A Farewell to (Juice) Spreadsheets

I started this juicing experiment with a lot of skepticism, a free juicer, and a curiosity about the cost of juicing. But over the course of the last few months, I learned a lot about juice. And even more about myself.

Specifically, I learned that I make enough juice to justify the purchase of a juicer. That was really what the spreadsheet was about. That, and my love of spreadsheets. And my desire to know how much it costs to have a regular juice habit. It was about a lot of things.

There are many "things to buy for a kitchen" articles out there, and generally, I'm in the camp of people who think that you can make MOST things with minimal equipment. You need a pot, a pan, a knife, a cutting board, a stirring utensil. You can make a lot of stuff with those things. You can make COFFEE with those things (if you have ground coffee and water). I'm theoretically wary of specialty appliances that do only one thing, but in reality, I have a juicer, a blender, an immersion blender, a stand mixer and a waffle maker. The waffle maker is the most egregious of these "does only one thing" items and I use it all the time. Because waffles are delicious, and amazingly easy to make.

So the juicer...The juicer I have is awesome, and from the '80s. It's that odd yellow color that things used to be (similar to the avocado color of the '50s and then the '70s). It's not pretty, but it's very unique. This is not the juicer I would get for myself, but it is the juicer that my mom gave me for free. I started the spreadsheet with the thought that if I made enough juice, and tracked the cost both overall and per batch of juice, I could, eventually, normalize the cost of the blender that I *would* have gotten if I hadn't already had one just sitting in my kitchen. (And then, obviously, I could get that juicer. HA. No, of course not. But I would think to myself "I could totally normalize the cost of this juicer. But since I have a perfectly good juicer already, I won't." I would get the L'Equip Mini, if my brain were different than it is, for those wondering at home.)

Since January 22nd, I have made 28 batches of juice, and the average cost per batch (when I say "batch" I mean "liter" because that's about how much juice I make. I mention this because very few people seem to talk about recipe yield when it comes to juice, and I think that's ridiculous) has been $3.67.

I think that, while I don't make juice every day the way I did for the first couple of weeks, I still make enough juice to justify the counter space and the theoretical money I would spend on a nice juicer, if I didn't already have a perfectly good juicer. For me, the benefits of having a juicer in the house definitely make it a worthwhile accessory. If I wanted to do a juice cleanse, it would be pretty easy. It's also a good way to use up vegetables and fruits that might otherwise go bad (apples. I'm talking about apples. and maybe also spinach when you get it in the really big bag from Costco.).

Now that I have come to all of these conclusions, I don't think I really need the spreadsheet anymore. Plus, it's smoothie season, so I should probably start a spreadsheet for that instead. (just kidding. Each smoothie batch, which yields about 25 ounces, costs, on average, $1.24.)

Smoothie Season!

Just a super fast post to talk briefly about how when the weather starts staying in the 80s and higher, it is smoothie season. Not necessarily my favorite season, but a very good season.

Current smoothie:
2% milk
Whole milk plain yogurt (which is so different from the yogurt I usually get that I don't even think it tastes like yogurt. It tastes like magic.)
1 banana
Frozen mango and pineapple
Frozen raspberries and blueberries

Blend!
Take to work!

I would consider a Costco membership *just* for the savings on frozen fruit. Smoothie season will probably continue well into the fall. I worry that it will negatively impact the amount of juice I usually make/drink, but given that I've been taking a break from juicing anyway (no reason, just taking a break), it would be very hard to prove.

I went on a trip but I'm too distracted to properly blog about it

I was going to write about how I went to Moab and had a great vacation, but I'm too engrossed in watching "Going Postal" on Netflix.
So here are some pictures of a horrible souvenir I found in a store called "Colorado Souvenirs" for $5.99. I don't know why it exists. I know only that it is ridiculous.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="323"] It is named Poopy.[/caption]

We camped in Moab. Lovely weather. One coldish day (in the 50s) and no very hot weather.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="323"] Great view. Mostly.[/caption]

Did a lot of hiking around Arches and Canyonlands.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="430"] People are trying to enjoy the scenery and *this* keeps happening. Terrible.[/caption]

There were even some flowers. They were lovely.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="430"] Lovely.[/caption]

There were some really useful signs in Arches.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="323"] I don't think he's dehydrated.[/caption]

I also did a lot of mountain biking, including Klondike Bluffs, which has dinosaur tracks. Actual dinosaur tracks!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="430"] There were better tracks but the were literally along the path and I didn't want to get run over by bicyclists.[/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="430"] That's not a dinosaur, Poopy.[/caption]

Trails we rode:

Dino Flow
Baby Steps
Klondike Bluffs

Sovereign Trail and Salt Wash Trail

Moab Brand Trails:
Lazy EZ
Bar M
Circle O
North 40

Circle O was particularly interesting. It was like a much easier baby version of the Slickrock trail, but without as many possibilities of death. It was really fun, though it was still pretty tricky. Slickrock is really fun to bike on. You can make it up amazingly steep bits if you get your balance right and you have enough power. For the first half of the trail, we were totally alone. Later, we ran into a number of small children biking the trail (they were with adults, don't worry). Moab has some badass little kids. I fell, but luckily not in view of children. Wrenched my back a little, but I'm fine now. It helps to visit people who also happen to be physical therapists. They are great.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="323"] He's not breakin' the law.[/caption]

Anyway, I spent a few days in Moab, did some epic stuff. Spent a few days in Fort Collins. Recovered from my fall. Did some mellow biking on their awesome trails. It was great. Came home to yelling cats. They are whiny. But luckily, they are also sleepy, and they snore a lot. When I'm surrounded by snoring cats, I'm home.

