, eggs, fruit
19-Pizza

22-Vegetable Noodle Soup
23-Sauteed Mushrooms in butter sauce with pasta
24-From the freezer: Lentil tacos, salad
25-French toast, eggs, fruit
26-Chicken, mashed potatoes, corn

And, because I figure my monthly budget by the number of Saturdays in the month (because that's the day I grocery shop), here's the first week in March:

1-Falafel, salad
2-Spaghetti, marinara, salad
3-Something from the freezer
4-Huevos Rancheros, whole wheat pancakes
5-Pizza

I'm feel like my side dishes are a pretty uninspired this month. Salad is popping up a lot, and that makes me feel guilty because I almost always buy bagged salad. I usually get whatever mix is on sale, but sometimes it's still a really bad price. But I sold my salad spinner, and towel drying lettuce really irritates me. So, I welcome your side dish suggestions!

Sorrow & Haiti

At the beginning of December, I had 29 ELL students that I saw every weekday. Some of them spend two or three hours with me every day. They're too old to be my children, but they're my brother's age. Many of them feel like they are a part of my family.

Then, I had 28, after a shy, polite newcomer felt the pull to go back to work to make money to support himself and his family. He is 19.

The week before winter break, we had an early dismissal because of snow. A fifteen-year-old boy from South America was wandering the halls with no way home. I didn't have my car and had to walk home. I asked an administrator what to do to help him. I was sent to three more administrators, and after a few fruitless phone calls, I was dismissed and he was sentenced to four hours in a conference room by himself. His parents died in his home country and he lives with relatives he doesn't know well.

Over break, a student brought me flancocho (flan cake) and an announcement that she was moving back home to be with her family. She was barely 14 and had tried a difficult four months away from home. She wants to be a pharmacist.

Expecting to see 27 of my students when I returned to work, I was dismayed to learn that another nineteen-year-old boy had gotten a day job over break. He wants to send money to his mother back home. He is a charming kid. Once, he said to me, "Teacher, you are looking junger and junger every day." Another time, he asked permission to read his science book after finishing his homework.

It's been two weeks since break, and I'm now down to 25 students. A counselor emailed me to tell me a student had returned to his home country during break and could not return to Iowa City. This was odd, since he had been at school since break, and the students who live in his neighborhood report that he still lives there.

Two students will move at the end of January. Two more students report that they will be moving "any day now."

I miss the students who have left, and I worry about them along with the ones who remain. I am tired of crying each time I find out about another sad story or about another student who is leaving. When I cried, it was half for the student and half for my own sadness that they were gone. When I was done crying, I wanted to act. I have a lesson plan that outlines average salaries for people with and without high school diplomas and compares that information to the cost of living. I have hopes of creating a GED class outside of school for those who needed to work or who were too old to finish a diploma. I have an idea for a fantastic mentoring pair.

I found out about the earthquake in Haiti on Wednesday night. One of my students is from Haiti. His parents and siblings still live there. He doesn't know where they are or what has happened to them. He does know that they lived in a severely affected area of Haiti. I cried about this too, but there isn't a "plan of action" I can create to solve the problem or to make myself feel better. But not acting was not an option.

We've made a donation to Compassion International.

I'm linking to this post on Money Saving Mom, who will donate $10 to relief efforts for each blog post or comment about what people are doing to help.

I'm praying for Haiti, and I'm praying for peace for my Haitian student.

My lesson plans look different, too. Friday, we discussed what happened in Haiti. We discussed inequality in the U.S. and around the world. Next week, instead of reading Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, we'll devote class time to create a fundraising effort headed by my students. I wanted to do this but didn't want to push it. But they asked me, "So, what can we do?"

If you'd like to make a donation to help Compassion International help Haiti, there is a link at the top of the page. If you'd like to encourage my students in their fundraising efforts by making your donation through them, please let me know.

Resolution #2: Meal Planning

When I first heard that people planned a month of meals a time, I was a little smug. Those people weren't looking at their weekly grocery ads to plan their meals so they could plan whatever was budget friendly for the week. How could they predict what would be on sale three weeks from now?

