Heartbroken for a friend I've never met

My girls on the Nest have become like a second family to me. They're an amazing support system and I truly don't know what I would do without them.

Still, it never ceases to amaze me how much support and love you can get from your internet buddies.

This weekend, another Nestie passed away just a few hours after she gave birth to her first child. Although she was not part of our board and none of us knew her, it still feels like a punch in the stomach - like losing one of our own.

Her Nest friends have set up a PO Box to collect donations to help the family out:

As many of you know, our fellow nestie and dear friend, Jewelyn, passed away on Sunday, September 27th due to an amniotic fluid embolism, just hours after giving birth to her first child, Gabrielle.

Gabrielle is doing well and will be released from the NICU this week.
Jewelyn's husband, Philip, is going to need all the help he can get over the coming months and years.

A PO Box has been set up to receive formula checks and diaper coupons. Any and all brands will be accepted, and whatever Philip doesn't use will be donated to the Liz Logelin Foundation.
Formula checks and diaper coupons can be sent to:

Jewelyn Okamoto Memorial Fund
PO Box 235971
Encinitas, CA 92023-5971

Most of all, this family needs your thoughts and prayers - please keep them in mind in the upcoming weeks... they're sure to be rough.

Hunger Challenge - Day Seven Eats

Breakfast – Donut - $.50

Lunch – Buttered roll and an apple - $.75

Dinner – Pasta, carrots and a buttered roll $1.14

Daily Total - $2.39

Which makes our total for the week $20.53 - significantly under budget. We were also significantly under nutrition standards, though. We really could have done better about getting more fruits and vegetables into the mix.

Where the beginning of the week wasn’t too bad, the last two days have been less than exciting. The repetitive breakfasts and lunches were getting boring – I’m used to shaking things up more than we were able to on the challenge.

So, can you eat for $4 a day? With some planning and prep, yes. Is $4 a day enough to sustain a well balanced, interesting diet? Hardly. Mark and I started with some advantages - we're not coffee drinkers and we regularly bring our own lunches to work. While we swapped cold cuts for PB&J, it didn't seem so much like we were roughing it.

It was harder, though, at dinner time. We usually like to have nice salads with dinner - the variety of veggies just didn't fit into the budget. We're also spoiled with a freezer full of nice cuts of meat from Omaha Steaks - all of which were off limits this week. We're looking forward to getting back to our normal eating habits - without having to weigh everything, portion it out and calculate the cost. Today we “celebrated” the end of the challenge week by taking a trip to Whole Foods and loading up on goodies to eat, starting tomorrow.

We haven't forgotten why we took this challenge, though. We also marked our making it through the week by making donations to the San Francisco Food Bank, who issued the challenge, and the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, which provides food to those in need closer to home. We're hoping our efforts this week have shed a little light on some of the challenges people using food stamps face. If you can afford it, make a donation to your local food bank this week - I'm sure they'll appreciate it.

Hunger Challenge - Day Six Eats

Breakfast – Yogurt and cereal - $.72

Lunch – Leftover Chili - $1.23

Dinner – Soup and biscuits - $.75

Daily total - $2.80

Today was the first day I was really frustrated with the challenge. I’m getting bored of what we’ve got allotted for the week – especially because our freezer is chock full of stuff I’m dying to eat. I’m really glad this adventure comes to a close tomorrow!

MHR - He's A Great Cook

Mark is really a great cook. His family has documented their favorite recipes well – and thanks to that, Mark knows how to make most of them. He makes us batches of his grandmother’s pasta sauce and loaves of zucchini bread. He’s our resident steak-cooker and brownie-maker. I can always count on him to cook a few nights during the week.

He’s good at cooking for a crowd too. Earlier this month we had a luau party and Mark whipped up some fantastic guava chicken and spam fried rice. Everyone kept telling me how lucky I was to have a guy that cooks. (Like I didn’t know!)

This week we’ve been taking the Hunger Challenge, and even on the limited budget he’s been whipping up family favorites. He made a big pot of Chili last weekend (so good!) and made a big batch of applesauce with the apples we picked. He rocks.

Hunger Challenge - Day 5 Eats

Breakfast - Yogurt - $.50 - and yesterday's leftover potoato pancakes (counted in yesterday's total)

Lunch - Grilled Ham & Cheese and fruit snacks - $.90

Dinner - Burger King Double Cheeseburger - $1

Dessert - Make a Wish night @ Coldstone - $1

Total for the day - $3.40

Reality check for the day: I grabbed the Cheeseburger tonight because Mark had an after work social and I was feeling too lazy to heat up the leftover chilli. As guilty as I felt for grabbing fast food, I think it's been the most filling meal so far this week. I imagine that's why so many people on tight budgets rely on fast food.