When I get home from a trip, I put everything away and do laundry right away. I have to do this stuff. If I put it off, I put more things off, and it snowballs. I am a procrastinator. I might not be procrastinating right now, but it's always around that one thing that I don't do right away. That pot and pan I don't wash immediately after using. I would compare it to the old "There's no such thing as a cured alcoholic," but that seems incredibly disrespectful to alcoholics. I just have tendencies. I try to be aware of them.

Today, I mowed the surprisingly robust (and typically dandelion-filled) lawn and walked to the grocery store.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="430"] This is not my lawn.[/caption]

I didn't check the cupboards before I went, so instead of making lentil stuff, as I had intended, I made curry. It wasn't even going to be curry, it was going to be stir fry. But then I remembered that I had some coconut milk and curry powder. (the recipe would go: make stir fry. add coconut milk and curry powder. Simmer.)

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="323"] Delicious.[/caption]

Glad to be back.

Juicing: I Should Probably Keep Doing This

You may remember that I was *very* excited about juicing a couple of months ago, and I was making juice every day, and it was awesome, and I was keeping a ridiculously detailed spreadsheet, etc. Well, I got sick because that is how my body handles the transitions between seasons, and I stopped making juice for a couple of weeks. Then I got better, went to SXSWi, got a sinus infection, and ended up not making juice for a little over a month! (I know this because of the spreadsheet.) I did go to Jamba juice a couple of times while in Austin, but that hardly counts (it did reawaken my love of smoothies. Can't wait for summer!). Why didn't I make juice while sick? Laziness, habit, kept forgetting to buy kale, all these reasons and probably more. Actually, no. I think that's it.

When I was making and drinking juice almost every day, I noticed that my junk food cravings waned, and eventually almost disappeared. I'd have a soda once a week (at the Spectrum Live planning meeting), but I didn't really miss daily sodas, candies, or other traditionally awesome snack-type things. A couple of weeks ago, after not having had juice in several weeks, I started buying Kit Kats (when I say "buying" I mean "buying and immediately eating" and when I say "Kit Kats" I mean "like half a dozen Kit Kats") and drinking soda regularly and baking cakes (initially mistyped as "cats." I would never bake cats). It was very noticeable, and very weird. Today, I got a bag of post-Easter robin's egg candies (the ones that are basically malt balls) and ate half of it. Also I got a 2-liter of Dr. Pepper and drank several cups. These are facts. Another fact: My stomach hurts.

What I am trying to say is that, normally, I have a ridiculous sweet tooth (my ability to eat candy is legendary and terrifying) and absolutely no desire to curb it. What I noticed when I was drinking juice regularly, was that I just wasn't interested in the snacks that I would usually gravitate toward.

I've heard other people talk about not wanting the kinds of junk foods that they liked before they started making juice, and while I believed them, I was surprised that it was the same for me. I was also surprised by how *quickly* this shift occurred. So there's that.

This isn't to say that juice is a magical, life-changing thing. Juice can have a lot of sugar in it! I'm fine with that! I just think that I'm probably, personally, better off drinking juice than I am, say, eating 2 pounds of Twizzlers, which I WOULD have done over Easter weekend, but lately, every time I go to get Twizzlers, the regular strawberry ones are sold out and all they have are the pull-and-peels, which are disgusting, or the weird tropical flavors. Or Red Vines. Red Vines are *fine* but they're not *inspiring.* Not like strawberry Twizzlers. Other things, while I'm bragging about candies I have eaten: I used to pour Skittles into juice glasses and just eat them until my jaw hurt so much I couldn't eat any more. I also used to live on Raisinets, Mountain Dew Code Red, Twizzlers, McDonalds food and V8. The V8 was for health. Obviously. Also I'm not kidding. Shockingly, I do not have diabetes. Yet.

Back to things that aren't focused on my amazing ability to consume sugar, which I am weirdly proud of, and other people are openly horrified by:
Previously, I would make one particular juice recipe (mean green, outlined on this blog and many other places on the web), and if I didn't have those ingredients, I'd go to the store so that I could get them, and while that's an awesome and economical juice (about $3 per batch, which is just under a liter of juice), I decided that today was the day I was going to get back into juicing, and expand my juicing horizons.

Today's juice recipe:
2 large gala apples
7 carrots
1 lemon
a bunch of spinach (I stuff handfuls of lettuce into a container and then I use one or two containers per batch, depending on whether or not I have other dark leafy greens to use)
4 stalks celery

Yield: just under 1 liter of juice.
Taste: delicious.

I just have to remember to keep a couple of key elements in the house (haven't decided which those are yet - maybe apples. Apples are always nice to have around, since they make good snacks, and are a good delivery system for peanut butter. Apples, lemons because they last forever, carrots, dark green leafy vegetables. There! Solved it!) and I have to stay in the habit of making juice. Because it is awesome.

What to do when you have a bag of vegetables and no plan

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="639"] Vegetable dinner.[/caption]

My friend Steve came over with a bag of vegetables, and we managed to make an awesome dinner of kale stuff, Brussels sprouts, stir fry and rice.

