Eating in London

Eating vegan (no cheese) would have been impossible in London - and Twiggy insisted on eating three meals a day. I ate a lot of mozarella and tomato; goat cheese salads and tortes; and other fattening stuff. Consequently I gained about ten pounds which I am working off. Getting back to exercise is helping, and not eating out.

I bought some nice books and learned a lot in the Children's Lit course. We had three field trips - British Library, V & A, and Oxford. Before the class we had a week of playing tourist and saw four plays. Touristing included Mme Toussaud's (very crowded especially around Michael Jackson and Obama), V & A Museum of Childhood, National Museum and Portrait Museum and the British Museum. I took lots of pictures and bought postcards when photos weren't allowed.

The plays were Stomp, The Calendar Girls and Oliver all of which we enjoyed. We also went to a new play, War Horse, which received rave reviews. The only good thing about it were the "puppet" horses worked by three people each. The play and the acting were overdone.

I am almost caught up. I only had one chance at e-mail so the accumulation was large.

Saving with Slave Labor

I should have gotten pictures while we were doing it, but we were so busy working that I didn't have time to take pictures! Anyway, this is the finished project.

The boys worked 3 and 4 days respectively doing back-breaking labor helping me dig out all the bamboo from behind the garage, and repairing the fence. To save money, we used the same fence posts, just put in steel "sleeves" that fit around the base of the post and are then pounded into the ground with a 50-pound sledge hammer. We took off the old fence boards, and replaced the boards across the top and the boards along the bottom that were too rotted to re-use, then re-attached all the boards.

I say slave labor, but I actually decided to pay them $50 and $40 respectively for the work. They were so happy they were jumping up and down. I'm sure it will be the last time I get to see someone excited about earning less than $2.00 an hour for hard labor. The total to repair the fence was less than $200, including the money I paid to the boys, and my neighbor is going to pay for half.

Now I can spend that $1600 to fumigate the house.

I had previously fixed my front fence with the steel sleeves, also. Now that needs to be painted.

Why do home improvement projects always lead to MORE home improvement projects? Can't we ever just be DONE??

The boys immediately spent their money on "Gundums" which are a Japanese version of a mix of Bionicles, Transformers and GI Joes.

More Reason Not to Get Too Excited

As the market go-go-goes, should we be breathing a sigh of relief? Probably not. For one thing, volatility is not the sign of a healthy market--in either direction. For another, I've already mentioned the false sense of solvency the changed in the accounting rules caused. But last and most important, this recent market surge has come on the heels of "less bad than expected" profit numbers from several big companies. But why are they less bad? Robert Reich, Clinton's secretary of labor, warns:

"[T]hose profits aren't being powered by consumers who have suddenly found themselves with a lot more money in their pockets. The profits are coming from dramatic cost-cutting -- including, most notably, payroll cuts. If a firm cuts its costs enough, it can show a profit even if its sales are still in the basement."

"The problem here is twofold. First, such profits can't be maintained. There's a limit to how much can be cut without a business eventually disappearing -- becoming, in effect, a balance sheet in space. Secondly, when businesses slash payrolls to show profits, consumers end up with even less money in their pockets to buy the things businesses produce. Even if they hold on to their jobs, they're likely to fear that they won't have the jobs for long, which causes them to retreat even further from the malls."

Read his whole blog post here.

Saving by doing it yourself

I'm back to cleaning my own apartment. While I was gone to New York/Texas/Germany, I had stopped my twice-monthly cleaning service, and I never got around to calling them back to start it up again.

And I realize that my apartment hasn't been this clean in years.

The trouble with delegating, well, anything, is that the person to whom you delegate almost always doesn't care as much as you do about whatever it is. Sometimes, it's worth it to farm it out anyway and accept lower quality for the convenience. But I think I'm back, at least for a while, to not accepting that trade-off for cleaning my house.

Maybe some day I'll be able to find someone who is willing to see dirt: remove cobwebs and wipe backsplashes and light switches without my asking; actually moving cords and furniture when sweeping, tucking in sheets properly, etc. In the meantime, I'm saving $120 a month and living in a substantially cleaner (albeit a sporadically messier) house.