Hunger Challenge - Day 4 Eats

Breakfast - 1 1/2 donuts - $.75

Lunch - Grilled Cheese, Fruit Snacks and Pretzels - $.80

Dinner - Potato Pancakes & Applesauce and a glass of milk $.80

Total for the day: $2.35

What really helped with today's dinner was that apples and potatos were both on sale this week for 5 lbs for $.99. It made both elements of tonight's dinner quite cheap - and let us come in significantly under budget for the day.

Mark's Applesauce

Quarter apples (we used roughly 3 lbs) and add them to a pot with enough water to coat the bottom (to keep them from burning) and some cinnamon (1/2 tsp - 1 tsp, depending on your preference).

Cook until they're mushy and look like this:

Then they get run through a food mill:

We let the hot applesauce stand to cool for a little bit before putting it in plastic containers in the fridge.

Potato Pancakes

4 large potatos - washed, peeled and shredded

1/4 large onion, chopped

1 T. salt

Pepper to taste

3 T. flour

Mix all together and fry in oil.

Hunger Challenge - Day 3 Eats

Breakfast - Yogurt and (Slightly Frosted) Shredded Wheat - $.77

Lunch - PB&J, a small apple and a package of Funny Bones - $.73

Dinner - Wagon Wheel Chili (recipe below!) and baby carrots - $1.40

Dessert - Edward's Frozen Pie Slice - $.50

So our daily total is at $3.40.

Some observations:

- I don't get as hungry if I graze through the day, rather than eating meals. I had my yogurt around 8:30, my cereal around 10:30, apple around 11:30, sandwhich around 1 and funny bones around 2. Spreading it out made it feel like I was getting more to eat.

- Stocking up when things are on sale is essential to eating on a budget. Tonight's box of pasta usually costs $1.69. Thanks to a good sale and a good coupon, I paid just $.38 for the box. Having that kind of wiggle room is huge.

Wagon Wheel Chili

2 cups uncooked wagon wheel pasta ($.19)

1 can chili ($1.79)

1 8oz can of tomato sauce ($.33)

3 T. ketchup ($.05)

1/2 t. chili powder ($.05)

Prepare pasta according to package directions. In a saucepan, add chili, tomato sauce, ketchup and chili powder. Heat through. Mix together with pasta.

Total = $2.40 - I thought this would serve two, but we had leftovers. (Does that count as freebies for another day?)

Hunger Challenge: Is this cheating?

Yesterday, I got a someone unexpected but very exciting promotion. It's a volunteer position so the promotion means added responsibility for (still) no pay but I'm thrilled with it - it's a vote of confidence and in a field I love.

Normally, Mark and I would celebrate an occasion like this with food - out to eat, something special for dinner at home or a quick trip for ice cream. It goes without saying that none of this would fit into our Hunger Challenge budget.

I'm determined, though. Since last night I've been racking my brain trying to come up with a way to celebrate the promotion without breaking our budget.

There's one idea I keep coming back to - but to me it feels like cheating on the challenge. A few weeks ago we had dinner at TGIFridays and signed up for their loyalty card. In return, they emailed me a coupon for a free appetizer or dessert - no purchase necessary. I keep thinking we could go in, get a nice dessert and just glasses of water - but then we'd have to factor in tip money to the budget. If you got it to go, would you be expected to tip? And, this is a one-time coupon when you sign up so it's not really a sustainable thing for people on food stamps - does that mean it's cheating on the challenge?

The other option is to try to find something we could do within our budget. We have a buy-one-get-one coupon for Rita's, so that could be an option. We could also explore the dessert sections of fast-food dollar menus in the area.

Of course, we could always celebrate in some non-food way... but again, we're stuck for ideas.

Any suggestions? How would you celebrate?

Hunger Challenge - Day 2 Eats

Breakfast - One serving of Trail Mix Crunch, 1/3 cup milk and a small apple - $.40

Lunch - PB&J and a bag of chips - $.90

Dinner - Kielbasa skillet (recipe below!) with rice and a glass of milk - $1.80

So the total for the day is sitting at $3.10

One thing that I've noticed is that we tend to snack a lot. I can't even count how many times in the last two days I've had to stop myself for reaching for something to munch. Half the time it's not even because I'm so hungry, it's just a habit/need to much thing. Hopefully that's a pattern we'll break this week.

