Best intentions

I actually went to the grocery store at about 8:30 pm last night. I actually sat in my car and tried to surf the internet and use an iPhone recipe app to find something easy to make. I actually went into the store and picked up a Rachael Ray magazine and looked for a recipe. I actually gave up on that plan and almost left with nothing. I actually forced myself to buy some stuff. I actually brought it home and unpacked it. I actually washed out my lunchbox and prepared it for the next installment of the Cute Lunch.

Oh the best laid plans! I could have packed a lunch but I was unmotivated, even by my spiffy new groceries.

So, no lunch for me today, even though I went shopping to AVOID eating out.

Well. You cannot push the cute lunch or you will lose the cute lunch mojo. It has to be organic and free flowing. There has to be some inspiration.

This is what I told myself as I ate some onion rings and other not so healthy things today. My story, I'm sticking with it!

More Cute Lunches

I would just like to say, for the record, I realize these are actually super boring lunches when compared with say, Taco Bell. I mean chicken stew and yogurt, right?

BUT. The lunchbox adds a cuteness factor which has aided me in fending off the Cyber Cafe pizza line. And has motivated me to pack a lunch even though last night I did it at 1:30 am and was scrounging for things to add. I actually opened a can of pineapple chunks I think I bought last summer, I was so desperate. But when I eat these little chunkos I do not feel financially challenged at all, I feel cute! I feel like, don't you all (I mean the other students sitting around me eating fresh Cyber Cafe pizza, not you, Internetz) just wish you had a cute lunch like mine???

I swear I should get a job as the spokesmodel for this lunchbox company.

So Voila, here is how to make very boring pantry scrounging into something you actually want to eat.

Today:


- One piece leftover pizza cut into strips.
- One whole cucumber peeled and sliced.
- One whole container of salad dressing with a few baby carrots to fill it up -- I really thought I'd be eating more salad dressing but it was too much.
- The famous pineapple chunks aforementioned.

Earlier this week:


- Chicken stew I made last weekend -- a super easy recipe I adapted to make even easier. 1 onion chopped and sauteed a few minutes in olive oil, then added one giant can (26 oz?) of low fat cream of mushroom soup, 1 bag frozen peas (should be peas and carrots but Target was out), 2 packages of precooked chicken meat I bought on sale (usually I remove the meat from a rotisserie chicken and that tastes much much better but is way messier and takes longer), stir all in the pan on the stove, then pour into a casserole pan, top with canned biscuits, bake 12 minutes at 350 (or however long you need to bake the biscuits), serve!
- Replacement biscuits -- I bake the chicken stew with a topping of biscuits but something went horribly wrong this time. I put the pan back in the oven twice, I covered with foil, took foil off, they just would not bake. Biscuits were slimy and raw inside so I scraped them off and made new biscuits separately.
- Pina Colada yogurt, my favorite!

I have to work tomorrow night too but I am debating eating before I get here and then after I leave instead of packing. Hmmmm I have some chicken stew left with biscuits included, more yogurt, another cucumber, the leftovers in the can of pineapple, bananas, one orange (if I buy some chocolate fudge pudding cups tonight, I can dip the orange segments into it for a snack), maybe more frozen peas hiding somewhere, a couple of apples...I don't know. It's very tricky to not lessen the power of the lunchbox by redoing too many of the same items in the same week.

I wonder if I have the energy to stop at the store and buy some ingredients and cook again tonight.

Technology Learning Never Ends!

I'm on a learning curve here .... iPhoto did not work for me last time I tried it. It might have been a combination of having and older computer and an older version, I don't know. I have an updated version and an updated computer now but I am still reluctant. I just don't like that I would have to dump all my photos into one big folder and use iPhoto to organize them. This bothers me, especially since technology changes so much. Many people don't seem too concerned with digital migration but I really am.

So now I am trying Adobe Bridge instead. It is a more high powered version of this great cheap software I bought called Shoebox. I liked Shoebox in many ways but for some reason I never got into it. However I am really liking Bridge so far.


