Day 5

Kinda what I feel like right now.

'Tis friday, no less. Few things going on, which are very inviting, but I'm trying to maintian my compulsion to go destroy my insides and brian cells by way of overpriced liquids in an effort to deal, or not deal rather.

Work has been crazy busy the last couple of days, which is good, since it's kept my head out of the gutter where it would otherwise be. Been staying late, and leaving work late seems to be good for time-killing.

Meal plan for friday, also has not really worked out as planned. First breakfast was thrown out the window by the kind people of Washington Metro who ruined my life by making me arrive to work significantly over my start time. Followed by a surge of inner depression caused by...let's say, the weather. Which compelled me to go get myself a ridiculous bowl of pho, which I ended up picking up as carry out and eating at a bagel restaurant, where all I wanted was to stuff myself with 35 sesame bagels with jalapeño cream cheese. My chicken pho was a good option though, as well as a treat.


Today's meal plan was a little too ambitious, and more so as time has progressed from the beginning of the week till now.

Day 5
Breakfast - none
6 oz juice
Western 1 egg omelette
Decaf coffee/tea
Snack
Turkey Rollups - none
2tbsp cilantro mayo
Lunch - chicken pho
Gazpacho
Grilled turkey burger (half bun)
Tossed salad
Sugar free Jello/apple/pear for dessert (choose one)
Snack
Cucumber rounds with babaganoush - none
Dinner - i have a feeling it is not going to be anywhere near what I had planned.
Balsamic Chicken
Sautted tomatoes and onions
Steamed Spinach
Tossed Salad
Dessert
sugar free pudding cup/sugar free fudgesicle

there will not be any gym tonight, but most definitely so tomorrow and sunday.

Money spent thus far: $12
Balance left: $10.00 (maybe a six pack of something cheap and I'm out of comission till next Monday)

Day 4

Things are not very stable right now, so I'm holding on to this in need of a constant, although I really don't want to. Nothing would make me feel better than a piece of pie, some ice cream, a slice of cheese, and some baked ziti from Tony's.

I need to focus my energies on something else though and not let things affect me as much as they are. Today was another day where keeping food in check was difficult and I slightly faltered at night. I'll just have to keep on keeping on.

Day 4
Breakfast
6 oz juice - none
1 egg florentine - none
2 slices canadian bacon or turkey bacon - none
Decaf coffee/tea - none
Snack
Baby carrots or celery w/ laughing cow cheese - none
Lunch
Shrimp Salad with Herb Dill dressing - grilled chicken ceasar salad
Sugar free Jello/apple/pear for dessert (choose one) - none
Snack
10 cherry tomatoes with fat free feta (or low fat cottage cheese) - cheesestick
Dinner
Broiled Sirloin/Chicken - Cheese quesadilla and half a bean burrito - i felt severely ill afterwards
Steamed Broccoli - none
Broiled tomatoes/jalapenos - none
Mashed cauliflower potatoes - none
Dessert
sugar free pudding cup/sugar free fudgesicle - none

Money spent today: $15.00
Balance left: $22.00

The gym was bust again today. But Saturday and Sunday I plan on hitting it hard.
I have a feeling Friday is going to be pretty insane.

Day 3

When life throws curve balls your way, it tends to get difficult to maintain a new discipline, especially when you're your first week in. The plan comes to a certain stage of arrested development. Fortunately, I've had nothing but time to focus on me and how I'm going to make this work. I've dodged birthday cakes, chocolate gifts, and heavy drinking. omg. Heavy drinking. How i miss thee.

Although I had set a meal plan for the rest of the week, I haven't been able to eat as I planned, but have tried my best to use it as a guide to plan on what I ingest.

Day 3
Breakfast
6 oz juice - none
I egg asparragus/mushroom omelette w/ 2 oz part skim mozz - 1 hard boiled egg
Decaf coffee/tea - coffee
Snack
Baby carrots or celery w/ laughing cow cheese - none
Lunch
Chef's Salad - hummus, feta, cherry tomatoes, and avocado, with pita squares
Olive oil and vengar dressing - - none
Sugar free Jello/apple/pear for dessert (choose one) - none
Snack
10 cherry tomatoes with fat free feta (or low fat cottage cheese)- none
Dinner
Baked tilapia in scallion ginger sauce - none
1 small whole wheat roll or wheat pita (if bread wanted)- none
Steamed snow peas - none
Mashed cauliflower potatoes - none
Dessert
sugar free pudding cup/sugar free fudgesicle - sugar free pudding

No gym today, but life indeed is starting to give me a work out.

