I don't know how. I've worked my ass off this week. Went in early four days (Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri) and stayed late four days (Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri) this week, and went in on Saturday. Have to go in early tomorrow to finish drafting Project 2 (I stopped on Saturday when I finished everything I knew how to do, being unwilling to risk massive erasures of everything I painstakingly got right after literally HOURS of effort) and learn how to calculate Project 3. Going to work on my presentation today too, but after an appalling Vikings loss (see reaction here:Carla The Viking ) I'm more than unwilling to settle down to work just this minute.
I don't get paid til the first (I am praying nothing is wrong with my direct deposit form and it goes through on the 1st asap!), and I have literally had to call and ask for more money three times this week. It's getting me down bigtime. I did a new budget and I have about $200 each month that's not for anything else, which is good, but still not a lot. So basically, if I want any fiscal security I need a fellowship, to publish a book, or both. I'm guessing both is what it'll take. If any literary agents are reading this, I've got two finished manuscripts and am working on literally a dozen more every moment of "free" time I have, so please, contact me!
I realized this morning my first midterm is on Halloween. I have to start studying immediately, since for two weeks I'm going to be spending 16 hours a week (on top of everything I do already) in scuba class...oh, Graduate School Gods, I beg of you, smile upon me!
I've been trying so hard to circumvent circumstances and find a good, healthy way to eat without a real fridge or a working freezer, and I am not doing well. Today I spent $19 at Sam's Club and $22 at HEB, which is good, and almost exactly what I'll be spending when I can buy my own groceries (I've budgeted $40 a week), but it's so damn difficult when I can't buy 18-22 chicken thighs in a packet at Sam's and keep them in the freezer and defrost them one or two at a time when I need them! This week I got 5 pork uh...steaks? They don't have bones. Anyway, whatever they're called, my plan is to marinate them in barbecue and each evening to take one out of the baggie and broil it per the directions on the label, and eat it with a baked potato, a baked beet, or some chickpea salad. Lunches are the worst - once I can buy an electric kettle and have cup noodles for lunch it will be SO much easier and cheaper - so I bought one of the GIGANTIC tins of pineapple and will bring a little sandwich box of pineapple to school each day, along with one of the tiny gala apples and a nutrigrain strawberry bar and a microcup of beefaroni. When my long days come with scuba class, I don't know what I'll do, but right now I'm hazily thinking I'll bring a baggie with a cup of cereal and eat that right before class and try to stay alive until 10 pm when class ends and I can bike home. BIKE! Oh, what a glorious feeling! My commute will shrink and life will be MUCH easier...from a travel perspective anyway.
I also got bacon and have a lot of onions from last week, and will first bake some bread, and then make my bacon-onion spread and I'm just praying I can make two, three meals out of that, because that with the five pork steak things will be a whole week's meals, and if I can use them and my two cans of chili to eat until I get paid and then go shopping at literally midnight (I hope HEB is open then...might have to go very early Wednesday morning) for the next week. Unless I just go on Sunday and buy a $3 pack of bratwurst and live on that, pineapple, and the 5 lb bag of potatoes I have until Thursday...we'll see.
I'm in too bad a mood to make bread right now. I've just started my second beer, and maybe once that's done I'll be able to get some cooking done.
I also looked up mini freezers and the cheapest one I could find was $150 from Amazon. Not happening.
I do have six beautiful apples (not from the bag of mini galas I take to school) and I'm torn between eating them fresh and turning them into apples n' onions. I've also been sneakily considering adding bacon to apples n' onions, which I think would just be the bomb dot com, but that'll have to wait until I'm paid and can splurge on occasion, in case it's a failure. My most recent attempt at acorn squash was a failure (guess you can't substitute butter with olive oil in all occasions), so I'm going to mash a potato, add the acorn squash to it, and pepper heavily to make it edible. No wasting food in this joint!
Today I looked long and hard at the turkey necks (four medium-big ones for $4-6), chicken hearts ($1.50 a packet), and chicken gizzards ($1.80 a pack) and have been thinking about soup. If I can get carrots from Sam's (they're ungodly expensive at HEB) turkey neck or chicken part soup might be both affordable and delicious. But I think I'd want a turkey thigh (which runs to $6) or a chicken thigh (which you can't really buy singly) as well, so that would be much less affordable. They had some nice butternuts, and I'm thinking one day I'll have to buy a big one and make my slow-and-low cooked butternut soup and have that be my dinner for awhile.
Oh well. Cooking dilemmas aside, at least I have loving, supportive parents. I've heard some horror stories recently, which makes me very grateful for my family, even if we aren't billionaires and I can't swan through life with Manolos or Louboutins.
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