Gelato

Well I found a pizza place that was open. Now I want gelato. I wish there were more local places open late. Of course, even if I were to go to Kroger, I don't think they even have gelato. When we were in Hot Springs, there was a little gelato place down the street from where we stayed, and we had gelato almost every day. My husband was completely addicted to it. There's a gelato place at the Findlay Market too, but I don't think they're quite as good as the place in Hot Springs. My favorite vendor at the market sells it by the pint, too. Oh, where to find gelato at 2am??

A Conundrum Caused by Third Shift

So I work third shift. During my work week, I wake up between 4 and 6 PM. I"m on my weekend now, and I get 3 days off, because I work 10 hour shifts. My husband also works these late hours, but he's on 8 hour shifts, so he only gets 2 days off. Today is my day off by myself. The thing is, we don't go to the market until tomorrow, when we're both off work. I've got no food in the house, it's 9pm, and I just crawled out of bed and am HUNGRY. The only way I can stick to a local business is to get Chinese, or maybe a local pizza joint. But I don't want to spend that kind of money. I would have preferred to make myself something to eat.
I actually wanted to go to the market this morning after work, but I started getting too tired once it was time for me to leave. See, the market opens at 9am during the week, which would be nice for me, except for its proximity to downtown. In order to get there at that time of the morning, I would have to battle rush hour traffic the entire way. And my route takes me on a bridge over a major highway leading into downtown, with entrances to that highway, so I can just imagine how long I would be sitting in traffic, and that area isn't a great part of town, either. So, when we go to the market during the week, we usually either get some sleep in the morning and wake up in the early afternoon and then go to the market, or we go after rush hour has died down. And the market closes at 6, so no matter what we have to get up early just to go there.
So the point is: do I get something at Kroger to make myself and save money or do I stick with a local business, like I'm trying to do? Of course, if those Kashi pizzas are still on sale, it actually might be cheaper to go with a local business, because I know I'll stock up on them.

Quickie Blog. Shell is Tired.

So the other day my hubby sent me to the market to get our food for the week. And I started trying to come up with ideas of what to make. I get a list of ideas together and begin to rattle them off to him and he says "Um, I want to try to go vegetarian." And of course everything I came up with had chicken in it. So I gave up and said, "Okay, I guess it's your week to cook!" and asked him to give me a list of what he needed me to buy. He came up with a list, handed it to me, and told me to get $60 out of the ATM to go shopping at the market with.
I spent $30. And completely stuffed my grocery bag with stuff. I actually had to ask the guy working the counter at my favorite vendor for a bag! BTW - Madison's at Findlay Market in Cincinnati is awesome! If you live in the area, check them out!! They have a special Tuesday thru Thursday if you buy $15 or more, you get a free dozen eggs.
So anyways, after seeing how much money eating vegetarian can save us, I was a little more on board with his idea. So I stopped at the library on the way home and got some vegetarian cookbooks. I've got a little project I'm working on now, I'm scanning all the recipes that I want out of them into the computer and I'm gonna make my very own vegetarian cookbook for myself. It's a little time-consuming, but I like making myself cookbooks. I've already got two of them and they're really handy. I've got one for main dishes and another for desserts, appetizers and sides.
Looks like the refrigerator is in fact broken. The freezer is amassing frost (and we've had this thing for almost a year now and this is the first frost I've seen in it) and we've got the fridge cranked up to the highest setting and it's still just barely keeping stuff cold. I wish I knew what's wrong with it and how to fix it! And how it got broken, too! It's so weird all the shit we came home to after vacation. Our tomato plants which were just starting to sprout disappeared, our fridge is broken, and it looks like an animal destroyed the latticework on the deck.

Wow am I tired. I think I'd better go to bed before I get QWERTY tattooed on my forehead.

