Day 18: Why do my groceries end up costing so much?

I woke up around 10 since we had a late night of watching the Raid 2 and I had to facetime with my brother at like 10AM. The movie didn't end until like 1AM, my housemates were super tired after we were done watching. They seemed to like it.

I woke up to no real food that was good for me. So I made Shin Ramen Black with an egg (yolky) and a cup of kale. I then added some kimchi for more veggies, Sriracha, and lemon juice. It was pretty delicious. It just came to bite me in the butt later, much later. It was not pretty. Young actually came home and found me in the bathroom. Ramen retaliation. I love spicy but spicy does not love stomach.

I started to wash my sheets and clean my bathroom. I tried cleaning it with a dryer sheet since on Pinterest I saw that it would cut the cleaning in half. It was like the same but my bathroom smelled awesome and I didn't have to scrub since the dryer sheets were scruffy.

After showering, I went to Safeway to go shopping, and from my previous post, my groceries ended up being $118. I got about 43 items. I got lemons, tater tots, green beans, sweet potatoes, spinach, italian seasoning, string cheese, parmesan cheese, cheddar cheese, greek yogurt, hummus, cucumbers, baby carrots, berries, sweet onion, chocolate chips, brownie mix, cupcake liners, cool whip, frozen broccoli, chocolate sauce, oreos, sausage, panko bread crumbs, ground turkey, red wine vinegar, parsley flakes, chicken, and steak.

I think I get too much, I need to work on how much I get since I feel like I am sharing my food, which I don't mind. But I need to work on getting food for just me. But I feel like that is a selfish thought. I just need to work on actually getting things I need for that week. I think I need so much but in the end I only use about half of it.

After I put the groceries away, I started to work on making turkey meatballs which was going to be by meat for a couple of days. I used a large mixing bowl to combine ground turkey, italian seasoning, egg, salt, pepper, panko bread crumbs, cheese, cayenne pepper, garlic, and onion powder. I used my hands to make balls and baked them in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes.

I don't think the cheese was a good idea since it oozed out. But they came out great and can be added to any pasta sauce. I like using tomato sauce with it. I also made about a liter of pesto sauce as well to finish off what was left of my kale in the refrigerator. I put the extra sauce in the freezer to save for a later date.

Young invited me to go to Zumba at Gold's Gym with her coworker. It was a ton of fun, this was the first Zumba class I took where instructors were white. It was fun, there were little to no Asians like I am used to at other Zumba classes. We even talked about going to an Xpose class that is free for a trial since it is a pole class.

We came home and realized that we left our IDs at the gym so we had to go all the way back to gym and get it. So we didn't get home until about 9 and started to finish making our dinner. We decided to watch Big Hero 6 while we ate. Young was able to finish making her food first, so I let her eat first. Once my stuff was done which was pasta, red sauce, and meat balls, I sat with Young to watch the movie. I forgot to turn off the stove, luckily Hyman caught it and turned it off. I didn't know at all. He didn't say anything to me until I asked though, which I thought was weird. I would have told myself something a long the lines of: "Hey Dummy, learn to turn off the stove!" Yeah I apologized a lot for almost causing a fire. I am just not the smartest. Life Lesson of the day: Always turn off the stove. 

Day 16 & 17: To Do Lists Help A Lot

I started on Wednesday waking up and making a To Do List for the day to keep me busy and see what I need to do with my life. I tried to do it on my wall calendar desk organizer? It has a cork board, monthly calendar, weekly calendar, and a white board. The To Do list was harder to see, so I started to use post its. I think it really helps to sit and think about what I want to accomplish in a day.

Thursday's To Do List was:

• Work out with Young for 30 minutes
• Laundry
• Pack for New York
• Get 3 gift bags
• Update agenda for sorority phone conference
• Update budget sheet

I was able to accomplish everything but the gift bags. I did not feel like leaving the house on Thursday; it was just too cold to leave the house. 

As I was putting my thrift store finds into the laundry, I noticed that one of the dresses I bought had a broken zipper, luckily I only paid about $2 for the dress, so I did not feel terrible to throw it away. One of the pants has a hem on the leg that is coming lost, which I can sew. After finishing the laundry, I started to pack for my weekend trip to NY for my sorority's national conference. 

I am not a fan of NY, it confuses me and I am just... yeah not a fan. Everything is crowded and overpriced in my mind. Plus going to the conference I have to dress in business casual and before Wednesday's thrift trip, I had only about 3 things that were business casual. I just don't like dressing up, it makes me feel comfortable since that is not who I am. It is not my style. 

After packing everything, I started to work on sorority things for my phone meeting at 9PM. I was starting to make sure that I had everything in order. 