Rice:
Make some rice in whatever way you usually make rice.

Brussels sprouts sauteed in butter, with salt and pepper. A classic, but delicious.

Vegetable stir fry:
Ingredients:
Broccoli
Asparagus
Onion (diced)
Garlic (minced)
Olive oil
Sesame oil
Fish sauce
Sweet chili sauce
Soy sauce

Everything is pretty much to taste. This is how stir fry works!
Saute onions and garlic in oil. Add broccoli. Add asparagus. Add sesame oil, fish sauce, soy sauce, sweet chili sauce and some water. Cook until broccoli and asparagus are ready.

Kale with stuff:
Onion (diced)
Garlic (minced)
Olive oil
Chicken broth - 1 can
Dijon mustard - 1 tbsp
Apple cider vinegar - just a quick dash
Sugar - 1 tbsp
Kale - as much as you can fit into the pot
Lingonberry preserves - 1 tbsp

In a medium pot, saute onions and garlic in oil. Add broth, vinegar, mustard, sugar. Bring to a boil. Add kale. Cover and let simmer for 5 minutes (or until kale is done). Add preserves and stir in. Serve over rice!

When bored in gloomy weather, make some food

A few things happened today.
1. I have been reading too many finance blogs, and feel a little bit bad about driving to the grocery store, which is only a mile away from my house. Mostly because the one I stayed up until midnight reading last night is written by a bike evangelist. Bike everywhere! Stop driving! Why do you keep driving places?
2. It snowed and was all gloomy and grey all day.
3. I had a discussion with a friend about how it is much, much cheaper to bake an ENTIRE cake than it is to buy a single cupcake. Also, I don't particularly care for cupcakes, on account of the frosting to cake ratio (it is too high!). She pointed out that the downside to baking a cake is that you then have an entire cake. You could eat an entire cake. I disagreed with the "downside" assessment.

Because of these things, I ended up coming home from work, walking (I'm still sick! Biking was too much!) to the grocery store to get supplies, then making chili (I had meat in the freezer from my "I think eating meat is a great idea!" days and I hate to waste things. Also chili is one of my very favorite things to make and eat) and baking a cake.

The chili won't be ready for a couple more hours, which is disappointing, but I'm excited about lunch tomorrow. Also, this is a HUGE batch of chili. It's going to see me through the last of this lingering winter weather. It's not even my usual oddly vegetable-heavy "recipe." ("Would you like some chili?" "Yes. Wait...did you put a bunch of vegetables in it?" "No. Well, carrots." "You always put carrots in chili!" "Well I always have carrots in the house!" This is true. Sometimes I put broccoli and cauliflower in chili. That's...not the best. At some point, it just becomes an aggressively tomato-heavy vegetable stew.)

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="614" caption="Chili without a bunch of vegetables. Aka "actual chili.""][/caption]

The cake was supposed to have chocolate frosting, but the frosting I had was very, very old, and I didn't trust it. I thought about making frosting, and then decided to just have plain chocolate cake. Because that's totally good too!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="614" caption="The cake, in this case, is not a lie."][/caption]

Recipes!

Actual meat-heavy chili without a bunch of vegetables (this makes a LOT of chili. As they said in "Jaws," "We're going to need a bigger crock pot." You will, in fact, need a very large crock pot. You could also make this in a very large pot on the stove, but I like the crock pot because it requires very little supervision)
Ingredients:
1# ground turkey
1# ground sausage
2 tbsp minced garlic
2 onions
5 or 6 medium sized carrots
1 cup assorted dried beans (in this case, half Great White Northern beans and half pinto beans)
1 can light red kidney beans
2 largeish (14 oz) cans of diced tomatoes
2 small cans (4 oz? 6 oz? they were little) tomato paste
1 small can of sliced mushrooms
1 can cheap beer (Budweiser is great for this)
1 tbsp cumin
lots of chili powder
pickled jalapeno brine if you have it, to taste

Slice onions and carrots. Thaw meat, if necessary.
Saute the garlic and onions in a skillet until fragrant. Add ground meat and brown (I had to do this in 2 batches, it'll depend on your skillet).
Put everything in the crock pot. Add water if necessary, so that there's a good amount of liquid (you'll need it for the beans). Cook on high for 5-7 hours, or until the beans are done (the Great White Northern beans are the best ones to test, because they take the longest). Add water if necessary. Stir occasionally. Add hot sauce at the end (preferably something with cayenne and vingar).
Eat.
Feel better about this whole "cold weather in what is now technically Spring" thing.

Cake:
It's a box cake mix. It was $0.99. Read the box. Make the cake. Let the cake cool before you try to cut it or it'll just be a mess.
Eat some cake.
Think about how awesome it is that you have a WHOLE CAKE now!
Package up majority of cake to share with others.

How to make, and then make better, some gravy stuff

Last night, I essentially made a roastless pot roast in the crock pot. Sliced carrots, celery and potatoes, with half a package of stuffing mix that I'd had in the cupboard. I added water, set on high, and cooked for several hours. The result was uninspiring, as you would expect roastless pot roast to be.

Today, I took that disappointing roastless pot roast and turned it into chickenless, pieless chicken pot pie. I did this by cooking butter and flour in a skillet, then stirring in the stuff from last night.

