food

Normally I don't really make New Year's resolutions. I don't like them. I feel like by the end of January I'm already not doing any of the things I vowed to do for the whole year and that just makes me feel like a failure, and who wants to feel like a failure, right?

Regardless, this year Braed and I made some "goals" for the new year. I know I know, that's basically the same thing, BUT our goals are just for January, then we'll re-evaluate for February, etc. That way they feel much more attainable and are less of a commitment. Whatever works, right?

One of our goals for January was to make more food at home (which also tied in to one of our other goals: to take control of our budget and eat out less). One of the hardest parts of eating at home is deciding what food to make and having the ingredients to make it. To help with that I planned out a menu (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) for every day of the week for two weeks at a time. I designed the menu so Sunday-Thursday dinner left-overs could be used for lunch the next day, too.

To make the menu I pulled out all our cookbooks...and then just used recipes I'd found on Pinterest. Somehow along the way I discovered this food blog called Budget Bytes.

Every recipe we've made from her blog has been AMAZING. Every. Single. One. Basically, I don't know why we go anywhere else for recipes. Some of them look a little fancy, but they are all really affordable (she breaks down each recipe into total cost and cost per serving so you don't have to take my word for it) and they're all actually really easy to make.

Here are some of our favorites:

$1.95/serving

$2.03/serving
(we've also made this with salsa instead of
 Rotel and it was maybe even better)

$1.16/serving
(we used rice instead of bulgur and it was great!)

$1.29/serving

$1.35/serving

So...yes. Go. Go make some delicious food of your own. And you don't even have to thank me for it. ;)

motivation

I find that I often think that I am better than people. I think this realization (or at least the blogging about this realization) came after reading this blog entry written by my dear friend Clarence Pimptown, and yes, that is a moniker.

This feeling of superiority can be good when it motivates me to improve on programs that are already implemented or to treat others with more kindness or something. It's no good when it just makes me feel superior for no real reason, just pointing out people's faults in my head or aloud to others because it makes me feel better about myself. That is no bueno.

These two actions are constantly at war with one another. Hopefully I will one day learn how to let the first beat the second, or at least co-exist with the second in a way that will enable me to both make fun of people AND do things better than them.

My goal for the month of October is to actually do things better than, not just other people, but myself as well... and to try to mock others less. We'll see how it goes.