When Young came home, we were going to do a work out. She wanted to try out a PopSugar workout. We tried this one: 

Pop Sugar's 30 Minute Bootcamp Work out

This work out killed Young and myself. My legs were shaking after and it was just an intense workout. I suggest if you are on a budget and want to work out from home, PopSugar or Youtube in general is a great way to go. 

After the work out I had to get on the phone meeting, I am going to be honest and say that I am not the best person to be on the phone with since I just side tracked about halfway through the call and start thinking about something else or doing something else. So while on the call, I was updating my budget sheet. I do it on Google Drive Sheets. This is what it looks like: (This was updated today which is why it has NY stuff on it.) 

I am clearly spending above my means right now. I need to really start working... 

But I feel like since I started doing this I can really see where my money is going... and I waste a lot of my money on things, and I spend way too much on groceries. But I think I am going to try and do this throughout the year to keep myself in check. 

After my phone meeting and some facetime with my mom, Young, Hyman, Sarah (Hyman's lady friend) and myself hungout. We ended up watching the Raid, this is definitely one of my favorite action movies. It is just amazing fight scenes and enough gore for me that it isn't too much. Everyone seemed to like it and wanted to watch the 2nd one. 

Friday was the day I was going to NY, so I asked Young to drive me to the train station. My train was leaving the BWI station at 6:33PM. I was going to meet a friend on a train, she was coming form Union Station, so she was able to save me a seat next to her. 

Before leaving for the weekend, I wanted to make sure that food was all eaten before the weekend. I also wanted to make sure not to spend too much money over the weekend. I luckily did not spend any money on food since my sorority paid for the lunch on Saturday and the hotel has free breakfast. To reduce on travel expenses, I packed 2 PB&J sandwiches, 2 clementines, 4 chewy bars, and a bag of Cheez Its. I did not have to eat on Friday night since I had a large meal in the afternoon at home. This really ended up saving me a lot since I only spent about $32.36 in NY and that was just taxi. I did not spend any money on food which is really expensive in NY. 

I am not sure if I was being frugal this weekend or just a cheapskate because on Saturday night I did  not do anything in the city. I ended up getting a free chipotle burrito so I ate that in my room and went to bed at like 9PM. It got me a grandma label by my fellow national board members, but I was the only person super refreshed on the entire weekend. I just love me some sleep. 

Day 15: First Time Thrifting

Wednesday started off really casual and chill. I didn't have to do cook at all which was really nice so I just started off my morning relaxed with an easy breakfast of leftovers. I had the leftover green smoothie that Young made the night before, pesto pasta, chicken, and cabbage.

I am starting to realize that I don't like to eat heavy dinners or sweet breakfasts. So I am trying to have my heaviest meal be either breakfast or lunch, while dinner is rather light. I am definitely trying to have veggies and protein with each meal. A lot of either. 

After finishing my sorority stuff my emailing it to be printed, which ended up taking about an hour. I decided to work out I did three different PopSugar workouts: I did a 10 minute Cardio Barre, 10 minute Tabata, and Pilates Inner Thigh work out. It was like 30 minutes which was great. I showered and started to get ready to meet Young for my first thrifting shopping trip. If you haven't seen her blog yet, it is a fashion blog about shopping smartly. She has an awesome wardrobe and she gets everything affordably. 

So I went to meet Young at the Salvation Army Thrift Store which is about 20 minutes away from our house. Since I am on a major budget due to my lack of income, complete lack of income this week especially, I told myself that I could not spend more than $10 on an individual item and no more than $50. Young told me that her goal was always to spend less than $30 each visit. We spent an hour and a half in the store looking for clothes for each other. I will say that Young has a better fashion sense than I do, she loves prints, patterns, and colors. I love stripes, and black or grey. We have different tastes, but it made shopping with each other very fun and interesting. I getting up leaving the store with 2 pairs of Ann Taylor pants, two dresses, 1 panda tee shirt, 2 sweaters, 1 button down and 1 3/4 sleeve shirt. I was hoping to find a half zip sweater, but maybe next time I will find it. I ended up spending 31.40 in total, which was way under my budget and I went home with a ton of clothing. Luckily on Wednesdays, the thrift store is 50% off, which really reduced a lot of the clothing. I think it was funny that Young was searching for more casual clothing since she has mostly business attire. I was looking for more business attire since all my clothing is casual. 

I think I was especially not willing to pay too much for the clothing since I paid for school that morning and cried a little as I was paying for it. For my first time thrifting, I really liked it. I learned to better inspect the clothing since one of the dress's zipper was broken and a pair of pant's hem was coming apart. The hem can be easily fixed, but I threw the dress away, sadly. I would definitely go away with a better view and mindset about the whole ordeal. I am actually going to a conference this weekend and I will be wearing a lot of the clothing I got to the conference, so I am especially happy that I didn't have to waste a bunch of money to get clothing. 