Delicious. Given the various names, and math, all you are left with is "pot." But I'm going to call it "gravy stuff" instead. It is the latest addition to a proud line of "what do I have in the house, and what can I make with it? And can I use my crock pot to do this?" recipes.

Gravy Stuff Recipe:
Whatever conventional vegetables you have on hand (carrots, onions, celery, potatoes). Slice them.
Cook on high in crock pot with spices, or stuffing mix, along with enough water to cover about 3/4 of the vegetables. This will take a couple of hours, but not too long. It's just vegetables. You could also do this on the stove. Once they are done, stir butter and flour into a roux in a skillet, then pour in the liquid from the crock pot. Stir until the consistency you want. Add salt and pepper.

If you had cooked chicken (or canned chicken) handy, you could easily add that and end up with a "chicken a la king" type dish.

Twas the night before Spectrum judging and I got to go to the dinner

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="576" caption="I get to do neat things."][/caption]

My favorite thing about working with the Spectrum Fantastic Art Live show is getting to know people in the industry. Well, my favorite thing might be the art. But it's tied for first with getting to know people in the industry. Everyone has amazing stories, and in many cases, I'm getting to talk to people whose work I've been impressed by for a very long time. This is a neat thing. (My job is like this too, but as per usual, I won't be talking about that. Suffice to say, my job is awesome. My work with Spectrum Live is awesome. My cats are awesome. Caffeine is awesome. Why is it so late? I have to get up early tomorrow! Look at my life! Look at my choices!)

Tonight, I got to have dinner with Tim Bruckner, Irene Gallo, Tim Kirk, Mark Nelson, Michael Whelan, John Flesk, and Arnie and Cathy Fenner. I can't even get into the stories because there were too many of them, and they were all hilarious and amazing. I've been a science fiction and fantasy (and comics) fan for as long as I've been able to read, and to get to listen and participate in these conversations is very, very cool.

Also, I got a shout-out in a ridiculous holiday video that I somehow managed to miss when it was posted! Clearly, I should set up a google alert for my name (I'm not going to do that, that sounds terrible).

Seriously, though, art is clearly #1

Lentil stuff

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="403" caption="The best part is getting ambitious with the hot sauce and then drinking a lot of water because it buuuurns. The other best part is taking GREAT PHOTOS."][/caption]

This recipe is from The Hairpin, but with some modifications.

Mostly, measure NOTHING. Just use whatever onions and carrots you have in the fridge. Then forget what kind of tomato stuff you're supposed to use, and use whatever you have in your pantry. It will be fine. I'm serious.

Ingredients:
onions
carrots
lentils
garlic if you have it
tomato stuff (I've used tomato sauce, diced tomatoes and probably tomato paste, too, at various times, and it was always fine in the end. Different, but delicious. OK, maybe not tomato paste)
other stuff that you want to use up, like, maybe, meatless "ground beef" from Trader Joe's

Slice the onions and cook until soft in a pot of appropriate size for the random amounts of stuff you're going to be cooking (olive oil or butter...do you want to be vegan? or not-vegan?)
Slice the carrots and add them to the pot
Add whatever weird other things you've got sitting around but aren't sure what to do with. Stir.
(wash the lentils) Add the lentils to the pot, along with an appropriate amount of water for the amount of lentils
Cook for a while.
Add some hot sauce (sriracha, random very hot hot sauce in your fridge that your mom made, both, whatever)
Cook longer until the lentils are soft.
Did you put too much hot sauce in? Maybe you should have made some rice! You can make rice later and have it with leftover.

This stuff keeps for a really, really long time. And I think it gets better as it ages, like chili.

I don't have a good way to work pictures of cats into this.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="323" caption="...but I won't let that stop me!"][/caption]

 

The charm of a good potato

I'm still working on that chili I made a couple of weeks ago. I talk about chili a lot, but I don't think I give enough credit to really good potatoes (and, honestly, it doesn't take a lot to achieve "good potato" status. Is it recognizably a potato? You're all set! Good potato!).

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="509" caption="This is a bad potato. Actually, this is David Foster Potato, my desk friend potato from 2011."][/caption]

There is a certain, boring thrill I get when the microwave (I'm lazy) beeps and the floury smell of potato wafts out. Then, I cover it in chili, pickled jalapenos and hot sauce. It gets a little less thrilling after the second week, but on a cold night, even leftover leftover leftovers have their charm.

 

Breakfast for dinner

When I was in grade school, once a month, the cafeteria would offer "breakfast for lunch." This was one of the most popular lunches, and looking back on it, I have no idea why. We'd drown the Eggo-style waffles in so much maple-flavored syrup that they were totally soggy, the sausages were okay but not amazing, and the eggs were standard scrambled eggs. I distinctly remember being fairly unimpressed by pancakes and eggs at home, so I don't know why, when breakfast was moved to lunch, it suddenly became an amazing culinary event. My conclusion is that kids are weird, and I don't understand them.

