End November Goal Review & Salad Waste

First things first I had to waste the last serving of a wonderful salad because one of the ingredients had gone off. I made a huge bowl of it at the beginning of the week and just kept eating it. The down side is that when one part goes the whole thing need to be tossed. The up side is that I actually ate salad this week. The result being I will make more week long salads and just make sure that I use ingredients that are roughly the same age.

Lets take a quick look at how goals shaped up over the last month.

Financial

- Set up RRSP investments with my return of value pension from the military and contribute $359 a month for the year, along with any tax refunds. CHECK [It's on auto pilot and I'm looking forward to more RRSP room next year.]

- Pay off house in 5 years.  I should be able to accomplish this by doubling up every payment and paying a 10% lump sum every year.  CHECK [I put my second 10% principle payment down this month and now own 43% of my house.]

Educational

-Start Masters of Science / Masters of Science in Nursing in the fall.  CHECK [One take home exam and one big paper and I will have passed my first semester.]

Social

-Join two new clubs in the local area.  CHECK [I’m actually up to two writers groups plus quilting.] 

Other

-Have my novel accepted to be published.  I plan to have it ready by the end of the month (January), so I can start sending it out. CHECK [Getting ready to launch query letters at people again, plus I'm 48,443 words into my second novel.]

-Become a respite foster parent. CHECK [I’m in the process of being matched up.]

-Finish my current crafting projects.  NOPE [But Christmas break is coming which is usually a very productive time for me in this arena.] 

A respectable 86%. December goals will be (1) getting my school work done in the first half, (2) spend some time on crafts over Christmas, and (3) keep up the good novel writing habits I developed in November. 

Disgruntled Lettuce and Where I've Been

My food waste confessions for the week include half of a slimy green pepper, the tail end of a container of yogurt and some lettuce. I have good reason to believe that my lettuce is disgruntled because I completely forgot that there were a few leaves left and started and almost finished eating a large package of spinach. I am truly sorry for my neglect Mr. Lettuce.

As for where I've been. My regular readers will have noticed that my posts have slowed down a good deal. The irony is that I'm writing even more than I use to! You see there was a reduction in posts so that I could keep up with working 32 hours a week while doing a master's full time. That said my writing per day has increased as I've been involved in the NaNoWriMo competition. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it let me explain. It stands for National Novel Writing Month. It is basically a bunch of crazy people decide that getting together and writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days is fun; of course I thought "why not?" and dove right in.

We're halfway through the month and I have reached 26,360 words. I've also been having a blast. I could expand on all the lovely reasons why my current excursion is a good idea. But that is not for now. Simply rest assured that if my posts are less frequent and shorter than usual it means my main character is having one heck of a day.

Food Waste - 1 Year Anniversary

The food waste front is in great peril. Though I haven't had to toss anything yet I bought salad makings last Saturday and they haven't been touched since. My solution is to make a big salad this weekend and eat it for the rest of the week. (Because making a salad every night just for me is a lot of effort and as a result it simply doesn't get done.

On a slightly happier note it is the eighth of November today! For those of you who are confused about the significance of this it means that I have been the owner my first house for precisely one year. As a result at some point over the next 24 hours a little button called "Pay Principal Only" will appear on my online banking page. This means that the I can pay 10% of my mortgage amount off in one fell swoop. This of course will be followed by a happy dance and an excited call or e-mail to my parents so that they can join in the celebrations too. Until then let me list the things that I've come to realize about owning my own home:

• There is a lot of fun and excitement to be had running around fixing stuff up. 
• The best places in my house are out in the garden in the summer and down by my wood stove in the winter. 
• Little by little the bird makes his (or her) nest. (Take the time and effort to make double-up payments each month. By themselves they look small but when added together they make a significant sum.) 
• There is something really nice about coming home from a long vacation to house that you own. Because it is yours and (once all paid off) no one can take it from you unless you decide to sell. 
• You get to have guests and be proud that the home you are showing them is something that you worked hard for. 

Do you want a list of cons? I didn't think so. (Plus I'm having a lot of trouble thinking of one.) Maybe that the house is kind of big when it's just you there. But I have a cat now, so it's all good.