When Young and I went home, Hyman was home too and wanted to each dinner together. So we each started preparing our dinner. I had vanilla yogurt with berries and Honey nut Chex for dinner. It was delicious. I was trying to have little to no carbs for dinner. We sat and talked during dinner, but then Hyman had to leave to take care of his business. 

Young and I cleaned up and watched Horrible Bosses 2 since we watched the first one the night before. 

Day 13: Case of the Mondays

I will be doing two posts since I am really behind on my posts... I know you guys are waiting for them because my life is uber interesting... not. But I am glad that people are reading.

Monday... oh Monday. Everything was going great, I woke up with a plan to cook my allusive cabbage that I bought on New Year's Eve. I ended up searching Pinterest for different cabbage recipes. I knew that for one of my recipes would be cabbage cooked with bacon fat, which ended up pretty delicious. I found this on Pinterest:

So I went to this recipe, and read it and substituted some recipes because I didn't have any fennel seeds. As the cabbage was roasting in the oven, I was cooking the bacon. I think the heat from the oven and the smokeyness from the bacon caused a lot of heat... and the fire alarm went off. So I turned on the fan, fanned the smoke alarm, and opened a window. So, I tried to make sure that it would not go off. I started texting my housemate, Young, about the situation. She told me not to tell Hyman about it since that is something he would not be happy about. So I haven't, I just fail at roasting cabbage I guess. Lesson learned: Always turn on the fan when cooking!

Roasted Cabbage

Semi-steamed cabbage with bacon and onions

After making both sets of cabbage, I went upstair to work on some of my sorority things. Around 12-ish, Young came home for lunch and she had some of my cabbage. We talked during her lunch and I further explained what happened. She invited me to go to Zumba with her and her coworker at 7:30PM and that we would get back in time for our friend to come hang out and eat s'mores.

I declined since I didn't want to spend money on a Zumba class. After she left for work, I started working on more sorority things. At 2PM, I went to take a walk around the neighborhood for about an hour. I explored more of the neighborhood, which was nice but freezing, absolutely freezing. But it was a nice walk, I came back and showered in time to watch The Taste while FaceTime-ing with my brother. We like to watch it together to comment about the contestants and to predict who's going to be eliminated next.

At around 5:30PM, Young came home and I suggested that she start cooking her food before she goes to Zumba, so that she could have her food right away when she got home. She was cooking her dinner and I began cooking mine. I started to make pesto with kale since I had a lot of kale that I have not been eating. It ended up being really bitter with a weird after taste so I added lemon juice and it turned out pretty good.

Hyman came home in the middle around 6:30PM and he started doing his laundry. Young left around 6:50PM, and I started cooking my dinner. I finished cooking around 7:10PM and finished eating around 8PM when Hyman came down to eat his dinner. I sat with him and talked. He wanted to Plex to see The Interview, which I have now seen three times. We sat and watched as he ate dinner he was in and out of the movie to do his laundry. At about 8:30PM, Lacey came over to surprise Hyman, but also to hang out and eat s'mores. I offered her some dinner and cookies. She ate most of the cookies and once Young came home I offered to make everyone some s'mores. I made two each for everyone. Young ate hers after her dinner. Hyman only ended up eating one so the extra went to Young. After The Interview was over, Young wanted to show me The Man from Nowhere on Netflix. During the movie, I kept seeing people that we knew, which I think ruined Young's life since she was super into those characters and I related them to people we were friends with. I thought it was an interesting movie, it was like Man on Fire and The Equalizer but with consequences for the main character. After the movies, it ended up being around 12AM, so everyone went home and to their rooms. I folded my laundry that I did that morning.

Day 12: Sunday is for S'mores

I started off the day late, I was just exhausted for some reason. I knew that Young was going to go back home to see her mom and I didn't have anything planned to cook for breakfast. So I started on a Pinterest recipe: Lemon Garlic Dump Chicken. I actually read most of this recipe, but made it more of my own.

I put zest and juice of 2 lemons, 5 finely chopped garlic pieces, onion powder, poultry rub, cilantro flakes, cayenne, and salt and pepper into a gallon bag with 5 chicken breasts. You are supposed to freeze it, but I just wanted to marinate to cook either that evening or the next day. I actually had it on Monday night for dinner, it was delicious! 