As an adult, breakfast for dinner is definitely awesome. It's an easy thing to put together if you* want to invite people over, it's novel enough to be appealing yet easy enough to be quick and fairly cheap. (If you're buying fancy local humanely raised guilt-bacon, like me, you may need to add scare quotes around "cheap." However, and I suppose this shouldn't be surprising, this was probably some of the best bacon I've had.) Fancy glassware can be used to serve orange juice, which is delicious, and waffles are a treat for the waffle-iron-less. Waffles are also incredibly easy to make, even when you have a very finicky waffle maker with no timing element, a tendency to get hotter the longer it's on, and an undeniable bent toward destruction. Even slightly over- or underdone waffles are delicious.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="430" caption="Faaaancy glassware"][/caption]

I don't really have a point. It might have something to do with "night coffee isn't a great idea, and now I'm writing this at 12:30 am instead of sleeping." Also, if you're going to do breakfast for dinner, a dishwasher is a very nice thing to have.

The only bad thing about breakfast for dinner as a social event is that you'll probably have to eat in the dining room, as opposed to the breakfast nook (if you have a breakfast nook). This ties into my earlier post about houses, though...breakfast nooks are delightful. Not a dealbreaker for a kitchen, but an unexpectedly delightful bonus.

*I have no idea why I'm writing this with a prescriptive bent. Obviously, I am talking about myself. I do appreciate any opportunity to use my fancy glassware. And my waffle maker is obnoxiously tricky to use. It makes a lion, an elephant and a clown. The clown is the smallest, and always ends up a little burnt, like the bucket brigade didn't quite make it in time.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="430" caption="Breakfast for breakfast at the breakfast nook.This clown is a little deformed, but pretty perfect as far as "not horribly burnt" goes."][/caption]

Still doing this juice thing

I have made a batch of juice every day since January 22nd. I have spent $30 on supplies. I have started a spreadsheet that tracks what I'm buying, how much I'm spending, and average cost per batch of juice. Each batch is about a liter. I average 6 minutes for prep, 10 minutes for juicing and 7 minutes for cleanup, though today, I managed to do everything in 20 minutes.

The takeaway from this is that juicing is kind of fun, and I really, really enjoy spreadsheets. I enjoy spreadsheets as much as the cats hate the sound of the juicer (it is a lot).

So far, I have managed to not buy any more containers, and I've started taking a big bottle of juice to work in the mornings. I typed "it's better than coffee" and then deleted it. It is not at all like coffee, and it's not better (nor is it worse), but it does have an energizing effect without the caffeine crash.

I have also been tweaking the juice recipe. If I see dark leafy greens on sale, I try them. Tonight, I got a bunch of turnip greens for $0.69 for a big bunch. I am pretty sick of turnips, but the greens worked well in juice and weren't as bitter as kale. I've also switched to collard greens over kale. Another thing I have learned? I'm not a huge kale fan! Why is it so popular? I've been adding spinach to the juice, because I have a huge bag of spinach from Costco and I'm worried that if I don't use it, it'll go bad. I've learned that cucumbers are oddly expensive at a lot of stores, and that a little ginger goes a long way. I've also determined that 2 apples makes for juice that's a little sweeter than I'd like, so I've subbed in a couple of carrots.

Current recipe:
6 stalks turnip greens/collard greens/kale
several handfuls of spinach
4 stalks celery
2 large carrots
1 granny smith apple
1 cucumber
1/4 lemon
thumb-sized piece of ginger

Unsolicited house-buying advice and juice update

I am helping certain people with their house hunt, and I often think about my house hunt, how much I love my house, how terrible my house-buying timing was (I bought RIGHT before the bubble burst, and RIGHT in the tiny window between one set of new homeowner tax breaks and the next set of new homeowner tax breaks) and how my house-buying experience was not really stressful in the ways that I assumed it would be.

Houses are a huge investment. This is probably the largest purchase I will ever make. The short list of things I did was 1. Found great people to help me do stuff. 2. Had a very clear picture of what I wanted. 3. Didn't settle for anything less than amazing.

Here is a long list of the things I did during my house-hunting process:

1. Researched mortgage rates and talked to multiple banks before deciding where to go. Things taken into account included rates, fees, closing costs and customer service.

2. Went with a local bank that told me that while they contractually *could* sell my mortgage, they probably wouldn't, since they hadn't ever sold mortgages to other companies. This came in really handy when interest rates plummeted. Modifying a loan is much, much easier than refinancing. I think it took me 5 minutes. On the phone.

3. Found a realtor. I lucked into this one, actually. I decided I wanted to find a realtor, I went to a condo open house, and talked to the listing agent there. I liked her a lot, and she agreed to work with me. She is amazing. If anyone in the KC area is looking for a realtor, I have a recommendation for you. The thing about a good realtor is that, ideally, they will know more about houses than you do. In my case, I thought I wanted a condo. When I described what I was looking for (size, dedicated parking, $120K limit), I was told that what I probably wanted was a house. Yes. Turns out, that was totally accurate. I was able to make a list of things I really, really wanted (true ranch, 3 bedrooms - one for me, one dedicated guest room and an office - garage, basement, hardwoods would be nice) and that helped narrow down houses. She was also very good at seeing what was wrong with houses. As someone who had previously lived in apartments, I did not know things about, say, foundations. She did. That's really helpful. If you can swing it, I highly recommend working with someone who has rehabbed houses, or who has an extensive background in something like that.

4. Looked a ton of houses. I looked for about three months, I looked several days a week, and I looked at two or more properties each time. This was grueling, but it helped me figure out what I liked and disliked about real-world houses. Since my intention was to buy a house that I would stay in forever, I needed to find something that I loved.

