I mentioned yesterday that I’m INHALING books now that I catch myself with a spare hour every day on the bus. I like to try and read books / watch movies that coincide somewhat with the season. This book was just what I needed this month. Rich descriptions, an interwoven story line, a dose of humor and a lot of talk on farming and animals and how we all rely on them more than we realize.
In an effort to FURTHER cut my budget, I have been taking public transportation. A monthly train/bus pass is $100 and my employer kicks in $30 every month. Daily parking near my office is between $10-$15, which is added to the cost of filling up my gas tank each week. While easy to do the math, finding the right way to use public transportation in a way that didn’t make me insane has taken a while.
If I ride the bus from my house it takes an hour and fifteen minutes to get to work and over 90 minutes to get home.
If I take the train from the nearest station it takes about an hour to get to work and an hour and fifteen minutes to get home.
I finally found that if I drive part way in to the office and park at a park and ride, I can hop on an express bus that will have me downtown in about 25 minutes. Door to door takes me only about 40 minutes in the mornings and 50 minutes on the way home, which coincidentally, is about the same as driving and reduces my costs by 75%.
Once I honed in on that route, I started tweaking my routine. I found a parking space I like and a couple of different departure times where hardly anyone is on the bus. On the weekends I run by the library and pick up a couple of books for the week. I’m able to read for almost an hour every day now.
Today I listened to the wipers going swish swish swish against the rain, the quick “thank you’s!” called to the bus driver as people got to their stops and felt the crinkle of the library’s plastic cover on The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder. I’m starting to realize more and more that limitations can sometimes be quite lovely.
And speaking of lovely, I ordered a new gorgeous brown leather tote bag that I’ve been eyeing for months. And bonus, I was able to buy it with money saved from my new daily commute.
I live in a very tall, very skinny row house. It is, in fact, my polar opposite in both respects. Every morning when I leave, I touch the walls as I go downstairs and tell it thank you. Thank you for keeping me safe, warm and dry. We’ve got a lot to do to make the ol’ gal charming, but she’s got good bones.
Last night I got home from work and cracked open the cookbook Barefoot Contessa at Home.
I loved this quote from the intro: ”A good home should gather your up in its arms like a warm cashmere blanket, soothe your hurt feelings, and prepare you to go out into that big bad world tomorrow all ready to fight the dragons.”
(Don’t you want her to be your MOM? Gah. So sweet.)
Last night we had a … scuffle … in my neighborhood. It woke me up, unnerved me and kept me from going to bed until almost 5 a.m.
I’ve been moving through my day like a zombie and tonight, as I carried a warm bowl of tomato soup with a toasted and buttered english muffin to tuck into from the couch, I knew just what she meant.
Cooking for me requires minimal ingredients, minimal time in the kitchen and maximum taste at the table. It’s a delicate balance people! I’ve messed around with these tacos trying to sub turkey, add onion or chili powder, but they’re really perfect as is in their flavor and ease.
Spicy Beef Tacos
1T olive or canola oil
3/4 lb ground beef (10% or less fat)
2 garlic cloves minced
1-1/2 t cumin
1-1/2 t coriander
3/4 t salt
1 can drained Rotel tomatoes (I use the “Hot” variety)
8 corn tortillas
Favorite taco fixin’s. (I like cheese, avocado slices, sour cream and lettuce with a lot of salsa.)
Preheat a skillet over medium-high heat with 1T olive oil. When oil is shimmering, add ground beef and allow to brown, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes. Add garlic and toss quickly for 30 seconds. Add cumin, coriander, salt and drained tomatoes and allow to bubble at medium to medium high heat until the liquid has almost evaporated.
The tortillas are best when brushed with a small amount of oil, sprinkled with salt and toasted. Serves 4 but the meat freezes wonderfully if you’re like me and only eat it for a couple of meals.
(adapted slightly from Weight Watchers)
When I started looking at going to Europe this fall, I knew my budget was going to need to be tightened up. Two of the ways I decided to do that was to significantly reduce the amount of money I was spending on twice daily lattes (shut up I know) and (gulp) acknowledge that I was frequently throwing away more food than I was eating.