Then, month after month, I got knocked off my high horse when I'd way overspend my grocery budget because I ran out of time to plan meals one weekend. Or because the Fareway add hadn't come in the paper and I kept thinking I'd go pick one up but then it was too late. Or because the meals I planned were expensive. Or because I never used up all the produce I bought.

But even though my system never actually worked, I just couldn't wrap my mind around monthly meal planning. It all changed my friend Sarah did No Cook November, which involved crock-pots, and my mind is definitely wrapped around crock-pots. Specifically this one. And then posts like this one, which had been floating around in my mind for a long time started to click.

So, in December, I made a monthly meal plan. But it didn't go very well. I dabbled in some organic produce, tried way too many new recipes, did a lot of baking, and made lots of little trips to the grocery store and was just as over budget as usual. I felt like I was on the right track, so I decided to try again in January.

Here are my ground rules:

1. Breakfast for dinner once a week - We like this, and it's usually pretty cheap.
2. Pasta once a week - Dexter would eat spaghetti every day if I let him. (This is not an exaggeration, because this is what he did before we were married.) We use whole wheat pasta.
3. One freezer meal a week - I'm planning ahead to make sure there are leftovers for this. I also made a pot of butternut squash soup just for freezing this weekend just in case.
4. Leftovers, freezer meals, or from-the-pantry meals on the weekends. If we have none of these, I'll just eat a PBJ.
5. "Humanely-raised" meat option once a week for the recovering vegetarian that is my husband.
6. Plan at least one side dish, otherwise I'll spend the whole budget on main dish things and go to the store every day for side dish veggies.

Here is our menu for the month:

1-Pumpkin soup from the freezer

4-Risotto in the crockpot (with carrots, peas, and chickpeas), salad

5-Lentil tacos (filling from the freezer), quinoa and black bean salad

6-Waffles, eggs, fruit

7-Baked spinach and cheese noodles in the crockpot, carrots

8-Pork chop, corn, green beans, mashed potatoes (I might have freezer soup for my main dish)

9-Make Moroccan Lentil Soup for the freezer/lunches

11-Vegetarian Curry in the crockpot, rice

12-French toast (made with panettone from the freezer), eggs, fruit

13-Lasagna, salad, bread

14-Freezer soup, bread, vegetable

15-Burgers (fake for me unless I cave), baked beans, baked fries

18-Falafel in the crockpot & lots of fixings

19-Spaghetti, salad, bread

20-Rachael Ray's healthy huevos rancheros, whole wheat cinnamon rasin biscuits, fruit

21-Lentil tacos from the freezer, quinoa & black bean salad (possibly also frozen)

22-Sweet & sour chicken with mango lettuce wraps

25-Barbecue "chicken" (or beans or tofu) and cornbread casserole, vegetable

26-Broccoli & Pasta Bianco (a Campbell's recipe I'm using frozen, homemade mushroom soup for), salad, bread

27-Freezer soup, bread, vegetable

28-Pancakes, eggs, fruit

29-Eat out to celebrate (hopefully!) being under my grocery budget

So far, I'm $3 under my "weekly" budget. This bodes well, because I was able buy some of the "bad list produce" organic, be on main dish at house church, and buy ingredients for two crock-pots full of soup that will go straight to the freezer. There's a chance we'll run out of milk before the end of the week. I set my budget higher than my "ideal, superwoman, impress all my homemaker friends" budget because work takes up so much time and we're trying to make some ethical changes, but this way I'll have some success to keep me going, extra cash at the end of the month, the option of buying sale items in bulk at the end of the month, and the option of tightening the budget next month.

A Resolution

I've heard some people say that making resolutions at the beginning of the new year is a bad idea because you can reevaluate your life and set new goals any time, and it's silly to make yourself wait till the new year. I wholeheartedly agree. But, we have Christmas and Easter to remind us of Christ EXTRA, Valentine's Day to help us focus on ones we love, and Mothers Day and Fathers Day to help us remember to honor our parents even though we should remember to do these things all the time. Also, I have time off around the new year, so this is the only time I can really set aside to focus on goal-setting.