Kielbasa Skillet

1/2 lb. of smoked sausage, coin sliced ($1.25)

1/2 green pepper, chopped ($.59)

1/4 large onion, chopped ($.15)

1 clove garlic, minced ($.05)

1/2 tsp. dried oregano ($.05)

1/2 tsp. dried basil ($.05)

1 small can V8 ($.50)

Saute sausage, pepper, onion, garlic, oregano and basil in a pan (with 1 Tbsp. oil) until the veggies are crisp-tender. Add V8 to the pan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 7-8 minutes or until thickened.

Total recipe cost $2.64 for two servings.

We served this over brown rice which brought our total to $3.30.

Hunger Challenge - Day 1 Eats

As of writing this, we're doing pretty well with the challenge so far.

Breakfast - Cold cereal ($.50) and half a donut ($.25)

Lunch - Grilled cheese ($.46) and half a can of soup ($.50)

Dinner - Mark's Crockpot Chili (recipie below!) with rice ($1.23) and a glass of millk ($.15)

Which brings the grand total for the day to $3.09 for each of us. I'd like to think that I'd bank the $.91 left for later in the week, but my sweet tooth is setting in...

Mark's Crockpot Chili

1/2 lb. browned ground meat (we used ground turkey this time) - $1.25
1 can crushed tomatos - $.67

1/2 green pepper, chopped - $.59
1/2 onion, diced - $.31
1 clove of garlic, chopped - $.05
1 Tbsp. chili powder - $.05
1/2 tsp. each of salt and pepper
1 can dark red kidney beans - $.67

Mix together all the ingredients except the kidney beans and green pepper. Add to the crockpot and set on low in the morning. About two hours before you're ready to eat, add the can of kidney beans partially drained and the green pepper. This easily makes 4 very generous servings - which would clock in at $.90 per serving.

We also always serve the chili over something - either rice or pasta. This time we used brown rice, which brought our total to $1.23 per serving.

Hunger Challenge Shopping Trip

We tackled shopping for the Hunger Challenge this morning with stops at both Shoprite and Superfresh. Both stores are less than two miles from the apartment, and both had sales we couldn't pass up. At the end of the shopping trip we had spent a total of $24.50 and this is what we ended up with:


There's a lot there - and a lot that we likely won't eat this week. Two boxes of cereal AND two containers of Oats? I doubt they'll all even be opened at the end of the week. The same with the three cans and another jar of tomato sauce. So, why get so much if you don't need it? At both stores, you had to buy a certain number of items or spend a certain amount of money to get the good sale prices.

At Superfresh, you had to buy 10 items if you wanted to get them all for ninety-nie cents. Normally, I would skip sales like that all together, but there were a few items that I wanted for this week's challenge (like the soup) and a few that would be free with coupons I had lying around (like the tortillas and the frozen corn). In all, my ten items ended up costing $5.50.

At Shoprite, you had to spend $10 to get the boxes of cereal for ninety-nine cents. A few items snuck into the grocery cart (the Hershey pie slices and the Funny Bones) to help make sure we were over that hurdle. I imagine if we were really trying to stretch our dollars we would have picked more practical fillers.

There's also a lot that's not there - like any sort of proteins. And, we've still got a lot we can still spend (we're allotted $56 for the week - so we've got $31.50 to play with). Most of the rest will be coming out of our pantry and freezer - we'll use this week's food prices to calculate their costs. It would have been nice to start with everything bought in one trip, but we decided it would be just too wasteful to buy things we already had.

One thing the planning and shopping for this week has really highlighted is how much we rely on "convience meals". We're very used to pulling frozen skillet meals out when we get home from work or cooking with individually wrapped, pre-cleaned proteins from Omaha Steaks. This week is really going to challenge us to do some creative cooking!

San Francisco Food Bank's Hunger Challenge 2009

September is Hunger Action Month and to help raise awareness of what it's like to live on a limited budget, Mark and I will be participating in their Hunger Challenge. We'll be spending just $4 a day on food - the average amount food stamp recipients have to spend on food - and we'll be sharing our experiences here.

At the end of the week, we'll be making donations to both the San Francisco Food Bank and our local Trenton Area Soup Kitchen.