Food Waste - November Budget

No food waste to declare, though the tail end of a head of lettuce is starting to look pathetic. I'm also low on the food front. Milk's all gone, no more fruit left and the only bread I have is in the freezer. I need a big groceries trip Saturday morning. Probably before breakfast because I haven't got much left to make breakfast with.

As for my monthly pay check it is in for a total of $3,615.97 which is a pay raise from $3,598.39.  For the moment I'm going to act like a didn't get a lovely pay raise of $17.58 since my income will be dropping next month as I reduce hours to work on my Masters. Extras that came in were $372.57 from my employer to cover professional fees that I paid and $101.00 in a GST rebate which went to the "pay down the mortgage fund".

Housing 40% - $1,439.35

Mortgage - $646.62

House Maintenance - $315.00

Housing Taxes - $192.00

House Insurance - $72.00

Utilities – $213.73

Total – $1,439.35

Savings 10% - $359.83 – All going to my RRSP

Debt 10% - $359.83

Transportation 15% - $539.75

Bus Pass – $0 (covered in tuition)

Train - $15

Other - $0

Car Savings – $0

Total - $15

Leftover - $524.75

Life 25% - $899.63

Food - $140

Cell – $30

Internet - $55

Health Insurance – $23.52

Clothes - $10

Gifts - $10

Misc - $10

Big Ticket Item - $100

Entertainment - $10

Social/Sports - $0

Financial Planning - $14

Cat - $20

Slush – $477.11

Total - $899.63

Of Note:

-I dropped my food budget because I've developed quite a surpluse in that account. 

-The Cat category has been added with $10 a month being put aside for food and $10 a month being put aside for vet fees. 

-My mortgage payments and the other extra space in my budget adds up to $2,008.31, of that $1,422.56 will go towards my normal payment and the double up and $585.75 will go towards the "pay down the mortgage fund" in order to be used for a 10% principal payment. 

Food Waste - Eating the House Clean

No food waste this week! This is probably the first week since I started my Masters that I can announce that. This is partially due to the fact that I'm eating my house clean over this week and next.

What does that mean pray tell? It means that besides the bare minimums of fresh food (milk, a bag of apples and MAYBE some veggies) I concentrate on eating up what's already in the house. It allows me to get rid of every morsel of leftovers and see the bottom of my fruit and veggies drawer. It's a great way for curbing waste when it gets out of hand.

That said I wouldn't recommend this when you have other people in the house who wouldn't want to eat leftovers 3 days in a row or some really strange recipes to get of that odd ingredient that's been floating around.

Also when working on eating your house clean I would recommend that you do keep a good stock of protein (canned tuna and peanut butter for me), complex carbohydrates (whole wheat bread for me) and plant matter (apples for me). Which a) will not go bad quickly and b) will give you sufficient nutrients should you eat your house clean part way through the week and not have time to shop. (Mostly for nuts like me who work 80% a do a full time masters degree . . . because we like the challenge and as a result have no spare time.)

Food Waste - Awful

Awful just about sums up my food waste at the moment. Unfortunately none got photographed for posterity. They just got dumped as I came across them. Thus far I've had to trash:

-The tail ends of a loaf of bread (I don't care what others say, the crusts do taste different!)
-One tortilla
-Some left over spaghetti
-The end of a cucumber

There's also half a bag of carrots that I'm going to try and save this weekend . . . we'll see if they can be used for baking.

Ever since starting my Masters (on top of my day job) fresh food in my house has been a high risk population. Mostly I have plans for it but end up not taking the time to make a fresh supper. Instead I just pull something out of the freezer or end up making a huge batch of a meal on the weekend and then eating it multiple times during the week.

On a brighter note even though bread and veggies have been having a rough go of late there is no danger of being a fruit in my house. I can polish off a large bag of apples every week so there's no danger of them going off.

My from scratch goes fuzzy

One of the (few) disadvantages of cooking from scratch is that there is no best before date. Generally this means that the first time you find out that what you made won't last that long in the fridge is when it goes fuzzy.  As evidenced by my refried beans below.

I've tried to come up with a strategy for minimizing this but the reality is I cooking in batches so that I don't have to cook every night and at some point I'm going to end up wasting some food in order to learn it's best before.