{me with The Big Giant Head}

This year LOM class has a whole digital component, it includes digital forums, a digital coach, lots of tutorials and videos - awesome!!!! So I got some great advice on Bridge vs iPhoto and then I watched several videos, took notes, asked more questions when I was confused -- it was great! It's very hard to try and learn new technology on your own, even if you have instructions.

I have also been learning Google Maps for a project at work and that has been a bear! Everyone uses Google Maps, it seems very easy and straightforward BUT IT'S NOT. I am now having to completely redo all this work because I got instructions I could transfer a map I created from my account to another account. It took me days to figure out how to transfer it, none of the instructions on Google worked at all, and then I finally transferred it and 90% of the information I included was stripped out!

On top of that I had to buy a piece of software called BBEdit for this computer to do html for a class I am in. And so not only am I learning the markup (not easy for me for some reason) but I have to learn this special software in order to do anything. The computer came with TextEdit but that does not work like Notepad does at all.

aaaahhhh!!!! I cannot learn any more new technology! My brain is full!

In other news, and my friend Nancey does not read this blog I am pretty sure so I am safe.. her birthday is coming up and I do not have the time to make her a gift like I do for lots of other people. She loves coffee and I am trying to buy her a coffee gift that is not too expensive (I have 3 other birthdays in April). So if anyone has any good ideas, let me know, since it is not Christmas I cannot find anything good in stores. Also I do not drink coffee so I am not regularly IN stores where there might be things to buy. I am Coffee Challenged, yo. I NEED HELP FROM THE CAFFEINATED.

Completely unrelated, I have to give a shout out to KMart.com. I don't buy clothes there and I don't buy clothes online because I need to try stuff on. Plus I think shipping costs are part of the cost of the clothes so i don't care if it's $10 for a pair of pants, if it's $7 to ship and I haven't tried them on, I am not buying. But anyway I was turned on to looking at KMart.com from Kim at Fab Finds Under $50 who said a top she was wearing was marked down to 2.99! So I looked around and a whole bunch of tops were marked down to $2.99 and many were in my size! It was $8 to ship, which is a lot to me, but I ordered maybe 8 tops? Seriously, is that is a dollar a top, I can pay that. I ordered on a Monday night and received a box Thursday night so that is pretty fast to me. Best of all almost all of these tops fit me and looked great! The funny thing about me is, stuff that looks great online or in a catalog never fits me right. Stuff that looks boring and plain in a picture looks fantastic on me. And there is a store down the street from me so I can take back the one top I won't wear and get my whole $3 back. I now have several light summer tops and even a couple dressy blouses too. Great deal, so check them out.

Ok I am at work today and my time here is almost done so later. AND I NEED COFFEE GIFT IDEAS. Please!

Photo Updatey

I was just replying to a blog post elsewhere about not blogging often enough, and I said, well, if you can't write as often as others, many people seem to enjoy photo posts. People like making them, they are not writing intensive, and people like seeing them.

I have a hard time sharing photos on a public blog. Most of my photos are not meant for the General Public. (They are not naughty or anything, I am just a private person.) I frequently update my Facebook with photos, but there I control who sees them. If I had time to figure out how to post on this blog from my iPhone with pictures, I would probably update more often. For instance, yesterday I had to go to the Mall, and there I saw a very sad Easter Bunny with no children to visit him. My Facebook Posse found that photo update amusing.

But in most of the blogs I like to read and view, the blogger has a very expensive camera with gorgeous photos. I however, tend to use my phone for photos on the fly, so they are not the greatest.


So here are some random photos of my life lately....

What I do to relax when I come home from school at 4:30am (twice this week):


{watching LOST on DVD while in bed trying to fall asleep}

I have finished Season 4 so the Oceanic 6 just got off the island. I have Season 5 to go, so DON'T TELL ME ANYTHING! And then eventually I will watch Season 6, when it is available, all at once.