I spilled a cup of tea on myself, the couch, the ground, and a file organizer as was writing the paragraph above. Maybe it was the Lord chastising me for my opinion. More likely, I'm just not coordinated enough to handle coasters.

Whenever I sit down at my computer, I sigh and think, "I want to blog." But then all my thoughts and emotions start moving toward the front of my mind and all my eloquence starts heading for the hills. If I muster up the courage to start typing anyway, I end up with a really boring, sentimental, disappointing story and think, "I would take me off my blog reader if I wrote something boring like this. At least they won't take me off if they just forget about me."

If I had fewer things going on outside of work, or if I didn't care so much about trying to unpack, spend time with Dexter, getting enough exercise, eating remotely healthy meals, or other time-consuming things like that, I would have started a blog about my first year teaching. I thought it would be my "niche" where I could start a "successful" blog. But, since my first year is half over, it seems a little late to start something like that.

Before that, I wanted to start a blog about cooking with ethical ingredients while living on a budget. There were a plethora of problems with that idea. 1: No time to write or research. 2: The title I chose sounded suspiciously like Eat. Pray. Love. I didn't like that book, nor do I want to get sued. 3: Cooking with ethical ingredients while living on a budget is HARD and it takes a lot of planning. I am totally unqualified to write this blog.

So, my blogging related resolution is this:
Blog sometimes. Shoot for once a week. Don't worry about whether anybody is reading. If nothing else, you're developing your writing skills and you like to write.

Leftover coupons

This has got to be the most boring re-introduction into the blogging world that I've ever heard of. But at least it's a post. Maybe this will get the ball rolling again. Or, maybe next summer when I am no longer a first-year teacher.

I went through all my coupons today and cut out all the ones I want. If you would like whatever is left, you are welcome to them. There are a lot from earlier this summer that will expire at the end of September. Most are in full pages, and there are several expired ones. But, I only included a page in the "keep pile" if there was at least one good coupon. I didn't judge what you might want to buy. I left in coupons for stuff I thought was weird, just in case you're feeling adventurous.

Let me know if you'd like them.

Poor Fitz!

Fitz has had weird toenails ever since we got him. I worried about them breaking, but the vets never said anything, so I just told myself I was worrying too much.

Today, Dexter and I were getting ready to leave on our anniversary trip to Chicago when Fitz yelped and we saw that one of his nails had broken off and the "quick" (inside) was exposed. We took him to a vet and helped hold him while the vet tech clipped the nail super short. He gave a miserable howl through the muzzle they put on him. I was thankful to be holding his back end because apparently it was not pretty up front.

Now he has a bandaged foot, pain medication, anti-biotics, and a mommy and daddy who are leaving him for 2 days. His mommy feels really bad about that. I'm hoping that his pain pills make him sleepy so he'll sleep away the time that Keriann is at work. Poor Fitz!

Consignment

I love a good deal. Usually, I find my good deals here by eying the aisles for those beautiful little orange stickers. I'd been to Stuff Etc. a few times before the spring semester, but always had a hard time finding anything high quality or that would be useful. But, after a few trips this Spring, I'm sold on consignment shopping.


My FAVORITE part of the store is the housewares section, (There are dishes galore, mismatched and full sets, charmingly ugly and completely beautiful. I recently read an article about a couple who registered for discontinued glassware when they got married and replaced each glass they broke with a random glass from a thrift store. I LOVE this idea, so if you come over to my house, please break my glassware if you can do so safely so that I don't have to break all of it myself. This may be a big job because I registered for an extra set of glasses when we got married in case of breakage.)

In May, Keriann and I planned to make a quick stop by Stuff on a stormy night, partly to see if they had any cute, cheap raincoats. They didn't. However, they did have a navy belt for 60 cents (Keriann needed one to complete an outfit), a super cute set of dishes for $25, an antique dresser with a mirror for $50, and a beautiful, designer, Victorian style couch for $300 (which ended up being only $225 after some unexplainable discount). You can read more about Keriann's jackpot here. I just bought a Banana Republic shirt which is super cute but is made for someone with skinnier arms than me.