The other thing that got wasted this week was some spinach. Despite my best intentions I just didn't get around to my greens. I think that part of the problem is that they sit in an air tight plastic container with their own moisture.

Next time I get spinach I'll try moving them to a bag with a bit of paper towel to cut down on moisture.

No food waste, fruit tree payback

I once again am proud to announce 0 food waste. Though it was a tad close. I'm sure everyone knows at least one recipe that tastes absolutely wonderful . . . but makes terrible left overs.  One of my experiments turned out to be one of these recipes and though I will do it again I'm certainly going to half the recipe so that I don't have as many leftovers.

My lovely plum tree has finally run out of plums for me to devour so I thought I'd do a rough estimate of how much fruit I got off the tree, and then convert that to a dollar amount.

I didn't keep an accurate count of how many plums I ate but I estimate that it was four buckets full (I use a 4L ice cream bucket for my plum picking.) The bucket holds roughly 27 plums at a time which means that I consumed approximately 108 plums in four weeks. : )  (I was a bit surprised at first, but looking back I was munching on them constantly.)

Thought I'd add a picture of my plum tree in the spring so
that you could admire it!

At my local the cost for 3 plums is $1.27. Which is $0.42 per plum (1.27/3 = 0.42). Since I ate 108 of them that's $45.72 worth of plums (0.42*108).

My tree came with the house, but when it comes to buying a new plum tree the standard cost that I've found online is $20-$30. In other words a plum tree will more than pay for itself over a single season once it's mature. Not to mention the beauty of the tree, the shade that it provides and the biodiversity that it helps to promote. I would most certainly say that a plum tree is a good return on investment.

0 Food waste and Cooking with beans

I haven't a shred of food waste to share with you this Friday. Though in all fairness I did end up eating the same meal 4 times to get through one set of leftovers. I do need to concentrate on getting through my container of spinach though . . . I've been avoiding my salads because they take time to make, it's a bad habit that I've been trying to get rid of forever.

On the other hand I thought I'd share some ideas with you about cooking with beans. They've made up a large part of my diet since I went vegetarian and I've gotten pretty good at cooking them. I use to do the canned beans thing, so simple. You just open it up and pour. But to experiment further with cooking from scratch I ventured into the world of dried beans and never looked back. For me the advantages of dried beans over canned are:

1. They are less expensive.
2. They use less packaging
3. You can buy them (and store them) in bulk.
4. You control and added ingredients, such as salt.

When I started cooking with dried beans I was looking for a standard equation of how much water and how long to cook them. Much to my dismay it doesn't work that way. Now a days cooking beans looks something like this (if I need them soft to go into the recipe, some recipes actually call for dried beans and provide specific instructions.)

Measure out wanted amount (you need to know how to convert dried to cooked) put in large bowl of water to soak overnight. Put in slow cooker in morning with as much water as it will hold (at least 3 cups of water to 1 cup of beans.) Turn on. Turn off when you get home/when beans are the desired level of mushiness (yes that is a scientific word!)

Of course this takes some preparation and planning. So does taking meat out of the freezer the night before (which I was awful at doing by the way.)

Goals and better late than never

I really did have the very best of intentions to get my food waste blog post up yesterday. Then I got sick and best intentions were all left behind. For those disappointed souls here is my waste - six potatoes that went kind of yellow and fuzzy.
Usually I keep them in the fridge so that I can get through at 10 pounds before they go. But when I got my room mate a couple of months ago they go moved out and I forgot to put them back. Lesson learned!

Man that was a fast month, it's kind of all a fuzzy happy daze!

Financial

- Set up RRSP investments with my return of value pension from the military and contribute $359 a month for the year, along with any tax refunds. CHECK [I've got my eye on the clock waiting to make my next RRSP contribution, sometimes time goes sooo sloooow.]

- Pay off house in 5 years.  I should be able to accomplish this by doubling up every payment and paying a 10% lump sum every year.  CHECK [I've hit 33.3% ownership, one whole third of the house is mine.]

Educational

-Start Masters of Science / Masters of Science in Nursing in the fall.  CHECK [I’m as ready as I'll every be for the start next tuesday.]