5. Initially thought I'd get a fixer-upper for cheap, but then changed my mind and decided it would be worth it to just get a house I already liked and could occupy immediately. I think a lot of people do this. There is something very appealing about getting a good deal and learning how to do useful things with houses. However, I've found that getting a house, any house, comes with a lot of on-the-job learning opportunities, so to speak. Only now can I fully appreciate how unprepared I would have been to fix up a house!

6. Made an offer on a house that I felt okay about, but didn't love. That offer was not accepted. THANK GOODNESS. I would not have been happy in that house. That was an "this is close enough and I'm so tired of looking at houses" house.

7. Found a house I loved, looked at it twice, and paid for a home inspection. Always get a home inspection. It helped me get a handle on the things I'd need to do if I bought the house (in my case, I had to get the furnace flue relined, install a new garage door, get some siding replaced and get the chimney cap sealed. None of these things were awful, and knowing what I was getting into was incredibly helpful).

8. Checked on the utilities. In Missouri, at least, if you're looking at a house, you can usually just call the utility companies, explain what you're doing, and get a monthly bill average for the last year. This is somewhat helpful, but by no means a perfect system. It can give you an idea of how much your bills might be, if people have been living in the house. Though your energy/water/gas usage will probably be different, it's a start. The more information you have, the better.

9. Listened to my realtor when it came to making an offer and things to ask for. A home inspection is going to turn up a LOT of stuff. Some of it is really important. Some of it isn't. I had certain things that I wanted the sellers to fix, and I had certain things that I was okay with taking care of on my own.

10. Closed quickly, and had about a month where I still had my old apartment and the new house. This made moving a lot less stressful. I didn't feel rushed. I also had a very motivated friend with a truck who decided that we were going to move my bed to the new house very early on in the process. It turns out that when your bed moves, you have effectively moved as well. This gave me plenty of time to sort through items in the apartment and clean it up in preparation for my departure.

The end result of all of this is that I've been in my house for almost six years. It's a solid house, it's had a totally reasonable number of house issues, which I have either fixed myself or had fixed by others. I've gotten to be pretty handy, and I feel comfortable tackling a range of house projects. I also never look at other houses and think "I really wish I could live in that house." At most, I think "that house is really cool." And then I think "I really love my house." I do occasionally have fancy apartment envy, because fancy apartments are soooo nice, but it is fleeting. It is more than overpowered by my hatred of moving and my love of this house.

To sum up: It took a long time! It was a lot of work! Totally worth it! Find a good realtor!

Juice update:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="323" caption="Super green."][/caption]

I keep buying containers for juice. In addition to the glass carafe, I now have a 2-liter jug (for big batches!) and a to-go cup thing (not pictured). I made a double batch today with kale, collard greens, spinach, cucumbers, apples, a lot of ginger, lemon and celery. I have made juice every day since the first day I made juice (which I believe was Monday). I have also started a juice spreadsheet to track how much I have spent on things for juice (it does not have a containers column, but if I get any more, I will have to add one). The batches of juice (each batch is just under a liter) have averaged a little under $4, when I take into account the fact that I have a lot of vegetables and fruits that I have purchased but not yet used.

Juice Part 2

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="430" caption="I love glassware!"][/caption]

Made another batch of juice, this time adding a couple of carrots. Definitely added some body and sweetness. This recipe yields a little less than a liter. I know this because I bought an adorable liter carafe today. I decided to time the entire process, and it took about half an hour including everything - produce preparation, actual juicing and cleanup. Not bad. I think this time will improve as I continue to do this.

First Foray into Juicing

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="614" caption="an array of things, but not a cucumber. there should be a cucumber in there somewhere...whoops."][/caption]

I have been sick for the last two days, which for me, means that I have been basically asleep for the last two days. Since I live in a house with very affectionate cats, this has meant very happy cats, and the occasional nightmare where I think I'm dying, but it's just Donald trying to sleep on my chest. he weighs 17 pounds. I am never without company, is what I'm trying to say.

During the three hours that I was awake yesterday, I watched "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead." It was interesting. I hated the animations, and the Australian dude was kind of annoying. However, Phil Staples was awesome, and there were some interesting things mentioned in the movie. Mostly, if you tell me that something might help eliminate migraines, and it's not dangerous or prohibitively expensive, I'm going to try it. I guess my official stance on this movie is "I didn't like most of it but when Phil Staples showed up it all became worthwhile. That dude is awesome."

So I watched this movie, and it was all "juice juice juice, juice is awesome, I will now go into awesome diners and try to make people feel bad about their diets because I am a wealthy mildly obnoxious Australian" and all I wanted when it was over was juice, but all I had in the house was a lot of chili. So I had some chili (I also got some potatoes, so technically, I had an awesome baked potato with chili on it) and I ate a carrot because that was the best I could do under the circumstances.

Now, my mother gave me her old juicer a couple of months ago, and it's just been sitting around. I was glad to get it, and I remember using it when I was little to make carrot juice, which I did not enjoy (no small children enjoy carrot juice, pretty sure) so this seemed like a good opportunity to use an appliance that I hadn't used in ages. I love appliances! But I didn't feel well enough yesterday to go get stuff to make weird hippie juice.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="460" caption="20-year-old Waring juicer, last used to make carrot juice that I did not like, about 20 years ago."][/caption]

Today, I slept forever, then I went to the store and picked up things to make one of the juices featured in this movie. It's called "Mean Green" (adorable!)