Money spent today: $13.00
Balance left: $37.00

Day 2

Ok, so day 1 was interesting. Spent about half of my $100 weekly budget on groceries, which brings me to my dilemma. Are groceries to be counted as fixed expenses? I mean, we have to eat no? In any event some of the stuff I bought will probably last longer than a week, hence making it cheaper next time I go. Hypothetically.

We ended up doing really well on our eating, following the meal plan as closely as possible. And crushed 1 hour at the gym no problem.

Today is day 2 - the challenge continues.


************************
Day 2
***update***

Breakfast

6 oz juice - done
1 egg (hard boiled or scrambled) - done
1 tortilla/slice of toast - done
2 slices canadian bacon or turkey bacon - done
Decaf coffee/tea - done

Snack

Turkey Rollups - done
2tbsp cilantro mayo

Lunch

Tuna chopped salad - Grilled chipotle chicken chopped salad
Sugar free Jello/apple/pear for dessert (choose one) - done


Snack

Baby carrots or celery w/ laughing cow cheese - cheese stick

Dinner

Baked Chicken breast - grilled veracruz salmon tacos
1 small whole wheat roll or wheat pita (if bread wanted)
Steamed broccoli
Tossed salad (mixed greens/cucumbers/green peppers/cherry tomatoes)
Olive oil and vinegar dressing



Dessert

Jello cup

the 66 day challenge

3. Do a 30-day Challenge. In my experience, it takes about 30 days to change a habit, if you’re focused and consistent. This is a round number and will vary from person to person and habit to habit. Often you’ll read a magical “21 days” to change a habit, but this is a myth with no evidence. Seriously — try to find the evidence from a scientific study for this. A more recent study shows that 66 days is a better number (read more). But 30 days is a good number to get you started. Your challenge: stick with a habit every day for 30 days, and post your daily progress updates to a forum. [66 days Habit Changing = via: zenhabits]

Discipline has never really been one of my strong points. It takes a while, but I have proven before that sticking to something, even if I don't see results right away, can, in fact, serve a purpose and feel really great once a goal is reached.

In an effort to control things in my life, which seem to be spiraling downhill, I (along with some people) will be attempting a challenge in hopes of feeling better, saving money, and getting back in shape. For the next 66 days, beginning today, Monday, October 12 I will be undergoing the following:

1. Money

In an effort to save money and discipline myself into not being a sucker for consumerism, which I am, I will attempt at curving my behavior and training myself to be more minimalist in the material goods department. Do not buy if I do not need. Limiting myself, for the next 66 days to $100.00 per week as spending cash. This is not to include fixed expenses (ie. utilities, rent, etc...) but to include things I need to be better about (ie. work lunch/breakfast, nightlife, weekend entertainment, etc...) This should theoretically begin to change my behavior and train me into being better about money and the way I spend it.

2. Time

I feel like I spend a lot of my time idling around online on incredible time-wasters such as facebook, twitter, and worst of all pages like hulu and netflix. I say worst of all because I got rid of my television so I could be more productive and now instead TV has found me and it sucks the living life out of me. Yes there are some shows I watch continuously and religiously, but having a set time to watch these can potentially reduce the time I spend with my head sucked into the monitor. Coupled with the goal of blogging and writing more in general, if I'm on the computer, I shouldn't just be clicking around. So, I;m trying to track my progress on this challenge and in this blog to give me a push forward in my blogging and my writing, and hopefully assist in the behavior change.

3. Food

OH. EM. GEE.!!!! This is going to be one of the 2 worst and most difficult goals. Why with me trying to be a chef and all, and here I am trying to limit my intake. For a few good reasons, however, I need to. My health is something that worries me continuously. I seem to come from a line of health issues and I seriously do not want to propagate my ending up in the hospital for reasons that could have been prevented, and especially don't want to reach old age not being able to care for myself. So I'm devising a bit of a "diet" portion and foods controlled and this plan is to be followed as closely as possible in search of results at the end of the deadline, not only of how I feel, but also of how I look (size 32 is only a hop and a skip away). I will try and blog my progress on this as well by posting what day meal plan is, and how close I came to eating what I'm supposed to.

4. Health

Also trying to get back on track on the gym thing. It's an ongoing battle, especially with as little time as one seems to have in this DC metro area. I seem to spend 40% of my time commuting, along with work, school, family life, and the 5-15 minutes of sleep I get per night (which will lead into point #5). To start myself off correctly and start getting back in shape, I'm going to set smaller short-term goals in hopes of reaching the ultimate long-term goal of being in shape and having normal persons sleep schedule. I'm setting also an exercise plan that I will track progress on as well to see where I'm at when day 66 comes. Heading to the gym in the morning at times trying to be tired enough when I come home from work as to not stay up until 3am fiddling around online and such. (hopefully this will also start helping push away the smoking habit)

5. Sleep

As before mentioned, I'm not the best sleeper. I have a tendency to get home and stay up and just be awake. forever. making me extra tired the next day. I'm setting myself to be in bed by 11pm on weeknights for the next 66 days. hopefully my sleep patterns will adjust to normality.