In June, Dexter and I were having on of our signature stuck-in-a-rut-date-nights where we were wasting time not knowing what to do and not wanting to make the other person doing something they didn't want to do. Then, Dexter made a smart move and suggested we go to Stuff. My wonderful husband held my hand and looked at all the dishes with me, didn't act like I was silly to want all the dishes I didn't need, and even seemed intrigued by my mismatched glass story. He had already looked at the electronics, and I was going to suggest we leave so he didn't have to stand there while I dug through the racks and racks of color-coded clothes. But no, he wanted to look at clothes and shoes too. (What a man!) Then, right before we decided to leave empty-handed, we headed over to the book section and spent $8 on these beauties.

Then, (this has nothing to do with consignment but it was very exciting) Barnes & Noble had a $1 table where I found 2 books that were textbooks options for me at school and are pertinent to my new job. I also bought Cooking as Courtship, which has its hokey bits but has some entertaining tidbits.

I'm hoping to find some furniture to fill up some of the empty space in our new condo at one of the half-off sales Stuff is having this month.

Toast

"Life as we know it and perhaps love itself is virtually impossible without the toaster. Toast, which is to say warm, delicious bread, slightly crisp where it wasn't to begin with, is more than anything the food of deep affection. Symbolic and simple. Unassuming, unpretentious, unbearably kind. The last thing one can eat before they cannot stand food at all. The first thing one considers when hunger returns. It requires almost no attention on the part of the person offering it, and is, for many people, the stuff life is made of."

-Susan Wiegand, Cooking as Courtship

Recent Events

October 2008: Started looking for a job.

December 2008: Graduated from college.

January 2009: Started subbing.

January - May 2009: Scoured the internet for ESL jobs in Iowa.

March - April 2009: Applied for ESL jobs around Des Moines and Iowa City.

May 4, 2009: Got a call to interview at West in IC. Was shocked to get this interview and no others since I have more elementary experience.

May 8, 2009: Interviewed at West with 4 fantastic teachers/administrators. Wore my fabulous interview suit thanks to mom and dad. Slouched. Wondered, "Why did I just say that?" as I answered questions. Was told the hiring process should be wrapped up by next week. Told friends and family, "If I am offered this job, it's all God working."

May 14, 2009: Missed a call from the West administrator while subbing. Called her back and told her all the times my kids would be out of the room. Called her afterschool. Called Dexter. Called my dad to learn about what one does when one is offered a fancy grown-up job. Convinced myself that she might just have a follow-up questions or be polite enough to tell me the position had been filled. Felt like puking.

May 15, 2009: Missed a call from the same West administrator while subbing in the same classroom. Breathed deeply and prayed I'd figure out what she wanted before the weekend. Called her back. Was offered the job. Tried not to pee my pants or seem to excited. Asked for the weekend to give her a final answer.

May 15-18, 2009: Prayed like a maniac.

May 18, 2009: Accepted the job. Thought, "Maybe we should move over there."

May 18-June 8, 2009: Thought about moving. Weighed rent vs. buy. Thought, "There is no way we would get approved for a mortgage."

June 9, 2009: Realized most leases begin in less than 2 months and decided to act. Went to the bank to find out about mortgage possibilities. Almost started laughing when banker told us we were preapproved. Noticed banker seemed much more at ease after finding this out. Celebrated by taking Fitz to Dairy Queen. (We celebrate EVERYTHING with DQ this summer. Things like, "It's nice out," or "Yay, we're not at work anymore.") Drove around westside IC and looked at homes from the car window. Picked up fliers for homes and threw them in the backseat when we realized how much they were. Called about an FSBO condo. Saw it that day. It was beautiful, but didn't have a good place for puppy potties.

June 14, 2009: Got a tip about an almost-on-the-market condo! Thanks, SV!

June 15, 2009: Saw the condo. Wasn't big on the light pergo floors or the white painted cabinets. Wasn't big on it being much more expensive than others in the neighborhood. Realized it was actually a bargain since it was uncommonly large for the neighborhood. Thought, "What do we do?!"

June 16, 2009: Decided we needed a realtor.

June 18, 2009: Met realtor. Chose homes to see.

