Pantry Eating at its best

Gorgeous Italian pantry--image here--Nope, not mine. It would be way more fun to eat out of this one...

First things first--I love that this is a fake blog open to no one to read. That means I don't have to try to come up with clever post titles. Because I certainly am not clever enough for that...and I would needlessly stress over it naturally.

Anyway, we move out ONE WEEK (!!) from today. This means the bar is only a little more than a week away. Honestly, I'm glad. I can't wait to take it and be done with it. I'm doing my damndest to make sure I don't burn out/peak too early/freak out/lose motivation/insert other worry here. So here's hoping I keep going and just pass the darn thing already.

Sooo back to the topic at hand: pantry eating. I'm fascinated by frugal mommy sites where they talk about their crazy, ridiculous low budgets and doing things like bartering for milk. While I'm not going out to work in the fields just yet, I figured I might as well try to use up all our pantry things before racing to the store to buy new food.

I suppose I should show you what our pantry actually looks like now:

Okay I did choose the saddest shelf and took it with my phone--so while it certainly does look sad it's not all that bad

The sad pantry has made for some interesting meals:

1. Rice, black beans, and Portuguese sausage--surprisingly wonderful!

2. Pork chops and a medley of veggies--eh. Cuba really turned me off to Pork. Doug like it though

(oh and ps if i were a real blogger i'd have pictures of all these. but i'm not. so i don't)

3. Italian sausage, edamame, and tater tots--so weird. so delicious. i felt like a little kid getting to eat whatever she wanted

And tonight's meal of old frozen chicken breast, frozen sugar snap peas, and baked sweet potatoes (maybe i'll get a pic up here...probably not)

The reason I started this long, winded, rambling post was that this has taught me to stretch my imagination and not run to the delivery menu drawer. Hopefully I can keep this up when I don't have the "oh crap I am moving and need to use up this food" mentality.

Maybe one day I will be bartering for milk after all...particularly given that mint.com now informs me I have -$174,000 to my name. Excellent.

Inspiration (from Grey's Anatomy no less...)

The ever wise Bailey spoke those words a long time ago, and they have always resonated with me. It reminds me to stop beating myself up when I can't do it all and to let go of even trying to.

You gotta do what you can, of course, but when you can't, you can't.

So thank you Shonda Rhimes and the Grey's writers :) I have plans to blow this up a bit bigger and frame it to hang somewhere in the new apt.

ps--i also had fun experimenting with making a poster. I need better fonts!

Eat Pray Love

I just finished Eat Pray Love. I know I'm late to the party, but hey now I get to see the movie with it fresh in my mind! Can't wait to do that by the way...

Here is where I pause to watch a trailer of the movie. And get sad because Liz was most certainly not Julia Roberts in my head. And in my mind the book bore no resemblance to a romantic comedy, which is exactly what the preview looked like. Sigh...

Anyway, I just loved the book. It was one of those books where you want to slow down and soak up every word so you can be sure it's getting through and sticking.

So on that note, I decided to excerpt a few of my favorite passages:

"the appreciation of pleasure can be an anchor of one's humanity...You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight."

"Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it."

"If I am truly to become an autonomous woman, then I must take over that role of being my own guardian...I not only have to become my own husband, but I need to be my own father too."

I realize there were many gems I did not mark that I now have sadly lost. But what I appreciated most was Gilbert's incredible honesty. She truly bore her soul, her most private and ugly thoughts, for the whole world to see. It made for some powerful stuff on God, grace, relationships, happiness, and figuring out who you are and your place in the world.