Social

-Join two new clubs in the local area.  CHECK [Actually surpassed this a little, I'm now in two writers group and quilting is about to start again.] 

Other

-Have my novel accepted to be published.  I plan to have it ready by the end of the month (January), so I can start sending it out. CHECK [It's been sent to another couple agents, I start waiting again.]

-Become a respite foster parent. CHECK [PRIDE is done and I'm waiting for my social worker to come back from vacation to finish my homestudy.]

-Take a big backpacking trip solo. [This goal got trashed, instead I had a blast up at my grandparent's cottage.] 

-Finish my current crafting projects.  NOPE [Yeah, I haven't touched a needle in 2 months.] 

A respectful 86% this month.  September's going to have a lot of changes so I'm not to bothered about doing all my goals equally. At the moment I'm just going to concentrate on getting on an even footing for my masters and diving into foster parenting. 

Food Waste and Plums, Plums, Plums

I have no central topic for this post, just a bunch of little ones.

First off Food Waste. The only thing wasted this week was a half cup of spaghetti that I couldn't get through before going on vacation and didn't survive the week - no picture though.

Yes Mom, I did carry them in in my shirt.
But they were pretty clean to start with because
it had been raining. :- )

I have been eating tons of plums though. The tree in my back yard is finally bearing fruit and I've been out every night munching.  Below you can see last night's haul which was quite tasty and, yes that is a half eaten plum in my hand. I usually eat at least one in between the walk from my back yard to inside.

I love, love, love my fruit tree, and any time now my grapes will be ready to go. I am seriously considering adding more fruit trees to my property, probably one up front (since I am the only house on my street without a tree out front by the side walk) and one at the far back of my property. This will probably have to wait until next spring but I'm starting to look now because I want trees that will produce at different times.  I'm thinking at least one apple tree, not sure about the other though. I'll have to get back to you on that.

Pay Day August 2013 Meets Food Waste

It' both a friday and the day after payday so you folks get a double post!  On the food front I can report 0 waste this week though I do have a drawer full of produce that I need to use up in the coming week.  Not to mention two full tubs of plain yogurt for same baking that I had planned . . . then didn't get around to.  

On the bright side my plum tree had produced it's first ripe fruit of the season and they are awesome!  I've been eating them as soon as they ripen, checking for new ones every day when I get home.  

So my monthly pay check is in for a total of $3,598.39.  No extra money came in this month. 

Housing 40% - $1,439.35

Mortgage - $646.62

House Maintenance - $315.00

Housing Taxes - $192.00

House Insurance - $72.00

Utilities – $213.73

Total – $1,439.35

Savings 10% - $359.83 – All going to my RRSP

Debt 10% - $359.83

Transportation 15% - $539.75

Bus Pass – $68.25

Train - $0

Other - $0

Car Savings – $471.50

Total - $539.75

Life 25% - $899.63

Food - $160

Cell – $30

Internet - $50

Health Insurance – $23.52

Clothes - $10

Gifts - $10

Misc - $10

Big Ticket Item - $100

Entertainment - $10

Social/Sports - $0

Financial Planning - $14

Slush – $482.11

Total - $899.63

Of Note:

-$416.11 of the Slush money is going towards my monthly double up for my mortgage.  This leaves $66 in the Slush account

-My Emergency Fund is fully funded and my vacation goals have been re-written, thus no more contributions to those two. 

-This month is the last month contributing to my car savings, which have now hit $9,000 and will happily sit around collecting interest until I actually want a car (Hehe, ‘cause we know that going to happen some day soon).  

Food waste and building my nest bit by bit

I have no food waste, thus once again no picture.  I'll attribute my low food waste over the past few weeks to the fact that we are smack dab in the middle of summer.  For me that means a lot of sandwiches and salads because it's just to hot for a warm supper.  (The other option is that I've just been too lazy to make proper supers every night . . . I think I'll stick with the "it's summer" line.)

So, on to building my nest.  When I was in high school I had a very knowledgeable and very strict French teacher.  I loved her classes and one of the things that I remember most was the little phrases that she would repeat to us often.  (Mostly when people weren't  doing their homework.)  One of my favourite sayings was "Petit a petit l'oiseau fait son nid" for the non-franco's among my readers it means"little by little the bird builds it's nest."