So, I know most of you are thinking, "Why? Why try and restrict what you're eating if you don't have to?" There's no easy answer to this, but it stems largely from our desire to help out those in need. If one person reading this is inspired to donate $1 to their local food pantry, we'll consider ourselves successful.

And, we'd love company on this journey - why don't you take the challenge too? Do it for a meal, a day or all week. We'd love to see how you do!

MHR - He Supports & Encourages Me

I love that Mark is always super supportive of my writing. I write a lot. Besides this blog, I keep journals on LiveJournal and Kiwibox, write and edit for KB and participate in NaNoWriMo. It takes up quite a bit of time, but Mark has never once complained.

He makes dinner while I try to hit my NaNo wordcount for the day. He doesn't mind me editing while we watch TV in the evening. He even helps me with the writing occasionally - lending expertise on fantasy football when I'm writing a how-to article or spending time playing video games with me when I need to review them.

I know me writing wouldn't be where it is today without his support and encouragement. He rocks.

Remembering September 11th

A few days ago I was reflecting on how much Kiwibox has shaped me as a writer. If there’s one other event that has significantly impacted me as a journalist, it would be September 11th.

On September 11, 2001, I was a junior in high school. It was one of the first days of school. We were sitting on the floor in the gym, watching the 80s-fabulous sports safety video they showed at the beginning of each year. The principal came over the PA system and announced what had happened. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but I remember his voice being anxious and uncertain. It instantly became a relative panic – kids worrying about parents, teachers unable to give any answers, everyone feeling confused.

My next class that day was Journalism 101. As the teacher tried to get the classroom TV to work all of the students crowded the computers trying to find out what was going on. I remember how slow the internet was going that morning – it was taking several minutes to load a page; apparently everyone else in the world was turning to the internet for details too. We got the TV on just in time to watch the second tower fall.

Of that day, what happened in that journalism class sticks in my mind the most. And it was really studying the news surrounding that event that made me want to be a journalist. A few years later, my first article for my college paper was covering a September 11th memorial. Like my works always seems to circle back to KB, it always seems to somehow involve 9/11 too.

On another note, I’m really loving that so many different groups are pushing for 9/11 to be a national day of service. I won’t be able to participate this year, but I’m looking forward to seeing where this whole service thing goes.

J’adore fall.

I’m not sure when it became my favorite season but it seems I spend half my summer longing for fall now. Today was absolutely beautiful - cool and crisp so it really feels like fall. Football season kicks off tonight. The farm down the road has fall raspberries and apples ready for picking.

And, I had ramen for lunch today. In my four years of marching band I ate more than my share of ramen in an effort to keep warm at competitions. I hadn't had it in years. Today, cuddled up on the couch with the windows open and my cup of ramen it was a perfect fall day.

I think part of the appeal of the season is how much there is to look foward to. This weekend we'll be visiting with family and friends, next weekend we'll be apple and pumpkin picking with my college roommate and her boyfriend. Further out there's homecoming, Halloween, a Giants game, NaNoWriMo, Thanksgiving and the start of Christmas shopping. And all of those cute fall decorations! Maybe I'll start dragging them out this weekend.

Happy Birthday, Kiwibox

Today marks the 10-year Anniversary for Kiwibox.com. I joined the site during the summer of 2000, and then started as a writer for them in January 2005. A few months later I became an Associate Editor and have bounced from section to section since. Currently, I'm in charge of the Entertainment section.

It's amazing how much of my writing experience is tied to KB. Their journals were the first time I kept a diary, online or otherwise. I took my first real dabble into fiction writing there, too, with an Nsync fanfic that I'm now embarrassed even exists. And, when I was to timid to consistantly pick up articles from the school paper, it became a fountain of published clips to me.

Fast-forward all of these years later and my KB work not only has stuffed my portfolio with work I'm proud of, but it also landed me two jobs (including my current one) because the employers were impressed with the work. And, for the first time, I have three KB interns that I recruited and selected to work on the staff. Being a manager, of sorts, has been one of the biggest challenges I've had on KB - but also one of the most rewarding.

I've spent the better part of the week emersed in 1999 getting ready for the birthday issue, thinking about the movies and TV shows that were popular then. I wrote up my experience for an article bylined by one of my interns too, but I don't really think I started thinking about how much Kiwibox meant in my life until I started reading some of the other staff's articles.

Kiwi, you've been good to me. I can't wait to see you on your 20th birthday.