Day 21: Hiatus

 Money Spent: $0

Amount in food eaten: $.35

CG Tip of the day: Make ice cream in a bag in 5 minutes!  Simply put 1/2 cup milk, 1 tbsp sugar, and 1 tsp vanilla in a small ziplock bag.  Then put a tray of ice cubes and 6 tbsp salt in a larger ziplock.  Place the small bag in the larger one (be sure it's completely sealed), and shake for 5-10 minutes.  Rinse salt off the inner bag and serve!  You'll be amazed.

Breakfast: Cereal ($.25)

Lunch: Dough pockets ($.10)

Dinner: Organic chicken fingers at work ($0)

Phew!  Sorry about the 3 day hiatus... I had a gig yesterday and the prep for it wiped me out, so I've been a little MIA.  I'll hopefully not go missing like that too often.  A brief overview of the last few days:

Thursday - ($0) We received our grocery delivery in the morning at work (see Wednesday's post).  I had some yogurt and a banana, which was free to me since we got the groceries with the reimbursement from the gas shut-off.  Around 2, I got a call from Mike saying to meet me downstairs.  He showed up with the news that he'd received a great tax refund and he was treating me to lunch and dinner.  I got Whole Foods sushi for lunch and we went to my favorite restaurant for dinner.  Awesome!!

Friday - ($.60) I brought dough pockets to work for lunch.  I made myself a smoothie for breakfast at work with with a banana, vanilla soy milk, a vanilla yogurt, ice, and peanut butter.  It was delicious and very filling  After work, Mike and I went to a small concert Mike was doing down the street.  We had the last of the pasta salad for dinner, and went to bed at 8:30 because we both had to be up at 4:45am the next day for our respective concerts (ahhh, early morning children's shows.  Just nothing like 'em)

Saturday - ($0) I worked from 5:45am-9:00pm doing a show in Princeton, NJ.  All my food was free and organic (the gigs are catered), and I snagged as much food as I could at the end of the day.  Some highlights: organic ketchup (I'm making yam fries this week finally), organic mayo, organic dressing (2 kinds), bagels, lemons, and lots of drinks.  During the gig, I got a call from Chris asking for me to babysit again, as well as a call from another mom to inquire about my 'sitting services.  Linin' up the jobs... woot.  Mike and I had a nice evening watching Weeds and hanging out.

Oh, and found the most amazing video/story I've ever seen: Watch It

Today! - I babysat for the kids I used to nanny for again in the afternoon.  The kids' mom, Wendy, made me organic chicken fingers (I'll have to post the recipe soon - it's chicken coated in crunched up cornflakes... so good) 

I got home around 7:30, at which point my friend Julie called me to invite me to a taping of America's Got Talent this Thursday.  She got free tickets from work.  Ask for free entertainment, and you shall receive.  I'm pretty excited - I've NEVER, in all my time living in NYC, been to a taping of anything.  I still have a decent amount of groceries from last week to make meals with this week.  I'm also so happy that we got all this lunch food at work - not having to shop for lunch is like a miracle.  Things are lookin' up!

Day 4: Free Latte!!!

Money spent: $0
Total amount in food eaten: $.50 (or $1.50 including cereal)

Breakfast: Cereal with raisins and bananas

I’ve been kind of lamenting the fact that I have to give up my hot morning drinks (David Bach calls this the “Latte Factor” – giving up expensive specialty drinks in order to save a LOT of money) – I love coffee but I’ve found that brewing it in the mornings isn’t usually in the cards for me since I like to wake up late and I start working right away when I arrive at my office.

I guess I must have been putting this out into the universe, because I woke up this morning to find an e-mail from Crossroads NYC (which is part of an organization called Times Square Alliance that give you a card with deals in the neighborhood if you live in Times Square).  It said Jamba Juice is giving away FREE chai tea lattes at the 47th St. location.

Hell yeah!

Mike lives on 44th St, so I worked from home until 11 (when the latte promo started) and we made our way over there.  The catch was that you had to ride on an exercise bike that is hooked up to a blender attachment and mix your own drink by pedaling.  Well AW-right.  We both grabbed a bike, mixed our drinks, and earned free delicious chai teas.  I went to work feeling good.

mmmm... chai

I had leftover bean salad mixed with rice for lunch. I also snacked on some of my oatmeal bread from last night with peanut butter since I’ve been finding I do better with 2 small meals about 2 hours apart for lunch.

We went out to dinner with Mike’s family for his birthday.  Mike chose Gobo a vegan place downtown. 

I got green tea noodle stir-fry along with a lot of delicious appetizers.  Mike’s family wasn’t thrilled by the restaurant choice at first, but everyone wound up REALLY enjoying their meals. 

It’s been really fun cooking/baking these past few days, but it was also really nice to be cooked for (AND served). 

Best part?  I’ve got leftovers for lunch tomorrow!!!!

On a side note, I’ve noticed that my mood, interest in life, and general happiness level is much higher than it’s been in months.  I expected to be fully depressed during this, the brokest of times.  Not so. 

Things to do: grow my own food – research indoor gardens