Pat on the Back

Just got back from Kroger. Yeah I know, not exactly meeting my goal of shopping locally (well as a Cincinnati based company I guess I could call it local). Did really well despite having gone to the store beyond hungry! I only strayed outside of the organic section to get my Mexican Coke. Found out Kashi pizza is on sale this week, and it's only $5 (with your Kroger card of course) so I grabbed a few. I've never had their pizza before, since I can either order a pizza for about the same cost or make my own for cheaper. Verdict: Kashi pizza is good, but not worth the extra money. If you can get it on sale, it's worth it. Otherwise, just make your own.
Bad news: My beer that I just got out of the fridge isn't very cold. I just checked the temperature setting on the fridge and it was on the recommended setting. I hope it's something as simple as the fridge door was left open. I don't know how old the fridge is, since it came with the house, but it doesn't look too old.
Good news: we just got back from vacation. Thus, we don't have anything in the fridge other than some drinks and condiments.

Here we go

Vacation was AWESOME. Wish I could be on vacation all the time. We got home earlier today and the kitties had forgotten us. Not quite the welcome I was hoping for, but I played with them a bit and gave them treats and petted them and they've come around.

As far as my goals go, I'm doing okay. In the two weeks I was gone I smoked only 2 packs of cigarettes, and it would have been less but we stopped at a couple of casinos.

We did really well at buying locally! We went to a farmer's market our first day there and the food we bought there lasted us about half the week. When we went out to eat we only ate at local places, except for 3 or 4 times. We got Culver's on the way there, ate at a BBQ chain based out of Memphis while we were in Hot Springs, got pizza from a chain based out of Michigan while we were in Gatlinburg, and then got Arby's on the way home. I really didn't want Arby's, but my husband got sick of trying to find a local place to eat at the side of the highway. I would have been happier if it were a chain that wasn't a fast food place, or Subway, because at least it would have been more nutritious.

We ate a lot of Mexican food! We like Mexican anyways, but when you're looking for a local restaurant, Mexican is pretty easy. Chinese was easy too. We also tried Thai food for the first time. I forget what I got, but it was really good. And spicy.

I didn't go hardcore on the no high fructose corn syrup (damn you Dr. Pepper, why do you have to taste so good!!) but when stopping at a gas station to get something to drink, I found some soda made with real sugar. It did cost a little more than a fountain soda, but it kinda tasted a little like Mexican Coke. And if you've never had Mexican Coke, you are missing out. I'm starting to notice a lot more places carrying it now. I wonder if the Coca-Cola Company will ever get the message that we like it better? On the subject of soda made with sugar, when they brought back the Pepsi and Mountain Dew Throwbacks and the Heritage Dr. Pepper, we bought the hell out of it hoping that it would show Pepsi Co that we prefer our soda with sugar and maybe they would keep the Throwbacks and Heritage on the market. Since we went from buying no soda to buying lots of it, we thought it might make a difference. Maybe if more people had done it, it could have.

Welcome to my blog!

I've decided to set this up as a way of tracking my progress in my quest to better myself.

We go on vacation starting tomorrow, but when I get back, I have some goals to work towards.
These goals are:

• Quit smoking.
• Eat healthier. This includes eating organic and natural foods, more fruits and veggies, and cutting out terrible, lab-made foods like high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated soybean oil.
• Lose weight. (kinda goes hand-in-hand with the last point, but it's on my list of stuff that I really need to do to better myself.)
• Be more active. Even if it's just the Wii Fit, or taking a walk around the block every day.
• Be more eco-friendly. Sure, I recycle, but I can do so much more than that. I want to attempt to cut back my "carbon footprint" by reducing my waste, using more eco-friendly products, and finding alternatives to using non-biodegradable products such as plastics in everyday life. Hug a tree. :)
  
• Shop locally. Fuck the big corporations, they've got enough money. Let's give our money to local merchants. It keeps jobs and tax money in the area, the products are often better then the mass-produced goods at the megastores, they're more personable and usually treat their workers better than the big stores do. This should be easy to do with our food, since we do this a lot already, but I've got no idea of where to find a local clothing shop. The pet food will be hard, too.
• Whenever possible, make it myself! For example, I have actually been thinking a lot lately about how much money we spend on our cats. I love 'em to death, and I want the best for them, but the organic, eco-friendly, and natural food and litter are very expensive. What if I made my own? How would I do it, and how much money would I save?