June 18-22, 2009: Nearly hyperventilated in anticipation of seeing houses. Saw them. Some were easily rejected. Was faced with the decision: like-it/cheaper/smaller vs. like-it/expensiver/bigger. Made an offer on Bigger. Spent the evening upstairs where our phones get reception waiting for a call. Realized at 9:45 that we'd missed a call at 8:30. Nearly hyperventilated again.

June 23, 2009: Received counter offer. Was irritated. Calmed down. Made counter-counter offer. Received and accepted counter-counter-counter offer.

June 23, 2009 - Present: Doubted decision. Didn't matter since acceptance was legally binding! Regained faith in decision. Repeat. Thought, "Something must be done about those white cabinets!" Thought, "Our lovely walkout basement will be so empty!" Thought, "DISHWASHER!" Thought, "My rug will look nice on the light pergo." Started pondering how to decorate in all my (mental) freetime.

Tomorrow: Inspection and radon test.

Pedal for Nepal

A friend of mine has an uncle riding RAGBRAI for a good cause. "Uncle John" and his two friends are raising money for the Nepal Home for Children, a Christian missionary organization that provides vocational training for children in Nepal. They hope to find 2,000 people to donate a penny per mile ($.01 x 500 = $5) so that they can raise a total of $10,000.

If you're interested in giving and/or praying, here is a link to my friend's blog where you can find more information. Here's the link to the actual site of Pedal for Nepal.

The Dating Game

Dexter and I have decided to try to make "dating" a bigger priority in our marriage. Otherwise, we end up feeling like we're living together out of convenience and we forget how much we like each other. However, there's always the challenge of what to do, and I'm looking for suggestions.

To Dexter, a date is going out somewhere--to a restaurant, a movie, a bookstore. To me, a date could be going out, but it could be snacks and a movie or board game at home as long as it's time set aside to spend together for fun. To me, a date could also be cooking a meal together at home. For Dexter, that is pretty boring for a date, although he's happy to cut or stir things on the stove (knives and fire--the manly parts) to help me with dinner on a normal night. I think part of the turn-off for him is that it leaves a mess in our dishwasherless kitchen that I might want to clean.

Our typical dates are as follows:
1. Netflix or Redbox and popcorn, fancy cheese, wine, or other good snacks
2. Eat out (I have banned things like Village Inn from being "dates" because we always get eggs and pancakes--so the food is really cheap to make at home and it doesn't feel like a date to go there)
3. Go shopping, usually to Target (this is not such a great idea because I think Dexter gets bored and it also might result in buying things just for the sake of calling it "shopping")
4. Dairy Queen

Do you and your man-of-choice have different ideas of what constitutes a date? What are your favorites and what are his? I'm looking for low-budget ideas as well as things that cost a little more to do every once in a while.

Delicious Dinner!

When I suggested foregoing the peanutbutter-chocolate stuffed french toast that was on the meal schedule for last night so that we could make strawberry-rhubarb crisp for dessert, I just about had a mutiny on my hands. And the mutineers had a point--it was pretty good. You do need a tall glass of milk/tea/something else to go along with it, otherwise you may choke every few bites because your esophogas is coated in peanutbutter. We didn't make the jam syrup because I'm not a fruit-chocolate person (except about these), we left off the whip, and used smashed up full sized chocolate chips.

What surprised me most about dinner, however, was how good the "good-for-you huevos rancheros" were. Depending on how crisp you get your tortillas (the crispness of mine was determined by how many other things I was doing at the time that each particular tortilla was on the pan), you can eat it like a taco or like you're eating the plate your meal came on. I think we probably put on more cheese than the recipe called for, but we didn't use sour cream, so I think it was still pretty healthy. I didn't make the salsa from scratch like the recipe said because I was tired and because I bought a large vat of salsa the other day that I need to use up before it goes bad.

Here's what our huevos rancheros looked like--not as pretty as Rachael's, but this is actually food and not food-photo props. (Seriously, my cooked canned black beans never look shiny and cute. Maybe it's because I overcook them or because I bought them at ALDI.)