Ingredients:
4 stalks celery
1 cucumber
1 ginger root (size of thumb)
1/2 lemon
2 green apples
6 kale leaves

I went to ALDI and Trader Joe's and spent about $10 (but I'll have enough to make a few batches...ok, did the math and this batch, which yielded about 30 oz., cost $2.62). Peeled the cucumber and the apples (ha - I didn't peel the apples! But I should have! I will next time) and cut off the lemon rind. Then I made some juice!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="614" caption="juice! more juice than expected!"][/caption]

It's definitely healthy juice. It's not super sweet juice like I'm used to, but it tastes nice and it's not so healthy-tasting as to be off-putting (do you know what I mean? I drank kambucha once and the only reason I finished it was because it was $5 and it was so awful I *knew* it had to be good for me. Just me? OK.). I got two big glasses of juice out of it, and I was impressed by how well this juicer did. They have all sorts of fancy juicers now (there's a very long article on The Wirecutter about them, which is a fun read if you're into that sort of thing), and I do love gadgets, so I was kind of expecting this to not do a great job. I did try to feed things into the juicer slowly so that it would have a chance to extract the most juice. Juice juice juice juice juice...it doesn't even look like a real word anymore...Clean-up was pretty easy, and overall, it was a neat experience. I will do this again.

Juice!

Sunday night routine: cook, clean, wash. Read a book.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="574" caption="Thebes, Diet Mountain Dew and Baked Doritos. I did this earlier in the day."][/caption]

I like routines. I think they're helpful for people who are not naturally organized or motivated to do things that aren't fun. This is why Wednesday night is vacuuming/light housecleaning night.

Sunday night is my arbitrarily designated "check the laundry levels, do some laundry if necessary," "do whatever dishes need to be done" and "get groceries and cook something that will last the whole week." For the laundry, this means doing the actual wash and then folding and putting things away. No dryer storage! For dishes, this is running the dishwasher if it's full then putting dishes away when they're done. Any dishes that need to be done by hand are done immediately after using them, so there's no sink of dishes to deal with EVER. This is all part of the "make everything a routine because otherwise it's all going to get messy and terrible." This is how it works for me. I realize that there are lots and lots of people who can totally handle their stuff without having to do everything completely. People who can do half a thing now, and the other half later! I'm not that person. This is all about how I've figured out how to manage my tendencies toward clutter. As for the cooking, in the winter, this is usually something in the crock pot. Tonight, it's chili, in anticipation of the very cold front that is moving in!

All of this is a nice end to the weekend, it gives me some semi-forced reading time (I have a tendency to check out library books and then put off reading them because I've got so many things I could be doing! Like napping! Or playing with Donald and James!). If I'm really organized, I can start the food in the morning and by the evening, it's ready, and my house smells amazing. This gives me plenty of time to play board games or go shopping or take naps or look at purses online or whatever I have chosen to do with my Sunday.

Crock pots are amazing and magical and every person living alone should at least seriously consider getting one. I will say that if you do this and you have cats, you might get yelled at for doing inexplicable things like "slicing vegetables" instead of "paying attention to cats."

Chili recipe from tonight (big crockpot):

1# ground turkey
1/2 # ground beef
1/8# ground sausage
2 onions, diced
(brown all of these together in a pan)

2 cans diced tomatoes
2 cans tomato paste
1/4 # dried pinto beans
1/4 # dried great northern white beans
2 12-oz. cans cheap beer
chili powder and cumin to taste
4 medium-sized carrots
the biggest turnip I've ever seen
3 cups assorted hot peppers, seeded (I used habaneros and jalapenos)

Combine all in enormous crock pot. Cook on high until done.

Add some sort of vinegar and cayenne hot sauce to finish.

(Gee, that's a lot of meat for someone who just talked a whole bunch about not wanting to eat so much meat because of ethical considerations! This is the meat that was in the freezer. I have more, and I'll have to use it up as well, but from here on out, all the meat I buy will probably end up being INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE, and I will have to come up with a good veggie chili recipe)

Tonight's book: "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. LeGuin. I'm excited.

Three Words

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="574" caption="I don't always eat breakfast, but when I do, I prefer it like this."][/caption]

After a morning of waking up early and going to the vet (I'm not going to go into it. Everyone is fine, and Donald is the sweetest cat ever.), I decided to make a full breakfast. Right now, I've got smoked bacon from Hatfields Smoked Meats (owned by the Hatfields of "Hatfields and McCoys" fame. Missouri! If you're ever in Neosho, they are pretty amazing.) and brown farm eggs from some people my parents know. The coffee was roasted by a friend of mine. Sometimes I'll make waffles, but I run the risk of taking a mid-morning nap if I do that, and that's not the most productive start to a day (though it is very relaxing). Sometimes I'll make orange juice! Coffee AND orange juice? Fancy like a restaurant!

I didn't used to cook things like this unless I had friends over, because it seemed like a lot of effort for just one person, but I've come to the realization that cooking for one can be very rewarding. Washing a pan takes a couple of minutes, and more than makes up for the feeling of "ehhh" that sometimes accompanies cereal (I love cereal, but if you want a big breakfast and you settle for cereal, it can be a little bit of a bummer).