For some reason I have been thinking about this tid bit of wisdom recently.  My faithful readers know that I plan on paying off my mortgage in 5 years by both doubling up my monthly payments and paying of 10% of my mortgage on each anniversary ( You can read the details of my plan in my post "Mortgage Plan Revisited - Monthly Payments"and in "Mortgage Plan Revisited - Yearly 10%".)  With my teachers wisdom bouncing around my brain I was wondering which part of my plan had the most impact on getting my house paid off.  So I did the math:

Downpayment  - 20%
Yearly 10% - 33%
Monthly payments - 47%

The math dosen't lie.  As much as walking into the bank and throwing $15,200 against my mortgage is exciting and watching years drop off my mortgage in an instant is thrilling the reality is that most of the progress made on my mortgage will not be done in a single fell swoop.  Most of it will be done patiently day by day as I keep in control of my money so that, come the 8th of the month, I have the ability to pay yet another double up.  Living frugally and below my means will have much more of an impact than earning more money for my 10% payments, (not that I won't be doing both.)

As my teacher said "Petit a petit l'oiseau fait son nid" so little by little I will build my own nest.

Goal Review End June

Given the general chaos cause by my brothers wedding my goal review got pushed back and ended up on today, the 5^th of the new month.  I guess it’s better late than never.  Let me first comment on my usual Food Waste Friday.  Turns out that upon leaving my house mate hid some vegetables in the bottom of my fridge.  (Ok, I wasn’t looking all that hard to begin with, I was a tad busy.)  Anyways last night I had to do something with the cabbage that she left and which was going bad.  So I made my very first coleslaw (which wasn’t half bad!)  The next part is my monthly goal review. 

Financial

- Set up RRSP investments with my return of value pension from the military and contribute $359 a month for the year, along with any tax refunds. CHECK [My RRSP and Locked-in Account are all set up and my savings are chugging along, though I do need to see my bank about some more investments.]

- Pay off house in 5 years.  I should be able to accomplish this by doubling up every payment and paying a 10% lump sum every year.  CHECK [I’m keeping up with the payments and now that my emergency fund is full and my car fund is almost full I can pay each monthly double up (total of $1,422.56) from my pay check.]

Educational

-Start Masters of Science / Masters of Science in Nursing in the fall.  CHECK [I’m in the process of signing up for classes, doing some review, can’t wait to actually start.]

Social

-Join two new clubs in the local area.  CHECK [Quilting has stopped for the summer but writing group’s still going as long as I host.] 

Other

-Have my novel accepted to be published.  I plan to have it ready by the end of the month (January), so I can start sending it out. CHECK [Unfortunately after sending three chapters in to an agent they decided it wasn’t for them, oh well, there are other fish in the sea.]

-Become a respite foster parent. CHECK [I’ve done 6 of the 10 courses so far and I have another 2/3 meetings with my assessor.  Hopefully I’ll be done by the and of the month.]

-Take a big backpacking trip solo. CHECK [I’m still saving for this but I get the feeling I’m going to be revisiting this goal (more later.)] 

-Finish my current crafting projects.  CHECK [I did finish the table cloth I was making in time for my brothers wedding (you can see it here) though it did mean a couple of late nights to get it done.] 

Once again I pulled in a marvelous 100%.  That said I’m going to have too look at adding new goals/updating the ones that I have.  In July I want to focus on a couple of things.  1.Get some studying done for my Master’s 2. Get my manuscript back out there.  3. Take a good long look at my travel plans. 

No Food Waste - Tons of Portuguese Custard

I have simply the absence of food waste to announce!  I love when that happens.  Granted my shelves are looking a tad bare, but since I always shop on Saturday morning I only need supper and snack food in the house.  (Which I have, so life is good.)

The food waste challenge that I'll be facing for the next week is doing something with all the perishable food my house mate will be leaving.  There's not much (as far as I can see) but she frequently uses ingredients that I don't typically use so I'm thinking that I'll be googeling at least a couple recipes this week.  On the bright side she is leaving a (large) bowl of Portuguese Custard, which is a truly fantastic dish.  Maybe not one of the healthiest dishes from her fine country, but certainly one of the tastiest.

