The Great Closet Challenge

Have you ever taken an inventory of all of the clothes in your closet?

I decided to clean mine out this past weekend, and it was a bit frightening. I found two bags of sweaters and tops that have been waiting to go to the dry cleaners. Some of them have been in there for over a year. Fifteen pieces of clothing that need a little tender lovin' care so they can make their way back into the rotation.

This made me want to go through all of my clothes and assess what I am/am not wearing. Long story short, I have a whole lot of clothes. And I certainly don't need any more for some time. I am not a frequent shopper, but when I do buy stuff, I tend to splurge on a bunch of things at once. That may have caused the current situation.

Enter: The Great Closet Challenge!

I am setting a personal challenge to avoid buying any new clothes for an entire calendar year. That's right - a whole year. I am quite confident that I can make 365 combinations with what's hanging in the closet and stuffed in my dresser, even if I am not wearing my favorite thing everyday. At the end of the year, anything that went unworn will have to go. It will make a lovely donation to the Junior League of Milwaukee Grand Garage Sale, a fundraiser that I am happy to support each year.

So starting today, July 22nd, there will be no new jeans, running shorts, cardigans, or tops. And certainly no t-shirts. How does one person accumulate this many t-shirts?!

This challenge also includes accessories - specifically scarves and jewelry. I have more of both than I know what to do with. Nineteen scarves, people. That's just excessive.

There are a few exceptions to this:

Any items specific to Wedding/Honeymoon festivities. I already have my dress, but there may be other items that I am going to need to purchase to go with it - not optional. And I already know that I am going to need to get a rain parka for our honeymoon. So that's a go. I am going to try to pull from my current wardrobe for engagement photos as well, which could get interesting. I may have to make an exception there. Don't worry, I won't go overboard.

Shoes. For a girl who has so many clothes, I actually have very few pairs of shoes. And some of them are looking quite sad. As in, they should probably already be in the trash. So I will allow myself to buy work/casual shoes, within reason.

Gifts. If someone is so kind as to give me a clothing or jewelry gift, I reserve the right to keep it. As any good recipient would do. : )

To keep myself sane, throughout the year I am going to keep a clothing wish list. I think it will be fun to note the things I wish I had throughout the year, and see if I still really want them at the end.

I am also going to take a daily picture to assist me in remembering my outfits and to track what gets worn (and what doesn't). I don't plan to post them here, but will let you know how things are going. I am excited to see how much money that I save and if I can get creative with what I have.

Anyone interested in joining me for this one?

October Meal Planning Recap/November Plan

Happy November!

So that whole meal planning thing worked really great for week one. Week two - sorta skipped the whole thing. Woops. Hoping to give this whole meal planning thing a second shot in November, attempting to plan for the whole month.

Things that Worked Well

• I was able to use up some veggies I had on hand.
• We had guaranteed lunches for the next day, which definitely saved some money.
• We discovered some new recipes that we liked and would try again - definitely the Slow Cooker Pulled Pork. 

Challenges

•  We learned that we need to do better at planning our grocery trips. I can't tell you how many nights that I went to the grocery store this month. Or would discover that we threw out all of the tortillas we had (because who knows when we bought those), and can't make quesadillas anymore. There was one day where we actually made three separate grocery trips.
• Sometimes when I had a plan for the night, I might get a thumbs down from Chris. Some nights you just don't want what's on the plan.
• We know that we like to eat out, so it's okay to plan in a few of those nights into the schedule.

Here is my plan for this month. I have a busy few weeks ahead, so you can see that I am planning stuff that I can take with me to work, and there are nights that Chris will be on his own.

1. Went out to eat for a fundraiser.
2. Chris made homemade Chicken and Orzo soup - awesome!
3. Obama Rally - Went out to eat after.
4. Lemon Parsley Risotto
5. Louisiana-Style Red Beans and Rice - since we skipped this one last month and I'm still dying to try it.
6. Election Party
7. Chris is on his own. I am pre-making a quiche again, to take with me to work. 
8. Chris is on his own.
9. BBQ Chicken Salad (personal made-up recipe) - for a craft night with my sister.
10. Easy Calzones
11. Chris is on his own.
12. Chicken Lettuce Wraps (w/tortillas for Chris)
13. Rachael Ray's Penne Vodka - Perhaps my favorite recipe of all time.
14. Honey Chicken with Snow Peas
15. Taco Soup
16. Chris is on his own.
17. Badgers vs. Ohio State!
18. Meatball Sandwiches
19. The Lady's Cheesy Mac - Another personal favorite.
20. Cuban Picadillo - A personal favorite.
21. Homemade Pizza
22. Thanksgiving Dinner at my mom's. 
23. Out and About
24. Oven-Baked Chimichangas - likely with leftover turkey, am I right?
25. Family Dinner
26. Spaghetti/Sauce
27. Spanish Chicken with Chorizo and Potatoes
28. Mini Meatloafs - another holdover from October
29. Lime and Honey Glazed Salmon/Chicken (This girl needs some fish every once in awhile)
30. Baked Potatoes with toppings

Goals for this month:

• Cut down grocery trips with some better pre-planning and communication between Chris and I.
• Try some new things, but also plan for some favorites - especially during the week of the 19th, which I have declared Proposal Writing Week.
• Use up the last of the CSA veggies, which include: shallots, butternut squash, red potatoes, regular potatoes, sweet potatoes, parsley, sage, rosemary, parsnips, carrots, celery, spinach, swish chard, green pepper, jalapeno, red peppers, and yellow peppers. Plus I still have an acorn squash and a cucumber from the grocery store. Since I am the sole veggie eater in the house, I need to squeeze most of these in as lunches or sides.