6. Weekend activities

Another one I'm very guilty off and serves as a precursor to set off my whole week. I need to keep weekend activities as such. FOR THE WEEKEND. I'm hoping this also allows me to be sharper at work, school, and at home.

I'm really bad at limiting myself on things I enjoy. I let myself indulge too much, to the point where it affects me physically, financially, and inter-personally and this needs to stop and change. 66 days doesn't seem like much and it seems like the world at the same time. Reaching the deadline accomplished will feel good. Reaching the deadline incomplete, will really suck. So part of my publicizing this is not so much for myself, but rather a way of having people witness what I'm saying I'm going to do and hoping to keep up in order to not embarrass myself by not reaching this short deadline.

Here we go.

He shoots. He scores.

In the midst of everything that has been going on lately in my life I've forgotten about a GUE a bit. Not so much forgotten as delat with a mixture of lack of time and procrastination, as I usually do.

One thing I'd like to mention as it had been most definitely mentioned before is my gigantic black hole of debt. The vaccum which sucks away over half of my paycheck each period. Well. NO MORE! Finally one of those long-term goals people talk about. I've met one!

That's right. The long list of debts depicted and reflected in my credit report are now completely gone. This has been a long, treacherous path. A hard goal to accomplish, as it has been something I've been somewhat dealing and respectively not dealing with for years. As of last week, all debts have been paid and all accounts have been brough up to date. My credit report is able to do nothing more but to repair itself and regenrate from here on out.

Granted there are a few things that need paying such as some IRS payments (which at this point aren't that much) and the $800 I owe (to mom) to finish paying off my machine of destruction. These are not liabilities as they do not affect my credit report.

The only other acquired debt now is the Sallie Mae student loans, which consequently are not required to be paid until I'm out of school, and thankfully only a small portion of them are subsidized.

Time to start turning the cash into more cash continuing to plant it inside the ING accounts, which with a 3% return I hope by this time next year I'll have a good chunk of cash. I can't wait. I've also slightly been trying to gain control of my finances by cutting down on my eating out for lunch and dinners.

I've started to buy food to keep at my desk at work, easily prepared meals, and making use of the office resources (fridge, microwave, toaster). I went this last pay period from spending $250 in lunches alone, to $78 in desk groceries. Add onto that the $200+ in take out dinners, which have been replaced by a mere $100 in home groceries. Healthier and cheaper.

Even now that I'm at my last dime before next paycheck, all the leftover ingredients bought throughout the past two weeks have been suffient to keep me from starvation and excessive spending.

I've ranged in at home meals as such [All while applying and practicing my knife skills for school]:


[Bean and Cheese Tostadas]


[Very Berry Salad]


[Greek Vegetable Lemon Rice Soup]
All in all small efforts which have in the end had a major result in my daily life. I think I'm doing pretty well, if I do say so myself.

Time is Money. I'm severely out of both.

I have yet to get adjusted to going to sleep at a decent hour. My schedule due to a number of factors, is very inconsistent, something I wish to rememdy before end of year.

I find myself not only strapped for time this week, but also for money. The drafting table was definitely worth it, however.

Usually that means no eating out and actually eating the food in my refrigerator. (!!!). Last night's project consisted of ready-made omelletes! I decided I could probably make a mini omelette for every day of the week, only consuming 30 seconds in heat time, rather than 10-15 minutes of cooking in the morning. The project was a success aside from the minor oven burns. These are actually quite good and practical. They basically make themselves. Preheat oven to 350.

Get a muffin baking pan and line it with foil muffin sleeves.


Throw in about 5 eggs (I did a couple of only egg whites to balance out the cholesterol intake)


Chop up toppings of your choice (I wish I would have had some mushrooms)


Mix everything together


Don't forget the cheese!


Pour into mold and place inside the oven


30 minutes later - BAM! Let them cool, then refrigerate.


Try not to burn yourself.
Enjoy tomorrow morning! Total cost: about $8.50 (Less if youve already have some of the ingredients) - 6 days of breakfast! I've also noticed that if I eat one of these before leaving the house, I'm not really that hungry until about lunch time, as opposed to when I don't eat until arriving at work. By the time I get to work I'm so hungry I burn through about $6-10 in mediocre breakfast food from the cafeteria.

It spreads like herpes

It's weird how everytime I start blogging about something a series of blogs seem to sprout up in a related topic. Maybe I'm just more alert to them, who knows.