I’d start off the week with good intentions, but after a few days the ease of take out proved too much to resist and by the weekend soggy lettuce (and a bunch of other stinky fridge stuff) would get tossed. With London and Paris beckoning, I decided that it was going to boil down to me, a menu plan and a $60 weekly budget consisting solely of (gulp again) CASH.
1) The Menu Plan – I like to cook, so I knew the only way this was going to be successful is if I liked what I was eating. I usually make something more labor intensive at the beginning of the week and then my dinners get consistently easier as the week goes on. A menu plan is the only way I can make a list and make sure I have ALL my meals covered. This means daily breakfast, lunch (usually leftovers from the night before) and dinners at home at least 5 nights a week.
2) $60 Budget – $60 at the beginning was kind of an arbitrary number. It felt roomy enough to be able to get some ice cream but strict enough that I couldn’t veer too far from my list on the $5 magazine purchase or cute vase at Target that usually derails my budget.
3) Cash Only – The only way I knew I was going to pay attention was if I used cash. My debit or credit cards were too easy to use. I must admit it was MORTIFYING the first week when I held back two grapefruits to see what the total was with and without. Especially when there was a cute guy behind me in line. ”I put myself on a cash budget,” I told the checker. Everyone I’ve told this to at the stores? SO SUPPORTIVE. I haven’t had anyone look at me sideways.
Each week I’ve been spending about $55, so I had a $15 surplus this week. I was tempted to cut my budget back even further, but this week I had to get laundry detergent, dog food and mouthwash and buh bye surplus! I got a $5 gift card coupon for Target, so now technically I have a little surplus which will help to buy coffee next week. It has been a GREAT exercise and feels so much more conscious.
Some upsides I wasn’t expecting:
1) There is less stuff to haul from the car into the kitchen.
2) My kitchen is so much easier to clean. The cupboards are cleaner from eating up the pantry items and I eat my way through the fridge as the week goes on so the shelves are easy to wipe down.
3) It’s teaching me what my “must haves” are. Two cups of coffee a day are mandatory, but it’s fine if they come from my kitchen. Eating out a few times a week staves off the deficit hawks. I’m lucky that downtown Portland has a ton of inexpensive food carts. (Eating out comes from my personal spending money.)
4) I’m getting creative in the kitchen. I only needed 1/4 cup of heavy cream for a curry I made a couple weeks ago. I didn’t want to toss the rest of the cream so I tried a new recipe and made some cream biscuits. They freeze well and can be heated up in the microwave for 30 seconds. I’ve had them for breakfast and as a side with soup. Big, big fan.
5) Good food doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. I shop for staples at Target, but I’ve been buying most of my produce and meat at a local organic market. It is more expensive, but that’s the cool part of shopping and cooking for one–you don’t have to buy a lot!
This week on the menu:
Breakfasts: Biscuits with an Egg & Fruit or Vanilla Yogurt with Granola & Fruit
Lunches: Leftovers from dinner the night before & an apple
Dinners:
Tomato soup & grilled cheese
Tacos
Okay, well I just went to pull a picture of my new trench coat off target.com aaaaand ended up spending $80 on a new shirt, pair of jeans and two pairs of flats (yellow & cheetah rawr). Damn the ease of online shopping and free shipping (with a 5% discount no less) when you use the Target Red Card! (No, this isn’t a sponsored post.)
Portland has been GORGEOUS this week and today eight of us wandered down to Theo’s for burgers. The general consensus was that they were pretty good. The fries and bun were solid. I’ll go back. Not the BEST burger in Portland, but certainly good. They’ve got some other stuff on the menu I’d like to try. Namely WAFFLES.
Needless to say when one of my colleagues asked why the hell I was wearing my coat, I didn’t answer because the truth was I didn’t NEED it. I just love it so much I threw it on anyway. I’d show you a picture, but I’m afraid if I go back to Target’s website I won’t be able to pay for my Europe trip.
Aaaaand I figured I’d be so close, so why not tack on a few days in Paris to my London trip?! I’ve purchased my plane tickets, booked my hotels and now all I have left to do is dream and plan.
On the list …
Wander the Marais & St. Germain (two neighborhoods I didn’t get a chance to spend much time in last time)
Picnic along the Seine
Quality cafe lounging time.
Baguettes, macarons & croissants.
Angelina maybe?
L’as du Fallafel definitely.
Much, much more I haven’t even begun to think of yet …