Young came upstairs in the middle of my making dump chicken and we talked as she watched me making it. We ate Honey Nut Chex for Breakfast. After she went to get ready to go home and I worked on this blog. She left around 3PM, but returned around 3:30PM-4PM since her mom was feeling sick. We ended up going to Lima's Chicken for lunch/ dinner. I got 1/4 dark meat chicken with yucca fries, green beans, and lot and lots of green sauce. I always have to ask for more since they don't give me enough. I think the lack of carbs ignited my hunger. I wanted to eat more, so I just ended up having some more of my chocolate chip cookies. We watched Guardians of the Galaxy because... well.. Chris Pratt is gorgeous. As we were letting the movie buffer by pausing, I made oven S'mores for Young and myself, another recipe that I just glanced at on Pinterest. 

I put broke up 2 graham crackers into 4 pieces and placed 2 pieces of Hershey's chocolate and a marshmallow on top. I put it in the toaster oven for about 5 minutes (I set it on lightly toasted setting). I think it was too much chocolate since it was spilling over the sides when we smooshed the s'more together. There is that nostalgia about a campfire, this is just sooo much easier since the marshmallow and chocolate are melted. 

At around the same time, Hyman came home and my cousin, May who lives in Canada FaceTime-ed me. So I was talking to May and Young asked Hyman to reset the router. After it was reset everything was working swimmingly. Hyman brought back a shelving unit from PA, which increased pantry space. He started to eat dinner after building it and we ended up watching Edge of Tomorrow, I conned him into hanging out all night since the move pulled him in. He told us that he had things he needed to take care of... Oops! 

Monday everyone is going back to work, and I will be home during the day solo, back to the routine of life. 

Day 11: Rainy Saturday is a Lazy Saturday

I will say that when it rains, I do not want to leave the house or move. I am not sure if I am only one out there that is like this. But wow, rain makes me a lazy hobo. Waking up to rain hitting the tree next to my window lulled me into a sleep like state for most of the morning. I was feeling groggy in the morning as well. I finally got out of bed around 12PM and got ready to start the day.

I started to make grilled cheese sandwiches. I got the idea from looking on my Facebook 's New Feed and seeing the 26 Food You Should Learn To Cook in Your Twenties by BuzzFeed. The first item is grilled cheese:

 Honestly, doesn't that look amazing. I had to see the directions because my mouth was watering from looking at the picture. The directions are so simple, yet I never thought about it. My grilled cheese is usually semi melty in the center and almost burnt on the outside. I skipped the salt step when I made it, this is mostly because I completely forgot. It is a good thing too since Young does no like too much salt in her food. I clearly love all the salt, butter, sugar, cheese, and fat. They are alllll delicious.

So I used butter, whole wheat bread, and pepper jack cheese (2 slices per sandwich). They turned out delicious. I gave Young the sandwich with thinner slices of cheese since she does not love cheese as much as I do. I love it. I would put it on everything if I could. We ate that with green smoothie she made, it had pear, Granny Smith apple, kale, and frozen pineapples in it. It was really refreshing and delicious. I don't normally like green smoothies, but the kale was masked by the pineapples. Sweet, delicious pineapples.

We waited about an hour or so until we worked out. Young went to work on her blog, and I just went to my room to look at Pinterest. Our work out was Turbo Fire Low HIIT 20 and PiYo Legs. It was an intense work out. I am still feeling the effects and it has been two days. After showering, I changed into loungewear since I thought Young was going to go home after the work out. She came up and asked if I wanted to go to Target, so I got changed and we went.

I am not sure if it was an off night, but the Target we usually go to was completely bare. There was nothing in t the $1-3 bins. We got some things that we needed. I always forgot something I need, so I might just stop by Walmart this week to get gift bags.

After Target, we were starving so we heated up the left over NYE Tacos and pasta from our friend, Lacey and ate that. Young decided to stay the night at home, which was awesome. We each ended up staying in our rooms and working on separate things. I finally got to FaceTime my mom, which was really needed; I hadn't talked to her since I came back here on Tuesday. I also worked on my blog and things for my sorority. I called it a night around 11AM, I was exhausted... probably from the rain.

Day 10: Friday Night of Games & Movies

Friday morning started off with me waking up late around 11AM, and relaxing in bed until about 11:30AM. I was talking to my brother and cousin in the morning since my cousin Vicky was coming to visit that evening. It would allow me to get stuff from my house that I forgot: trash can, laptop charger, trash bags, sharpies, dry erase markers, and a pair of khakis. My brother was gracious enough to gather all those things for me to give to my cousin, Vicky.