Below my TV are 2 white "frames" -- these are drawers. For LOM-ers, those are my Category Drawers, with patterned paper covering the front category tabs.

(This is one of those photos I wonder about sharing... because I am not going to clean up and stage the place before snapping the photo when I am taking it at 4:30 am to upload to my ShutterCal account for just myself, yannow?)


Getting a new job means the return of THE CUTE LUNCH:


{fruity curry couscous (made with orange juice and segments, golden raisins, scallions, carrots, and curry powder), apple slice cake, frozen peas to keep the lunch cold, pretzel sticks for snack}


{leftover eggroll from Chinese dinner (wrapped in plastic), banana bread in pieces, red grapefruit segments in juice, cheese crackers for snack}


{lemon pasta (made with basil and pinenuts), kielbasa on a roll (in plastic), orange segments, just a bit of a 7-layer bar)


A cute lunch is very important when trying to live within your budget. As Stacy Julian says, when you use a cute container, you feel cute! My cute bento-style lunch kit comes from Laptop Lunchbox. I was inspired to buy this kit after weeks of reading the archives at Vegan Lunchbox. I debated spending the money since it costs much less to put stuff in Gladware and carry in a plastic shopping bag, but I find with this lunch kit

- I eat up more leftovers, freezer items and random bits from the pantry I might otherwise toss out
- I am unlikely to ignore my packed lunch and eat out anyway. It was close to $50 with the shipping cost, and paid for itself many times over
- I get more variety in my lunch since I won't fill it up solely with junk food
- I manage my portion sizes better since I know how much each section holds
- Packing my lunch is a little more creative than making a sandwich and packing an apple.

When I am not packing my lunch I do eat out:


{tried Five Guys, hated their fries, probably won't try it again}

This lunch was over $10. My cute lunches are less expensive, prettier, and don't sit like a rock in my stomach.

While watching LOST (or Queer as Folk!) I like to cross stitch:


{Lemons by Bucilla, begun in January}

I usually would have had this finished by now but I am usually too tired to even stitch when I get home these days. And I am at the part of a project I dislike -- the futzing ending part.

Over break I hung out with my old friend Nancey just to chill. It was a lovely warm day but the pictures look cold.

We went to The Grove, which is a nature center and historic estate.


{walking to the nature center}


{Nancey checking out the fish}


{turtles!}

There are several letterboxes hidden at The Grove so I introduced Nancey to a fun hobby of mine. She found a box hidden in the nature center building, and it had a hitchhiker in it! A hitchhiker is a letterbox without a box or permanent home. When you find one, you take it with you, then you hide it in another box you find at some point. So she got 2 stamps, and I got the hitchhiker stamp.

Ah I had a hitchhiker on me from letterboxing last summer, so we hid that one in the box in the Nature Center and took the one we found.

I have found most of the boxes hidden at The Grove but one has eluded me so we went on a snowy hike to find it.


{"cross the bridge and walk XX number of steps..."}

We found the box, both got stamps, and transferred the hitchhiker, then re-hid it.

While looking for The Grove boxes online, I saw there was a new box recently hidden at a park nearby where I have already found 3 other boxes, so we drove a couple of miles over there. From my time in that park, I knew exactly where to look...


{"find the temple..."}

This same place in the fall is GORGEOUS!



I knew where another easy letterbox was hidden so I gave Nancey the clues and she went off to find it. With the 2 boxes at The Grove and the 2 hitchhikers she already had 4 stamps. This made her 5th. Then it was time to climb up to find her 6th....


{Nancey doing her Rocky dance}

I've been up here before...



The view from the top is of the local lake...



It's so much prettier in better weather --



After that one we'd had enough. We went to Caribou coffee and relaxed with hot drinks. We got quite a lot of exercise.

Well back to the grind. It has been nice reminding myself I do more than sit at school and hit the books.




{this post brought to you courtesy my new computer with 160 gig HD, the entire Adobe CS4 Creative Suite, AND photo organization in Adobe Bridge!}