So for the first time in 3 months I'll have my house to myself.  Having a room mate as been great, though I do admit it is also nice not to have to worry about accommodating another person.  If I weren't in the process of becoming a foster parent I would certainly consider having a room mate again.  Here are the pro's and con's that I've run into:

Pro's
-The money is good, what can I say it's nice to have someone hand you $400 every month
-Good company, it's nice to occasionally sit at the table and talk to someone over super.
-Boraden's your horizon's, my room mate introduced me to a culture I've never really experienced before and was able to tell me a lot about being a Master's student.

Con's
-You have to be thinking about the other person as well, no more leaving dirty dishes out when you feel tired and cleaning them the next day because they clutter up the kitchen.
-Freezer and fridge space are at a premium.
-Up goes your internet and electricity usage, yes this is covered by the rent money, still it's a tad annoying to watch your numbers spike.

The Unfortunate Tomato and the Fortuitous Leak

I hope you'll forgive me for my lack of food waste photo.  The only casualty this week was a quarter of a little tomato that I had been saving for a nachos meal and which was unceremoniously dumped without even a photo for posterity.  I knew I was gambling with the poor vegetable's (or is it a fruit?) longevity when I decided to save it for a meal later in the week.  I lost the bet and the poor thing is now happily decomposing in my green bin.

Poor thing was leaking right by the handle.  

Since it would be downright rude of me to leave you completely photo-less (for an entire week no less!) may I introduce you to the water shut-off valve for my house's exterior water supply.  It has faithfully served my house for the last 23 years with seemingly no attention, let alone recognition.  As such it gave up the ghost this spring when I tried to turn it on and sprung a leak.  At this point I became very grateful for two things.  First the world wide web which gave me a good idea what was wrong with my shut-off valve.  (Seriously pop "leaky shut-off valve" into a search engine and you'll get about 110,000 hits.)  The second is the fact that I have an absolutely wonderful and handy Grandfather who was willing to stop by my house one afternoon and help me out.  As a result I now know how to fix a leaky shut-off valve for less than it would cost for a plumber to pull into my driveway.

In the true spirit of that old parable "give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats forever" the true value of having handy relatives is not that they will stop by your house to fix your problems, but that they will teach you to fix the problems yourself.  In a society where we chose to specialize in what we learn we frequently don't take advantage of the knowledge that the previous generation can pass along to us.  However, if you want to grow you independence and keep some money in you pocket I strongly suggest that you start learning.

The Waste-less week and the inconvenient root vegetable

I've done it again, yet another waste-less week (hence no pretty picture).  Once a month or so I like to eat my fridge bare and restock.  So things are looking pretty spartan in my fridge.  This cycle greatly reduces the chances of me accumulating ingredients in my fridge that get forgotten about.

Unfortunately I currently have a inconvenient root vegetable, namely parsley root, sitting in my vegetable drawer.  Originally it was bought for an experimental recipe that ended up being no good, leaving me with a bunch of leftover parsley root that need to be used up.  Unfortunately I know of no recipes that contain parsley root.

On the other hand I do know how to use Google.  So it looks like I'm in for some Parsley Root Soup this weekend, I hope it turns out better than my last kitchen experiment.  (Usually I average one successful experiment for every three tried, so I'm giving this one 50/50 odds.)

On the subject to soup . . . I've become rather fond of soups since going (casual) vegetarian.  There are so many out there, and there are loads of ways to slip some plant based protein in.  Some of my current favourites are:

-Pea soup (split peas provide the protein)
-Lentil soup (lentils are the protein, though you could throw these into any vegetable based soup with out changing the flavour much)
-Squash soup (no protein in the soup, but goes well with cheese and crackers)
-Salmon Chowder (a little rich so I don't make this too often, but it's a great way to fill up fast)
-Tomato soup with lentils (lentils for protein, though I still haven't found a good from scratch recipe)

I'm itching to learn how to make mushroom soup from scratch, maybe I'll have time in the next couple weeks.  Might not even have to add an extra protein source because most mushroom soups have milk as a base.  So many recipes, so little time . . .