After setting all that up, I went downstairs to start cooking breakfast for Hyman and Vicky. First, I put 8 slices of turkey bacon on a baking sheet in a 350°F oven for about 20 minutes. It turned into the chip again, which I know that Young likes, but I totally forgot to ask Hyman what he likes. I am clearly a terrible housemate. I started on the french toast batter again. To the normal eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon batter I added brown sugar and a flour & water mixture so that the flour would not just stay in clumps on top of the batter. Young told me that she liked day 2 french toast better. They each ended up with 3 slices of french toast and 4 slices of bacon. In the beginning stage of making the french toast, Hyman came down for breakfast. He seemed interested in what I was making and asked me questions about the batter and what went in it. He also seemed a little worried about the amount of food that I was putting on his plate. He does not eat that much; he ended up eating all the french toast, but only 3 slices of the bacon. They were both nice enough to wait as I made my breakfast of leftover pasta and sausage that I ended up cooking for myself. Hyman helped me flip the sausage when I ended up getting distracted in the middle of cooking. He even washed the dishes after we were all finished too.

Hyman then got ready to go home to Philadelphia to see his family. Young and I ended up watching Maleficent on Plex and another movie or TV show. I am not 100% sure. But we ended up snacking on chips, salsa, and guacamole too. After the movie, we each got ready to go to Shin Chon and tried to go to Target earlier, but I take too long to get ready.

We met Huy and Vicky at Shin Chon in Ellicott City, which is Korean BBQ. It was a lot of fun seeing them and eating delicious Korean meat. The only downside of Korean BBQ is how you stink after. The smell gets into your hair and clothing and does not leave. At the dinner, we talked about how Hyman seemed sad that he could not be joining us. After dinner, Vicky and Huy came back to the house to see it for the first time. We gave them a tour and showed off our rooms. They seemed to like the house. We then played Telestrations and watched Mean Girls.

I absolutely love board games or games in general, but this is definitely my favorite one. 

If you have never played or heard of it, it is like pictionary and telephone had a baby. It is a hilarious game especially when you are playing with a larger group of people. You start off with a secret word, someone has to draw a picture of that word then pass it to the person to their left. That person needs to guess the word from the picture then pass it to the left. The new person needs to draw the word and this continues until it ends back to the original person. It can be on point the whole time or just go somewhere completely different. Once I played the original word was moonwalk, which turned into Michael Jackson and then Super Saiyan. Everyone seemed to like the game, which I was happy about. I think the best one from when we played was graveyard to garden.

Vicky, Myself, and Young 

After Vicky and Huy left, Young and I stayed up watching The Equalizer and then we started watched K-POP music videos. Specifically, we were watching 2NE1 to see the evolution of their plastic surgeries then we moved to Big Bang. It ended up being 3AM after that and we went to bed.

This will forever be my favorite 2NE1 song and music video. 

"I Am The Best" by 2NE1 

Day 9: New Year's Day!

Happy New Year! I am a little.. okay let's be real... a lot late. I have been busy hanging out with my housemate, Young. She has had the week off so we have been hanging out all week. It has been great and fun not to be alone in the house all day long.

On New Years, I got up around 11AM and started to change my sheets. I wanted new sheets and a clean room for the new year. I febreezed the mattress, pillows, and blanket. I put them in the washing machine, which was my first using the machine. I don't think it put the correct settings since the machine sounded like it was unbalanced and it was really really loud. I was really worried about walking up my roommate.

I started making french toast since it is Young's favorite breakfast food. So I tried making it based on what I saw on Pinterest.

This was all I saw from it so I thought, "Okay I just need some flour," so I added about a teaspoon to my batter for the french toast. the flour stayed on top and clumpy even after more mixing. When I dunked in the slices of bread, I would just spread the flour over the bread. I will say that this helped make the bread browner with a crispier crust. I also made scrambled eggs and turkey bacon with it. I semi-killed turkey bacon in the toaster oven so that they ended up like bacon chips. It was interesting since they were not greasy, the whole cooking process for the bacon was simple. I would rather cook bacon in the oven. It takes longer, but it is so much less greasy. 

After eating together, Young was nice enough to wash the dishes after. As she was washing, I started to bake the chocolate chip cookie batter I made and chilled the night before. Young watched as I did this. I wanted the cookies to be a little crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, but I think I made them way to big for that so they are soft all over. Young said that they were good. But I was still worried.

We watched part of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the Chromecast using Plex, but our internet was being crappy so we ended up watching Ultimate Spiderman on Netflix. Then we worked out by doing a Daily HIIT workout. We did a animal based work out for two rounds and Young did an extra core workout and I sat there and watched her. We then showered and got ready to go to a New Year's Day Party at our sorority sister's boyfriend's house. We also saw Hyman before we left and offered from him to come but he declined. He wanted to get Pho for dinner with us, but I told him to eat the leftovers from the New Year's Eve part from the night before. He seemed okay with that. 

We went to the party, which was full of food and Filipinos. The host's friends seemed a little stand offish but I still had a good time talking to people. They watched the interview too. 

After the party, we went home to finish the rest of TMNT. Young seemed to really enjoy the movie. I think it reminds me of the 90's movies of TMNT, which I uber loved. It was just enough of the goofy-ness with all of the fighting scenes. I just hated how they changed the story line. 