Wish us luck!

One Chicken, Three Lives

Who is ready for a cooking adventure?!

I am working on trying to save money on food and to make sure that we aren't throwing away too much food. I don't exactly love leftovers, which makes this quite hard sometimes.

On Monday, I decided to maximize my rotisserie chicken. Sort of a personal challenge to see how many meals I could get out of it, for as little money as I could spend.

Hello chicken! You look juicy and delicious. Let's make the most of you.

First meal - we ate some of the chicken and I roasted some potatoes that I got from our CSA basket. The chicken was on sale for $5.99, which is a pretty good price, and the potatoes were free. Not bad. Especially since we ate less than a 1/4 of it for that meal.

Assembly line! Don't mind the messy kitchen!

I then pulled off the rest of the meat, and shredded it to make enchiladas, one of my go-to meals for leftover chicken. They are fairly easy to put together, and great for a busy week. I had an evening meeting on Tuesday night, so I prepped the pans, and left them for Chris to top with sauce/cheese and cook. I don't really use an enchilada recipe - it's something I've sort of just make up as I go. I typically mix the shredded chicken with shredded pepper jack cheese and add some green chiles. I heat the tortillas enough to wrap them (I used flour this time because Chris likes them, but I prefer corn). Then top with sauce and cheese and heat through until the cheese is melted in a 350-degree oven. Easy peasy. The only thing I would do differently next time is to season the chicken more.

For the cheese, sauce, tortillas, and canned chiles, I spent just $7.49. Plus we now have lots of tortillas for tacos, fajitas, etc. I was able to make 10 enchiladas out of the chicken, which should get us 4-5 servings. Thankfully, Chris likes taking leftovers for lunch. I am trying to learn from him.

Finally, this is where I got real crafty, making some stock. The thought of throwing chicken bones into a pot with some veggies and cooking - not something I have ever done before. But, I found some easy to follow directions on a great food blog - Budget Bytes. And with all of the veggies that we have from the CSA basket, it was a great way to use some of the scraps.

I started by collecting all of the chicken bones, skin, etc. from the rotisserie chicken and dumping that into the bottom of the pot. (Wasn't sure about the skin, but decided to give it a go). Then, threw in the tops and bottom from a celery bunch, the extra parts of a green pepper, a few garlic cloves, some leftover carrots, and some of the outermost layer of an onion. Then I topped this with water.

This made me think of that book - Stone Soup. Remember that one? 

One thing I did spend some money on for this part was a pack of poultry blend herbs, which were on sale for $1.99. I knew I had some thyme, but wasn't sure if it was still good. And I figured herbs could definitely help out the stock. I also bought some cheesecloth so I could make a little packet for the herbs. Total cost for the stock (not counting the chicken and veggies that I already had) - $6.67.

Good stuff. Much easier than buying each herb individually. 

 Once I got my pot to boil, I started to clean up. And then found this guy on my cutting board.

Hello! Hope you didn't bring any friends with you - don't really want them flavoring the stock. 

So here's the thing to know about making stock. It takes four hours to simmer. At least four hours. Don't start yours at 8 pm. Woops.

At about midnight, I strained out all of the bones, meat and veggies. Ta da!

What do you think? Should we eat this?

I had to do a second straining through a paper towel. That took awhile. Clearly I was using Bounty...

The finished product.

I managed to fill three of the big yogurt containers with stock, which all went right into the freezer. I will most likely use it for soups, maybe some other meals. I was too tired to try it at 12:30 am, but it did smell flavorful and delicious. Both cats were trying to climb onto the counter the whole time. I take it they approve.

Stock was much easier than I thought. You should give it a try. It felt pretty good to use all of the chicken. Waste not, want not. Right?

My Sunday Habit

I have a morning routine most Sundays. It starts with clipping coupons from the Sunday paper. Flipping through the Super Saver and finding the good ones. Then I head to Target.com and print some there too. Finished with a stop on coupons.com to see what I can find there.

I am by no means an Extreme Couponer. We do not have shelves of toilet paper storage or dozens of bottles of shampoo in waiting. It actually looks more like I hoard coupons than actual items.

But we are trying to save some money, especially on stuff that we know that we need to buy anyway. And we are slowly learning how to match up coupons with store deals and organize our process.

