Wow

I actually got home about 6:30 pm today, after getting a friend from work, stopping on an errand, and then dropping him off downtown. So I'm feeling domestic. Practically the first thing I did upon getting in was start the bread machine making an herb bread. I did spend some time tracking down recipes to experiment with. Here is the list of things I'd like to try:

1. Whole wheat bread with honey (includes a homemade dough conditioner which sounds intriguing)
2. Salmon with blackberry-ginger sauce
3. Quinoa salad with chickpeas and orange-lime dressing (includes avocado in both the dressing and salad)
4. Vegetarian rice pilaf with cashews
5. Eggplant penne pasta (I might make that farfalle, as I already have some of that)
6. Zucchini with Parmesan
7. Potato leek soup

The ideas is to get away from processed foods and incorporate more green, leafy vegetables in my diet. In addition, I plan on getting some fruit, plain Greek yoghurt, broccoli and aparagus to steam, celery and carrots to munch on, cheese, and milk with cereal. I should be able to bake several loaves of bread using my list. That may last me almost two weeks. Altogether, that should be a much more healthy meal plan than usual. There's only one problem--I won't be able to start this week, as I'll have almost no money given the state of my account from forgetting about that end-of-the-month debit. I'll have to start next time, as the ingredients, while wholesome, and not too expensive individually, will probably cost nearly $200, although once I have some of the staples, I'll just mainly have to buy perishables like dairy and vegetables. But I'll save on buying food in the cafeteria. Unfortunately, I'm not sure where I'm going to get food from for the next couple of weeks; I may have enough to pay my rent and car insurance, but not much else, and that's with putting cell phone, electric, and Internet off till next time. :( It was a very costly mistake; I'm at negative $183 right now. which equals about the amount of groceries I'd like to get. I had been doing so well. YKWIA says it's because I don't write things down, I just check and monitor my account often, and that is probably true, and I've tried to keep a running total in various expense applications, but that hasn't worked--I always get behind. Maybe I do need to start a book, and just update it every couple of days, like he does. :( But I do know one thing, I need to set a reminder for that funeral expense that comes out at the end of the month, so I don't do this again. This happened before once, about a year or two ago. And I might go ahead and try to find a second job to try to get caught up on my bills, because I'd done so well and gotten everything caught up, and now I'm just terribly behind, just trying to keep up with minimum expenses. Cutting out the cafeteria is one way I can keep expenses down.