Meal Planning Wednedsay (except today is Friday)

Since I graduated, I've been doing a really bad job of meal planning. This has resulted in too many trips to the store, too much money spent, too much eating out, too much convenience food, and too little nutrition. We joined a CSA with another couple, and since I'll need to plan meals that include whatever comes in my box each week. I follow this blog:

and every Monday, or Sunday night, she posts her meal plan for the week and uses a widget (am I using that word correctly) so that her readers can upload links to their own blogs. So, her website is a source of about 300 (or more) meal plans every week.

We get our box from the CSA on Wednesday nights, and since grocery ads come out on Wednesdays, I decided that I'll be participating in Menu Planning Wednesday throughout the summer. This was my first week, and this is what I came up with. I'm not planning to post all the recipes, but if something looks interesting, let me know!

Thursday: Stir-fry bok choi (from CSA), carrots, onion, edamame, soba noodles; canned pineapple

Friday: Boca burgers, salad (lettuce from CSA) with homemade vegetarian caesar dressing (no anchovies), beer bread

Saturday & Sunday: Eating on the road on the way to Des Moines--probably Subway or PB&honey sandwiches

Monday: Tofu nuggets, scalloped potatoes, salad

Tuesday: Peanutbutter-chocolate stuffed french toast, eggs, fruit

Wednesday: Leftovers OR if there aren't enough, we'll make what I planned for Saturday before I knew we were leaving (a healthified version of huevos rancheros, iced raisin biscuits, and a veggie purchased from the farmer's market)

We're also making yogurt in the crockpot for breakfast, "healthy" oatmeal cookies for snacks, and some quinoa and black bean salad for lunches.

Did I mention that my little sister is staying with us for a few weeks and she does dishes? That's awesome.

Who likes carob chips? Fitz likes carob chips.

Fitz ate the bag of carob chips off the counter today. I think there were two pounds in the bag.

Dexter took him on a walk. Fitz pooped. Dexter tells me it was like Hershey's syrup. My apologies to the person whose yard that was.

(He pooped between the sidewalk and the street. I searched for the name of the term for that area and found that many other people wonder what it is called and that no one knows. "Tree lawn," "inferno strip," and "verge" are possibilities from an "urban dictionary.")

Fitz also just puked up his dog food on the carpet as I researched the name for the section of grass. I apologize to queasy readers. At least this is a picture-free post.

Good Boy, Fitz

We've finally realized that it isn't just that Fitz is too naughty or too stupid to use his dog bed. It's just that we haven't put it in the right spot before. Look at what a good boy he is on his bed in front of the sliding glass doors, keeping an eye on the birds.

Blood Chocolate OR Carob < Chocolate

A while ago I read an article in Relevant Magazine about things we buy without realizing how they affect others in the world. One of those things is chocolate. About 70% of the chocolate grown in the world is grown in Western Africa, and 40% of that is grown in just one country, Ivory Coast. Working conditions on these plantations are awful, and most families are so poverty-stricken that their children are pulled from school (if they could have afforded school) and made to work on chocolate plantations. Children even younger than 10 years old wield machetes and cover fields in pesticides. You can read more about this issue here. Note that our own senator, Tom Harkin, regardless of whether you agree with most of his policies, is one of two senators spearheading legislation to reduce and eliminate the child labor on chocolate plantations.

I love chocolate, but I value human rights. I can't watch CSI or other crime shows if they have to do with children being mistreated because then that's all I can think about for days and it makes me sick. So, how can I go on eating chocolate that has been harvested by a starving West African child? I know that my not buying that chocolate won't solve the problem entirely. I can't rebuild a war torn nation's economy by boycotting its exports. I can, however, show my financial support for the type of labor I want to continue so that current conditions don't last into the future.

I made the flimsy decision not to buy chocolate unless it had been fairly traded and harvested without child labor. However, because of labelling laws, it can be difficult to discern where the chocolate comes from. New Pi sells Guittard semi-sweet mini chocolate chips in bulk, but I can't get a straightforward answer from the website about whether children harvested the chocolate or if it was fairly traded. They seem like an upstanding company and purchase their chocolate from a variety of places, but I want to be sure.