People who live alone and want breakfast, in the immortal words of Tom Haverford and Donna Meagle: Treat. Yo. Self.

Tonight's soup: ham, turnip, bean, carrot and onion

As someone who takes lunch to work, has a crockpot (2 crockpots now, actually!) and often receives random root vegetables from people, I often start a crockpot of something with whatever I have in the house on Sunday afternoons.

Tonight's soup, in the small crockpot (I made a pot of soup in the big crockpot last time, and it was a HUGE mistake. Too much soup, if such a thing is possible. Lots of people got gifts of soup!):

1 very large turnip, diced
1 onion, diced
3 small carrots, sliced
1/2 pound great white northern beans
1/2 pound pinto beans
1/2 cup (up to 1 cup) of cooked, diced ham

Everything's cooking in the crockpot on high. I assume it will be delicious.

Edited to add:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="614" caption="Delicious."][/caption]

It took about 4 hours on high.

Kitchen Gadgets

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="614" caption="Gadgets of unexpected usefulness."][/caption]

From left to right, this is a 1950s Sunbeam stand mixer, a circus waffle maker from Macy's (clown! elephant! lion!) and a Cuisinart blender I got off of Craigslist.

After getting the stand mixer, I started making cookies. Mostly chocolate chip cookies. Sometimes oatmeal scotchies (FINE. I lied about that in that one post. I have made non-chocolate-chip cookies with this mixer). So many cookies that I don't even eat cookies anymore. I just make them and give them to people. It's becoming a problem. I want to explain that I'm not particularly friendly, I just have a stand mixer...and I feel compelled to bake cookies because it's fun (it is really fun). It's also easy! The alchemy of cookies - you can turn things that had previously sat forgotten in your pantry into little delicious things that might impress people who never bake cookies from scratch (mostly kids these days. they don't know any better.).

The circus waffle maker was purchased for me as a thank-you/joke gift by a friend whom I rescued from a hilariously bad pants purchase. "Do not buy those pants. Go find pants that fit you." It sounds serious, but I was laughing very, very hard, along with the lady in the Macy's men's clothing section. Other things said included "Why do you think those fit you?" and "Can you even sit down in those?" I have used this gadget a LOT more than I ever thought I would. Waffles, as it turns out, are very, very easy to make. And very delicious. When you have a waffle maker, if you get a waffle craving at midnight, you can totally make waffles. Night waffles. And you can sing a song about it to the tune of "Night Moves." It might mostly end up going something like this: "Workin' on some NIGHT WAFFLES!" ... because I do not know any of the rest of the lyrics to that song.

The blender was purchased during a period of time where I was reading a lot about juicers online. The Wirecutter is a really interesting/dangerous site. I eventually decided that a blender would be a more reasonable purchase (because of cost and predicted use), and after getting one, I went through a period of several months where I had a smoothie every single day. I also got very interested in the price and selection of various stores' frozen fruit. ALDI has a good mango/peach/pineapple/strawberry mix, that when supplemented with yogurt (plain or vanilla) and banana (fresh or frozen) and milk is super delicious. I almost didn't mind our ridiculously hot summer, because it justified this outrageous amount of smoothie consumption.

Not pictured is the electric kettle I have. It's an electric kettle. I love it. If you like tea, and make pots of it frequently, I highly recommend picking one up. They are cheap, and very fast. So fast.

Recently (earlier today!), my mother brought me a little gift!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="460" caption="Hello, new friend!"][/caption]

I am very excited.

Magazines I Read

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="160" caption="Vanity Fair, Bicycling, Everyday Food, Cat Fancy."][/caption]

I enjoy reading magazines. Physical magazines. Not as much when they have perfume or cologne inserts, but that's getting harder and harder to avoid. Three of these magazines don't have them! Stay unscented, everyone but "Vanity Fair."

I originally got "Cat Fancy" as a joke gift for an ex-boyfriend, but I find the articles to mostly be interesting and informative. There is an advice column "written" by Garfield. Seriously. It's also worth it for the bizarre ads - things like embroidered fleece jackets that are outrageously expensive, and feature appliques of kittens playing with string. Again, seriously.

"Everyday Food" is a mystery. It just shows up at my house. It's someone else's subscription, but I've been getting it for about a year. It seems like it would be really helpful, if I cooked with recipes. It all seems very straightforward and manageable. I read it cover to cover, and if it ever stops appearing, I may have to subscribe for real.

"Bicycling" is a new addition, because I have only recently start to ride bikes! I got a Raleigh Eva 8.0 mountain bike and a Capri 3.0  road bike in 2012, as well as a very old M60 that I use to ride around town (to the store, mostly). It's really interesting, with a blend of gear reviews and health articles that I find very appealing. It's speaking to a user above both my tax bracket ("best bikes under $3000!"*) and my skill set ("best century rides in the southern hemisphere!"*) but it's a slick magazine with some talented writers.

"Vanity Fair" has a lot more nudity than I would have expected, in that it has any nudity at all. For example, Kate Moss is VERY naked in this issue. Why? Is this really necessary? Who is this magazine for? This is a question I ask myself frequently as I flip through the hundreds of pages of this magazine. A friend of mine gives it to me every month, and I still have no idea who the ideal reader is, nor why they need so many perfume inserts. Booo, perfume inserts. Boooo.

*not real articles, but they COULD be.