A sales consultancy firm found that, when it comes to buying cars, many prospective Latino buyers just want to feel secure. [Guanabee]

Maybe. I'd settle for working A/C and a noiseless engine.

Because I can. I will.

The title of this blog would lead one to believe that every entry herein contained will directly correlate edibles and my personal history. Though a large percentage of that statement may hold true, I do have other interests. Many of these which make me hungry and direct me to either cook or buy some thing to eat. In the end it all makes sense. If you think about anything long enough, it will begin to make sense. Try it.

In any event, this entry was not to rant or to justify myself, but rather to shed light in one of my ongoing goals. A car. A vehicle. A ride. Not a Ford Probe. Not a Ford.

Upon submitting myself to a slow death by RSS, one of my regular reads, Get Rich Slowly, came up. There was a post about car trouble and the fiscal issues involved with it.

In the afternoon, the shop called with the damage. (I’m half-remembering this conversation — I don’t know anything about cars, so I probably have the details wrong, though the numbers are right.) “Your coolant system is shot,” the woman told me. “There was a crack near the thermostat, which apparently allowed the coolant to drain out completely. It’ll cost $373 to fix.”

I sighed. “That may fix the trouble with your heater, too,” the woman said. “The bad news is we found other problems. You know the airbag light that was on? That’s not good. Right now, the airbag won’t deploy in a crash. If you want that repaired, it’ll cost another $432.”

“Yes, I definitely want the airbag fixed,” I said. Seven years ago an airbag saved my life. Call me superstitious, but I won’t drive a car without one now.

“There’s one more thing,” the woman said. “The key is stuck in the ignition. We can’t get it out.”

I sighed again. This has been a problem for over a year, but I’ve always managed to work around it. The shop, however, was stymied. “We need to replace the ignition. It’ll cost $135 for a new tumbler, and about $225 for labor. It takes about 2-1/2 hours to get into the steering column to replace it.”

She clicked her keyboard. “The total so far is $1165.” [GRS]

This snippet had a ring to it a litlle bit more than just familiar. I look around my desk and found that it's time to renew my registration, with which comes a mandatory Virginia emissions testing. I've never had a problem passing this, however, I never took the test in 2008 on a 1994 Probe.

I have started my savings accounts. I have started my emergency fund. I am seriously close to abolishing my debt in its entirety. Time to pull my 2008 credit report!

But now comes the part about what kind of car to buy. 2-door, 4-door. I kind of secretly want an SUV, but I think it would weigh on my conscience too much if I did. Hybrid. I mean, this is worse than going to Starbuck's. The major issue here, is I know NOTHING about cars. I'm actually going to need to get down and hit the books. Learn a little more. Anyone out there with any car shopping experience?

Belated New Years

It took me a second to get this entry in due to some personal technical difficulties, which still withstand, but will work themselves out as things usually do.

Well, here we are again. The end of one year and at the beginning of another. We've crossed the path almost reaching 2010. Which begins to sound even more like the future. Flying cars and things of the sort.

I hear people talking about resolutions and changes and everything they want to leave behind. Almost like the year before was the worst. Thick on the bad connotation of 2007.

I would like to be the first to say that 2007 for me was not a bad one in the least. (for once?). It was actually one where I had set goals to take on that I had failed to accomplish in 2006.

I cooked a lot more, like, a lot more! I quit smoking (although a little late in the year). Maintaining a steady gym routine (although losing routine a bit into the year, but going even if out of schedule). Took classes throughout the year. Read a whole lot more. Last, but not least, getting my finances back in order.

Getting the money on track has been a resolution probably since I first left El Paso, and through a series of life lessons, numerous written sources, a few role models, and a handful of encouraging peers, I did it! I'm months away now (months I can count with one hand) from atonement.

Which in the long run, will be the first step of a new track and a continuance 5-year plan to reaching the my goals.

This coming up year I don't have very many goals, much further than keeping up with what I've been doing.

The only new ones, which some I've set in motion in December, are:

• Keep piling up the cash into the ING savings accounts. (I've opened 3)
• Finish up the draft of my business plan. (Got the software and the sources)
  
• Keep up with this blog - for once. (Trying!)
  
• Take writing, art, and culinary courses. (Signed up last night)
  
• Finalize debt. (Mid-April)
  
• Go visit my friends on the West Coast and abroad. (Waiting for my passport!)
  
• Get started on getting myself a car that isn't a Ford Probe. (No. Seriously. I don't want a Probe.)
  

That's it. That's all I want. Considering how far I've gotten thus far, I see no problem getting there by 2009.

Happy New Year's everyone! The best is yet to come!