I thought one way to solve my chocolate dilemma would be to buy carob chips, sold in bulk next to the chocolate chips at New Pi. I had a dessert in mind, so I bought a lot. Tonight, I decided to make chocolate chip cookies to try out the carob chips.

FAIL.

The carob chips didn't make it into the cookies. Thank goodness the cookies will be edible. The chips might have been okay if I hadn't been expecting something that tasted like chocolate. They tasted a little like dark chocolate, but in the grossest way possible. These are no longer a part of the solution for me. My cookies now contain Hershey's chocolate chips. They were my brand of choice before I discovered the slavery issue because they are cruelty-free in respect to animals.

Did you know about this chocolate dilemma before? If not, do you think it will change your buying habits? If so, do you have a new go-to brand that is easily accessible and doesn't break the bank?

Also, do you want a pound or two of carob chips?

My day, which was a happy one

1. Slept through the night despite my cough thanks to Tylenol PM

2. Listened to my puppy chew on his rope in bed for 15 minutes before I was supposed to wake up

3. Had a sub job

4. Talked to coworkers about their lives

5. Dexter gave me a delicious cookie from the cookie shop at the mall when I got home (and I was sooo hungry!)

6. Dexter cleaned the bathroom (without being asked or mentioning it to me)

7. Dexter did the dishes (without being asked or mentioning it to me)

8. Fitz graduated from Puppy Obedience

9. Fitz got a giant special Kong as a graduation present from Mommy and Daddy

10. Went to DQ (I got a chocolate cone dipped in sprinkles) and ate on a picnic table by the river with my husband and my puppy

11. Fitz got to eat the giant milk bone from the trainer

12. Fitz's daddy shared the last drips of his blizzard with him

13. Fitz tried out the new Kong and it's a hit

Mistakes and triumphs with Rachael

A few weeks ago, I was so proud that I made this recipe from Rachael Ray. It was her show 30 Minute Meals that got me interested in cooking--there was none of that "magic" like on other shows where they throw some veggies in a pot and open up a different pot and there's a meal. I even got a subscription to her magazine for Christmas last year. This recipe has polenta, which is Italian so it's fancy. It has kale, so it's healthy. And it has cheese, so it must be tasty, right? Unfortunately, I was not so impressed with the recipe. First, I oversalted the polenta. Second, I used white hominy grits (grits are the same things as polenta, just with a less fancy culture attached--it must be true because AB told me) instead of yellow, which made it kind of look like spinach on grey barf. I also couldn't taste the "white sauce" that made up the layer between the kale and the cheese. I dreaded eating the leftover so much that I left it in the fridge until Thursday night. It looked like this:

I made the picture small so it's less gross.

I don't want to give RR a bad rap though. So, here's a link to her garlicky bean enchilada recipe that I love and use a lot. I modify it, not because it's bad otherwise, but because the first several times I made it I didn't read it closely and I'm used to making it my way now.

We also made this delicious dinner a while ago after I learned about jicama during a "Pick a Better Snack" presentation at a school where I subbed. The carrot-jicama salad and burrito filling are inspired by this RR recipe. The couscous and black bean salad is from allrecipes.com. I love to make it with quinoa as well. Dexter wouldn't eat the jicama salad because he was freaked out by the existance of this apple-potato-food, but the black bean salad is his favorite.

Home Ec Sparknotes: Edition #1

I have a little addiction to "self-help" books. Whether it's getting organized, becoming more productive, or eating healthier, I just have to know what this "expert" thinks I should know about becoming a better me. Thankfully, I'm not at all driven to read every word of each book or to implement all the ideas. I skim and then usually put the information I find into one of two categories.

Category #1: I already knew that. Doesn't everybody?
Category #2: That's a stupid idea. Why would I do that?

If you are a self-help writer, I'm sorry to make light of your work, but usually, these are the categories that most of the information in these books fall under. However, once in a while, I do file information under Category #3.

Category #3: That's a really good idea. I wish I would have realized that earlier!