This is the first picture I took of the New Year: Young and I. 

Day 7/8: New Year's Eve Party

I came back to the house on the eve of New Year's Eve aka December 30th in the evening. Thank goodness my housemates were home because I had so much stuff it was like I was moving again. I brought a printer, my clean laundry, two pots, wok pan, two crates of clementines, case of Honey crisp apples, six water bottles, instant noodles, over the door hooks, laundry supplies, Ziploc bags, Sperrys, L.L. Bean boots, and Chromecast. I brought all these things back, but totally forgot important things like: trash can, sharpies, dry erase markers, and the most important thing I forgot was my laptop charge. As I am writing this, I am on 22% and going down. I am willing to risk it to update the blog.

I am so thankful for Young who helped me carry all my stuff in and organizing it in the kitchen. Hyman helped me bring the stuff from the living room to the kitchen. They are both great for helping me carry my things into the house and around the house. Hyman, Hyman's lady friend, and Young hung out in the kitchen for about an hour talking about our Christmases and mutual friends. Around 11PM, Hyman's lady friend went home and we continued talking until about 2:30AM. It was nice, I feel like they missed me.

On New Year's Eve, I woke up around 11AM. Young and I made plans to work out, go grocery shopping, and prepare for friends coming over for New Year's Eve. I started cleaning my bathroom when Young came upstairs to see if I wanted to work out. We did Turbo Fire's Fire 30 and a Daily HIIT work out that she had. It was intense, I am started feeling sore by that night. My legs were heavy and sore. After the work out, we got ready to go shopping at Safeway, Bed Bath and Beyond, and the liquor store.

I made a list of the groceries we would need for the tacos for our potluck party and my groceries for the week. The total for the groceries was $150, I really need to start rethinking what I need for food and stop buying like I am feeding a family. I am feeding me. At Bed, Bath, and Beyond we got cookie sheets, liquid measuring cup, and cooking utensil rest. I love those 20% coupons from BB&B, they never expire and you can use as many as you want during your purchase.

Around 5PM, Young was hungry and cooked us some lunch. As she was doing that I was prepping for the tacos by dicing the tomatoes. I was going to shred the lettuce, but as I was opening it I realized I bought cabbage instead of iceberg lettuce. So I had to go back to the store, which I did after making chocolate chip cookie batter. Young was nice enough to come back with me as I picked up bell peppers, cumin, and the much needed lettuce. It was about 7PM when we got back from the 2nd shopping trip. The guests were coming by 8PM, so I needed to get into gear cooking the tacos. Young made guacamole for the first time and she did a great job. The taco bar seemed like a great idea, I think that everyone enjoyed it and we have supplies for another taco night if needed or a burrito night. This was my first time making tacos. They all seemed to like it, I wish I gotten more taco sauce to mix in with the ground turkey.

We had about 4 people came over. They brought pasta dish, pie, and alcohol... lots and lots of alcohol. They seemed to like the tacos and pasta. It was a chill night of talking, listening to music and watching the TV once it was midnight. I didn't turn the TV onto the right channel so we didn't see the ball drop.

I kept making a joke to Young about how when it was 12:01AM everyone had to go, but they actually did leave by that time minus one closer friend. She stayed until about 2-3AM. Young and Lacey (our close friend and sorority sister) forbid me from cleaning the taco bar since they wanted a midnight snack. It took me and Young about an hour of on and off cleaning to get the kitchen back to where it was. It didn't seem like there was a party at all.

I hope that you all are having a great new year. Are you guys making any resolutions or goals? I am going to make goals for this year, but more about that tomorrow.

Day 5: Why Do Chipotle Patrons Touch My Hair?

I woke up around 9 and stayed in my room until about 10AM because I thought Hyman's lady friend Sarah was still in the house. I was actually a little excited for her to be around since I was going to have company throughout the day and I wanted to get to know her better. I heard that she was really shy and because I am clearly not I thought I would be able to break her of her shell and be friends. Sadly, she left around 11:30PM- 12AM the night before, I had just not heard because I was sleeping like a bear apparently.

After wondering the house for her shoes and pizza remains and coming up short, I started to cook some breakfast. I was going to make oatmeal, eggs, and bacon; but I thought I used way to much of the shared eggs. I think within the week I used 4-6 and there had been 10 before I started using them. I didn't feel right using them since I haven't contributed much to the community food which is eggs, bread, and now milk. I added the milk, but that was about it. Instead of a complex breakfast, I made udon out of laziness and curiosity, I wanted to see the taste difference if I cooked it purely on the stove top and now in the pre-packaged bowl. I liked it better stovetop way. As I was watching the Simpsons and eating, I received an email about my appointment to be fingerprinted by the Howard County Parks & Recreation Department which supports Brickz for Kids. The confirmed the appointment and provided me the address of where I need to go. I rushed to clean my pot and bowl, and rushed to shower. I didn't have time for make up or bowl drying my hair since it was 10:50 AM and the location was 20 minutes away.