Last weekend we did a Target run and saved $63.17 on $333.83 (19%), leaving our total at $270.66, plus we got one item for free, and $15 in free Target gift cards. Sounds like a lot of money, but that includes a major grocery run, cleaning supplies, toiletries, cat food/litter - nothing too frivolous. The most expensive thing on our list? A $12.50 container of almonds. Those were coming home with us, coupon or no coupon.

Do you coupon? What are your best money-saving strategies?

Kitty Pic of the Week

"Hey guys, don't worry. I found the luchador mask. It's time to wrestle!"

Kitty Pics of the Week

These poor little furballs are gonna miss this place...

Sadly, no screen porch at the new place. Which they will find out very soon. Because the moving begins today!

NOLA Bound

Photo from here

On Saturday, I will be heading to New Orleans with a group of 40+ students and staff to spend an Alternative Spring Break participating in service and the rebuilding process, seven years post Hurricane Katrina.

As we prepare for the journey, I was reflecting on the fact that this is not my first trip to post-Katrina NOLA, but rather, my second. I visited the city back in December 2006, for a professional conference, just 16 months after the hurricane devastated the city. As a young graduate student, I did not explore much of the city because of the packed conference schedule, and the fact that I was going to be job searching soon and did not want to miss any of the educational sessions or networking opportunities. Five years later, it is striking to think about the messages that we were receiving about New Orleans while there. That despite the storm, much of New Orleans was reopened, including the area where we would be staying. That New Orleans needed us to come - it was important to be out and about in the city, injecting money back into the local economy, which relies on the tourism industry.

During the conference, one of the keynote sessions offered featured Dr. Marvalene Hughes, who served as the president of Dillard University from 2005-2011. She had started at the university, just months before the hurricane hit, and was responsible for overseeing the evacuation and subsequent rebuilding of the university.  Her speech was touching and heartfelt, as she discussed the challenges of relocating a university and trying to continue to provide students with a quality education in the midst of devastation. The personal challenges of trying to maintain a positive morale for an entire university community. It was a speech that every educator needed to hear.

What I remember most about that small glimpse that I got into Katrina's impact on the city, in just a 90-minute keynote, was how empty that the room was. It was a conference session at nine o'clock in the morning, and over two thirds of the room was missing, likely because they had spent their evening on Bourbon Street the night before. My fellow graduate students and I were told multiple times how important it was to participate in the "conference outside of the conference" and "to play the game" - that the people who were going to get jobs were the ones out socializing. Yet as I sat in the session, I was embarrassed by the poor turnout of my future colleagues who were missing this amazing opportunity to learn about the bigger picture. We were talking about values education during the day, and that seemed to fly out the window at night. Their memory of NOLA would be hurricanes and the strange smells of Bourbon Street. I couldn't wrap my head around it. I remember thinking, wow, why would anyone ever plan a conference in New Orleans?

A few of my friends decided to skip some of the session later in the day because they found a tour that would take them out to see some of the city, including the more damaged areas. I wanted to join them, but ultimately stuck to my "I have to go to everything" approach to the conference. After hearing about the things they saw, I couldn't help but feel like I had missed an amazing learning opportunity. That feeling was even stronger when we got back on the plane on Sunday, and I had no idea when I would ever have a reason to go back to New Orleans. My 23-year-old self was still pretty dualistic about things, right? Not to mention a little judgmental. The reality is that I was a tourist there, just as much as anyone else.

I am thankful for this new opportunity to experience the city in a different way, to unpack my own assumptions, and to look at some of those messages that we get as non-residents a bit deeper. As I prepare to head back to NOLA, I have been seeking opportunities to learn about the hurricane and post-Katrina New Orleans. The group has been sharing a number of different articles and videos, and I thought I would post some of them here, in case others might be interested.

A Katrina Reader - This was shared by some former NOLA residents, who spoke at our meeting. I have been digging through and there is a ton of great articles, poems, and essays, that also share some of the pre-Katrina issues that were uncovered as a result of the Hurricane.

For Dear Life - A four part series from Nola.Com from the viewpoint of doctors, nurses, patients, and family members, who were waiting to be evacuated from Memorial Medical Center.

Looking Forward After Katrina: Environmental Health Problems and Recommendations for Officials - A report that was released just weeks after Hurricane Katrina, that looks at the environmental and health/safety impact of the storm damage.

Video: The final post-Katrina FEMA trailer has left New Orleans. From CNN.

I just watched Trouble the Water, which shares a family's footage from during the hurricane, as well as their experiences following. It was I am also excited that we will watch When the Levees broke on the bus on the way down.

Our speakers last night also shared a great essay by Bill Quigley, that was meant to start a conversation with volunteers, to help them understand their role in the struggle, as they come and go from New Orleans. I will try to take this message to heart as we enter the city. I realize that we are only going for one week, so it is my hope that I can learn from residents' stories and experiences, while working alongside them as they rebuild their community.