Food Waste Meets Goal Review End May

It being both a Friday and the end of the month I get to do a double post!  First off the only food that got binned this week was the remnants of a kitchen experiment.  Meet the not so tasty split pea salad that I made and tried to eat.  I did manage to eat most of it besides the fact that it was decidedly bland and had way too much onion.  At this point it’s a bit to old to consume to I’m tossing the rest with a certain cense of relief.  The next part is my monthly goal review. 

Financial

- Set up RRSP investments with my return of value pension from the military and contribute $359 a month for the year, along with any tax refunds. CHECK [My RRSP and Locked-in Account are all set up and I just keep setting aside my 10%.]

- Pay off house in 5 years.  I should be able to accomplish this by doubling up every payment and paying a 10% lump sum every year.  CHECK [Revised my mortgage plan to make sure it was still do-able.  Also bringing in some extra money by renting out one of my rooms to a colleague for $400 a month over three months, as well as tutoring three hours a week.]

Educational

-Start Masters of Science / Masters of Science in Nursing in the fall.  CHECK [Met with my thesis supervisors, which was great.  They seem to be really interested in what I want to do and preparing me for life/job after Masters.]

Social

-Join two new clubs in the local area.  Kind Of [I skipped off quilting club over the last month to tutor.  It’s shutting down this month for the summer.  The writing group is struggling a bit to get consistent meeting attendance, fingers crossed.] 

Other

-Have my novel accepted to be published.  I plan to have it ready by the end of the month (January), so I can start sending it out. CHECK [My query letter got answered!  They wanted, and I sent in, the first three chapters of my novel.  Got to say I’m a bit on cloud nine.]

-Become a respite foster parent. CHECK [Medical’s been completed and I started my training course, 2 classes down, 8 to go.]

-Take a big backpacking trip solo. CHECK [Saving is going as planned and I haven’t touched my vacation days yet.] 

-Finish my current crafting projects.  Kind Of [One month left to get my most important project done, it may be a tad bit tight.] 

I’ll give myself 87.5%.  A couple of goals have been lagging but the goals that I have made progress on have grown by leaps and bounds.  In June I want to focus on a couple of things.  1.GET MY EMBROIDERY DONE (and wrapped in time to be given as a gift). 2. Take a good long look at my travel plans.  3. Do some studying in preparation for starting my Masters (I’m kind of straddling two very different fields and I need to make sure I am ready for the more technical portion.) 

Food Waste - Double or Nothing

The good news first.  I had no waste this week.  (Please stand up and cheer . . . ok you can sit down now.)  The bad news, that means no photo for you today.  (Maybe tomorrow though.)

I'll admit it was a bit of a close call.  My split pea salad was hanging around my fridge for days.  Probably because I messed up on the recipe some how.  Way too much onion, definitely not enough (or not strong enough) dressing.  Such is life, but you won't see that recipe on my table again any time soon.

On the bright side I've been doing "Double or nothing" meals all week and loving it.  A double meal around my place means one meal that makes two suppers and two lunches in the same week.  (As well as the possibility of frozen meals in the freezer.)  I have read of some people eating the same meal for weeks to save money and time.  I'm not sure my pallet would be happy with the same thing day after day, however I have no problem eating the same thing for four meals a week.  (Especially if it is something as tasty as split pea soup from scratch.)  Plus, it frees up a whole bunch of free time, which I think will be really useful when I start my masters in September.

Have a question?  I'd love to hear it!

Food Waste Friday - Too much stuffing

Meet this weeks food waste faut pas.  It may not look bad but it certainly smells off.  This was the stuffing for a stuffed red pepper recipe.  While tasty inside the pepper I had a bit leftover once my peppers were full.  Unfortunately there wasn't enough for a full meal and it's not quite snack material.  I should have seen it coming.

Mean while we're heading into the long weekend and I could use the break.  Besides my normal weekend chores I've got lots planned to do around the house now that the weather is warm.  My to do list over the next 3 days is comprised off but not limited to:

-Plant Garden
-Remove dandelions from back yard
-Mow lawn
-Add down spout to car port
-Build rain barrel
-Start refinishing dresser
-Put up clothes line

Most of the above (except 2 and 3) are new ventures for me so it should be exciting around my place this weekend.

Have a question?  I'd love to hear it!