The fingerprinting process took about 20 minutes, LaShae was really nice to me and we talked during the whole process. She told me that the results would be sent within the next couple of weeks.

After I had time to kill since it was only about 12PM, so I thought going to Bed, Bath & Beyond to look for oatmeal containers would be a good idea. The BB&B closest to my house in Severn is the one attached to Arundel Mills Mall. Wow, was it packed on Friday at noon. I could barely find parking, and the mall was so crowded. I ended up getting a container, scooper, and a candle for the kitchen. Sadly, the container does not even fit all the oatmeal that I have.

I started to wonder around the mall since I wanted to go to the Disney store. I haven't been in one for about 2 years, I didn't know which direction it was in so I thought it would be good exercise to walk around the whole circle that is Arundel Mills. I got suckered into talking to the Dead Sea Deja Vu II kiosk people. The guy was really nice, I don't remember where he is from but I know it is French and English speaking country. The company sent him to Arundel since he has been doing so well within the company. He has "expertise in skin care and health." He was a nice guy, I love/ hate the scrub products since they make me feel disgustingly dirty when my dead skin comes off. He told me to never use make up, I replied that I had to or I would look like a child. I am awful at these high pressure sales situations. I am terrible at saying no since I don't want to hurt people's feelings, and I am so easily conned. I am definitely the person calling into QVC or infomercials to get the newest and most innovative product. This sales associate was practically giving the product away to me since the price went from $200 per product to $100 for 4 products he used on me. I kept telling him that I could not since I could barely afford groceries and I did not have a paying job. He finally let me walk away when I promised to come back after I get a paying job and asked for his business card.

After that 20 minute encounter, I avoided all kiosks and almost all human interaction after that. The longer I stayed in the mall the more I realized I had no money to purchase any of the things that I wanted. But I wanted to circle back to my BB&B entrance. I was in the mall for about 2 hours, I didn't have to be back to the area for another 3 and couldn't stand being in the mall area, so I went home.

When I got home Young was already home from work, I was ecstatic for company. I said, "Young?" I didn't realize that she was trying to nap, but asked her if she wanted to watch Ultimate Spiderman. She did! We talked and snacked on Honeynut Chex and Cheez Its for about an hour and a half. I started to get sleep and offered for us to take naps and watch again after I get back from my dinner plans. She seemed down for it and sleepy too.

I took about an hour nap before my cousin called me to make plans for me to come over on Saturday around 3PM after I babysit and go home for Christmas week. I looked at the time it was around 4:30 and meet time was 5PM. It only takes about 8 minutes to get there so I took my time getting out of the door. I was meeting my college roommate of three years, Kathleen to catch up since I hadn't seen her since August/ September time. She was stuck in traffic so I didn't mind waiting. When we are together we reminisce, tell jokes, and talk for hours; this is the second time we have stayed at a restaurant until close. She is also currently living in a similar situation: in house with two other roommates (her's are just both female), the house owner is passive aggressive, and she gets along with both of them. We are paying around the same amount too. Somewhere in the middle of the dinner rush and our conversation, someone in line started to lean on the booth I was sitting on and leaning on my head. From their extra weight my head started to go forward, I started busting out laughing and Kathleen made jokes about how he wants to touch my hair. I wish I could say this is the first time someone has done this to me at this exactly Chipotle, but I cannot. Apparently people love my hair here and want to touch it.

I had been craving fruit and veggies since I moved in, so I went to Safeway to pick up a fruit cup, Suja juice, Chewy bars, and two boxes of Honey Nut Chex since Young and Hyman seemed to like ti so much. It is pretty sweet that 1. I found the Safeway (not Shoppers) and 2. that it is open 24 hours.

I got back to the house around 11PM, Young scared the crap out of me, and then we went upstairs to bother Hyman. Hyman was napping off his food coma and drinks from his holiday party and I was telling them about the man who was touching my hair at Chipotle. We migrated to the kitchen island and started talking (mostly me) about engagement rings, my college roommate's living situation, hemorrhoids, and dating situations. Hyman was making notes of everything I would hate in a man so he could "troll." He wants to tell the potential suitor that I really love everything I hate like a naked guy in only socks. Just why? But this conversation lead to me admitting to him how I was scared the night before of possibly hearing him and his lady friend having sex and how I didn't know how to react to the situation. But since he is going to troll me, I thought him I am going to get those New Year's popper and make a since like "YOU GOT IT IN!" and high five him and then girl the next morning. He did not like the idea. We stayed up until about 2AM talking but Hyman had to work the next day and I had to babysit at 9AM, so we went to bed.