I don't know if it's pride or good judgement that keeps Category #3 sparse, but that's the way it goes. I tend to do a lot of this skimming at a table in the library and leave books there that seem, upon further inspection, to have no hope of containing #3 information. The stack of books pictured above did not go through this pre-inspection before leaving the library. I thought I'd share my findings with you in case one of these books pops up in your catalog search at the ICPL.

Organizing Idea Book by John Loecke

This book contains some #2 with photos of "organized" spaces that still look cluttered to me. Or, more often, the organizational ideas were pricey and would work much better in a beautiful, well-designed mansion. I live in a duplex with shallow pantry shelves, so I did not find many of these ideas applicable. The pictures are fabulous and could probably get your imagination going on variations that would work for your home and budget.

Get Crafty by Jean Railla

I appreciated the "quiz" at the front of this book that helps you decide what kind of crafting to get into. Because I said I like to read books in a sitting, it recommended I do short-term projects like cooking. Lots of the questions pointed to cooking, which might suggest that the quiz paints a precise picture and gives good suggestions. However, because I like math and being dirty, it suggested gardening. If you saw my garden last summer, you would know that this is not an area in which I will likely experience success. This had a few cute ideas, but more commentary than I appreciate.

Organizing for the Creative Person by Lehmkuhl and Lamping

I checked out this book for Dexter, who resists all organization projects relating to his desk. I hesitate to call it a work area, because the other day I couldn't find his keyboard under all the crap (his and mine) on the desk. I was disappointed with the content. The key message was, "You're creative! That's great! Maybe you're disorganized. That's just part of your right-brainedness and it's okay. But if it's screwing you up, here's stuff that organized left-brained people do to keep it together." So, I didn't find any great creative-person-specific tips within.

Don't Throw It Out: Recycle, Renew, Reuse to Make Things Last by

If I owned my own home, this would be a great reference book. It includes information on how to clean things or fix things that you might think were broken or inefficient. I didn't find anything that pertained to me currently, but I kept running across things where I thought, "I'm never going to remember this, but I bet I'll want to know that someday." This might be a good reference book to check out when something goes wrong with an appliance or you're doing spring cleaning. Or, maybe it would be good to buy to have around for reference.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey

The table of contents was not very conducive to skimming. I think this book is geared toward "reading" and possibly even tries to make skimming impossible. There are subject headings and chapter titles, but all I could read was "positivity, goals, blah, blah, stuff, blah." Maybe I need to try again when I grow up a little?

Totally Organized by Bonnie McCullough

Skim-friendly! It only took me about half an hour to get through this one, and although she didn't give any specific advice that I applied, I did think of a new way to organize my files while I was reading it. It's also more family-oriented than it is poor-recent-graduates-with-no-kids-oriented, so you might find more things applicable. It was also written in the 80s, so it could use a revision. Maybe replace phone-time-management with inbox-clutter-control?

Feed Your Family for $12.00 a Day by Rhonda Barfield

Barfield offers meals that seem fairly balanced and buys plenty of fresh fruit and veggies. She also makes deals with local produce salesman to buy boxes full of slighly damaged produce for $2. Some of the things she does just aren't practical unless you are willing to be a little obnoxious about finding a good deal, but she does have a big recipe section where I've marked several pages. I would have liked it even better if I still ate meat.

The Starving Artist's Way by Nava Lubelski

I had a bad attitude about this book before I opened it up. If you're truly living like a "starving artist," sacrificing your self for your art in a desperate yet arrogant way, isn't it selling out to write a book about how to do cool starving artist stuff? Either way, I was pleasantly surprised. Did you know that some grocery stores sell canned octopus? Well, if you need a recipe to use some up, you can find it here. It has a great table of contents, so it's good for skimming. It's got sections for recipes, home decor, wearables, cosmetics, events, and gifts. Some of the ideas are kind of stupid and tacky or probably too expensive for a "starving" person to pull off, but some of the ideas are cute, creative, and unique. It could use a few more pictures for partly-arty people like me who have a really hard time picturing how to do things or how things look from descriptions. There are also lots of references to famous artists in the book--one for every project I think--so if you want to have some good art trivia and to obtain it in a way that's more fun than an art history book, this may be your source.