It's been a month of bounced checks, NSF charges, grilled cheese sandwiches, and bill paying angst. I hate being a homeowner right now. (Although, if we were still renting our old place at $900 a month, it wouldn't really make much of a difference.) I called our bank where we have our mortgage to ask them to postpone posting our check (which I send out twice a month--half a payment each--via online bill pay) just until Monday, when we'd have enough in there for it to go through. But the jerkies went ahead and cashed it anyway.
Sigh. I've been thinking patience, I've been thinking about the scripture about being "refined like silver..." This helps. When I can remember in the moment, when I'm crying or upset or freaking out. I always seem to remember these things later, when I'm not upset anymore, but last night I remembered it WHILE I was upset, which really seemed to help. While I was being ridiculous, getting all teary while wiping crumbs off of vinyl restaurant booths, with cheesy classic rock playing in the background. But seriously, it helped, a lot.
Also, I'm such a jerky myself, getting all hooty and haughty and down on myself for working 2 nights a week at the O.G. There's this little voice in my head--I used to have my own office. I'm two inches away from a master's degree. Why am I here? I have to regañar that silly voice, and remind myself that I'm still young, that I'm doing this because it's my dream to actually not be working in an office anymore, that I'm sticking to my beliefs and principles and loves, and that I was miserable before. And there's nothing wrong with this type of work, and to have fun with it, dammit!!
And about being bad with money, and my earlier comment about the grilled cheese sandwiches--it hasn't really been a month of them, specifically. We're finally sobering up about the amount of $$ we've been pouring out of our household just because we don't make enough time to go buy enough groceries and cook for ourselves most of the time like decent human beings. We're usually better about that, but this month we've been eating out (not even fancy out, but $5 for a crap food meal for one person at a fast food restaurant can buy two people a quite lovely, decent, healthy meal cooked at home) way too much.
Soooo...I've spent a couple of ours eagle-eyeing our bank statements and figuring out where we've been going wrong. I think we will be OK. Sigh. Silly, silly, silly.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the increased attention in the media (and possibly, national policy) to obesity/fat/weight as a health concern. There are a lot of aspects of this that bother me, and I'd been trying to articulate why--but this blog entry over at redpolka dot org seems to do the job quite well.
I've neglected my blog. I've been feeling self-conscious about writing in it again, mostly b/c I found an old blog that I kept about a year and a half ago, and it sounded so different. It was on blogger, and I had no idea whether anyone was reading it or not. I was just sort of writing for myself, most of the time. I think that when I think other people are reading my writing, especially if it's people I know, I find myself affecting this cheerful, witty, jaunty-sounding tone that really doesn't feel/sound like me. The real me. :roll: SDER (self-directed eye roll)
Anyway, I'm procrastinating on a class project right now...it's due by the end of the day. I've been muddling around on the Internet not doing anything very productive for several hours now. This makes me feel queasy...I'd been doing so well, in terms of self-discipline and GETTING STUFF DONE. (Here on out known as GSD.)
I'm going to get my butt over to the nearest local Borders (bookstore) overpriced coffee area (which I also feel guilty/silly about going to so often, along with stupid Starbucks) to just barricade myself in and do work. For some reason I always find it a lot, lot easier to concentrate in such places...at home I'm distracted by internet access, the dogs, the kitchen, and messes I feel like I should be picking up. (The jaunty tone was almost creeping in right there. I don't know if anyone else can tell. I can tell.) Also, my disclaimer re: the big corporate coffee joints--there are really truly no other independently-owned coffeeshop type places near where I live (in a very sprawly, strip-mall-strewn area of Miami) that are tolerant of student types hogging a table and not buying much for several hours at a stretch. If there were, I'd go.
One good thing about today is that I planned dinner ahead of time, and it's now filling my house with a yummy, homey chicken smell. (The words "chicken smell" together actually don't sound all that yummy or homey.) Overnight, I marinated a small fryer chicken in a citrus herb marinade modified from a recipe in ye olde Joy of Cooking. Today I sliced up and layered some onions and boniato (Cuban sweet potato) on the bottom of a crockpot, placed the marinated chicken on top, and it's been slow cooking ever since. Yum.
Paco just yelled from the bathroom to ask me, "You took out all the organs, right?" Yes. I did. I pried out the weird little paper bag of chicken innards before I marinated it. Yes.
I wanted to get a bunch of stuff done at home today, but it's not looking like that's going to happen. In a little bit, we're supposed to go pick up a wooden table and two stools thanks to Freecycle, a movement? thing? organization? idea? that helps people "freecycle" their old and unwanted items and get free stuff via city-specific mailing lists (in Miami, it's a Yahoo group). People can post offering stuff they no longer want or need, and then if you're on the list and you see something you need or want, you can get in touch with them and arrange to pick up the stuff.
Then we're invited to the B's house for this insane array of food, including corn/bean dip, chips, potato salad, grilled corn on the cob, barbecued chicken and ribs, and I forget what else. I wanted to make brownies, but there's really not enough time.
This morning for breakfast I had something I christened "the Denise burger." (I know, how imaginative) It's a yummy, fairly healthy microwaved concoction (can something be really healthy AND microwaved?). It's a veggie burger (or soy burger--any meatless burger-type thing will probably work) on top of a corn tortilla with a slice of mozzarella or monterey jack cheese underneath. Heat in the microwave until the veggie burger is heated through and the cheese is melted. Finally, top with a spoonful of your favorite salsa. Pick up the whole thing, folding the tortilla over the veggie burger for easier munching, and voila! Yum.
I did WW for a month and a half or so and have, sadly, fallen off the wagon. But it's really not a bad program, pretty sensible, actually.
Anyway, this website has a bunch of vintage WW recipe cards from a earlier incarnation of the program. I had two primary thoughts on them: what a hoot, and ewwwwww.
Eesh. I'm running really late for getting ready for the meeting...if I can get ready in the next seven minutes I should be ok. :( One quickie thing--I made an Irish-American Soda Bread recipe this morning from my Joy of Cooking book and it was quite delish--like a big, huge scone. For me though, making something like this is a little dangerous cuz I ate roughly the equivalent of three or four scones? :oops:
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