Soapy cantaloupe

BC brought me a cantaloupe he bought from a guy selling them out of the back of his truck on the side of the road. It looked and smelled great. I washed, rinsed, and dried it off before I sliced it. It has a soapy taste. I am sure I got all the soap rinsed off before I cut it. Any of you ever had a cantaloupe taste like soap?

Snacking is my downfall

I read somewhere that to save money, you should buy full sized products and divide them into single serving sizes. I bought snack baggies and counted out 22 almonds per baggy. That's when I realized, I could eat 600+ calories of almonds as an afternoon snack! No wonder I'm having trouble getting rid of the 7 pounds I've put on in the last year. I divided my crackers, too. I haven't eaten any of them yet because I don't want to eat 120 calories. If they had been loose in the box, I probably would have nibbled 2 servings without even noticing. So, I'll see if this increased awareness has a positive impact on my belly. I can't believe how small an ounce of nuts is!

What Counts

When I told the dietitians/nutritionists at WIC that you guys wanted to count garbanzo beans, brown rice and hummus as vegetables they laughed (and one's a vegetarian). I looked up on the USDA food website and you can get by with calling fresh corn, peas, and green beans as a vegetable but beans should be considered a protein and rice and corn that's made into a bread should be a grain.

I tried to find a good vegan pyramid but I couldn't find one that listed serving sizes or one that I could easily see what constitutes a fruit and vegetable and what counts as a protein or grain.

Roothy, I like you're idea of having a smoothie at night. I haven't been able to force myself to make a smoothie in the morning because it's so cold and then I don't feel like cooking at night either when it's so hot. Why can't I have my smoothie at night and eat my toast or oatmeal in the morning?

So far today I have had a serving of avocado (on a sandwich), a large baby romaine lettuce salad (but the box still said one serving), and a cup of cantelope (with plain soy yogurt) I also had two pieces of toast with marmite, (does marmite count as anything?). Tonight I will have a smoothie and a left-over artichoke. That will clock me in at five servings of five different fruits or vegetables today.

Crack gravy?

More like crap. First, I burned the flour/yeast flakes in the microwave. Then, it turned into a watery mess with burnt flecks inside. I will try stovetop method next. My bisquits turned out well, though.

So far today, I had a smoothie for breakfast: 1 banana, mixed fruit (a good cup), flax seed, and soy milk (16 oz glass).
Lunch: veggie stir fry with noodles (mushrooms, broccoli, sprouts, and carrots).
Snack: apple

I've had a Luna bar and some After 8 mints, too.

Steal This Recipe #4: Sticky Rice with Mango

The sticky rice I had at the Taste was so good I thought I'd replicate it. Or try. It turned out pretty well:

1 cup cooked rice
1/2 cup coconut milk (I used lite, and then tossed in a tablespoon of powdered coconut)
1 packet of Splenda
pinch of salt
1/2 c frozen mango chunks

Heat the coconut milk in a saucepan, but don't boil. When hot, stir in Splenda and salt. Pour it over the rice. Nuke the mango chunks until they are only slightly frozen, put on top the rice. Voila! Simple and delicious.

Very filling--the above should get you two servings. Per serving: maybe 50 cents for the coconut milk, a dime for the rice, Splenda and salt, and depending on where you get it, a quarter for the mango.

New California Hijinks

So California is going to start paying certain vendors (including citizens awaiting their tax refunds) with IOU's. Nice.

Also, last night, the FDIC set a weekly record for this credit crisis by closing 7 banks in one day (6 in Illinois). Of course, they closed many more during the S&L crisis, but banks were smaller then and didn't have multiple branches. Dollar-for-dollar, including after adjusting for inflation, we've already outstripped the S&L, and we've only really just begun.

The stuff about the economy "stabilizing" is pretty funny/grim: the analogy is that we are no longer crashing into the ground at 300 mph, but instead only crashing into the ground at 100 mph. But in the end, we're still going to be smashed to bits.