What are some good troll/ prank ideas for housemates? I need ideas!

Day 3: Eating Like a Poor College Student

I woke up and started to clean my bathroom since... well I blew it up. It was disgusting. But I gave it a good scrub and deep cleaning, under the toilet rim and in my shower. It was super satisfying to shower in my bathroom. I felt clean and the place felt super clean.

After cleaning it was breakfast time, so I cooked my ground turkey and made myself a oatmeal pasta bowl. It was great, but looked like a mushed mess.

I came up to my room to blog, put my face on, and get ready for my training. I went to an Elementary school as part of my new position as a Teacher for Brickz for Kids. I am really excited about the job. I just did not feel that confident about myself and the position. The person I trained with did not seem to like our boss and did not have control of the children. I was worried that it would all be like that, and I do not do well with chaos.

I went there from about 2:45 util 5:00PM, I was so hungry when I got home that I sat and watched CSI:NY as a crushed a half bag of carrots, greek yogurt, and cottage cheese.

I came up to my room and hung out solo for a while until my housemates came home around 6-7PM. We all had dinner together. They had their leftovers and I had a bowl of honeynut chex with almond milk. Hyman made a comment about my cereal and offered me some of his food, it made me feel like I was so poor. Haha. But I know it was out of a good place, but it kicked me into a new place that I should be eating better. I am eating like I am a poor person. I don't really eat any veggies with my meals. I am eating them as a snack. That is not how my meals should be going.

I guess for me it is conflicting since I will only be here for a week. I want to make the most of my food so I am trying to make sure that I don't get anything that will spoil or that I can finish in a week.


My idea is to start planning for a week, making sure that I plan all my meal and all the ingredients for the week. This is my first step to becoming an independent adult: planning and buying my groceries for the week.

What are some recipes or weekly planning tips anyone can give me? It would really help me out a lot. I was looking into Rachael Ray's 3 meals in a day recipes. But I am just worried about starving. 

Day 2: Getting My Frak Together

Yesterday was a day full of... confusion and a mess.

I woke up from very little sleep due to a tow truck honking and honking at people. I went to bed at 2AM and woke up at 8AM. I think that it is going to take me some time to get used to the noises in the neighborhood. I might have to get ear plugs because last night was awful too, getting very little to no sleep.

I started off my day realizing that I have little to no food, and no food that would work well together. So, I had to eat instant noodles.

I spent couple hours looking online and playing around until about 11AM. I went in search of my furniture that I ordered online. I got a 4 cube organizer and a desk. They were super heavy, since I was already there I got moisturizer, batteries, body wash, and night cream. I really needed to get toilet bowl cleaner, and bathroom cleaning supplies, which I totally forgot about. I hate going to Walmart since it is always super crowded and full of WT's. So, I wish there was a Target closer to me.

After Walmart, I went to Shoppers down the shopping plaza, I thought my roommates shopped there all the time. So I thought it would be a great place for me to get some food. It was not... there was little to no food that I wanted, it lacked variety. But I managed to get some essentials: almond milk, cheese, pasta sauce, cherry tomatoes, carrots, yogurt dip, cottage cheese, cereal, pizza rolls, and greek yogurt.

I came home put the groceries away, and start to build my 4 cube organizer shelf. It took me about 20 minutes to get the parts out of the box, only to see that there was no instructions. So I had to call Walmart Customer Service for them to email the a PDF of the instructions. I put it together... kind of... there was two screws that would just not fit in the holes, they were a little off so I decided not to put them in..

I waited for my housemates to come home. I had a little snack of carrots with yogurt dip and some pizza rolls, while enjoying season 4 of CSI: NY. Young didn't come home until about 5, when she came up to my room to see how I was doing. So I asked her if she wanted to hang out by going to Target. She was down, so we spent about an hour touring Target. The trip helped establish my infinite love for Target, and how it was definitely worth the trip.

I got my cleaning supplies, Cheez Its, Velveeta Shells & Cheese, and Telestrations for my housemates. Young (my female housemate) got a bird, some organizer baskets, and a candle. We came home to enjoy some dinner. She had a nice dinner, while I was too lazy to cook so I had Velveeta Shells & Cheese with pizza rolls.

After dinner, we loaded up the Netflix to watch Marvel's The Avengers, which Young has never seen. Before we started the movie, Hyman came home to show off his "ugly" sweater which was pretty nice and eat dinner as we watched the movie. Young was really into the movie which was hilarious. The movie is pretty amazing anyways, and hilarious. Here are it's funniest moments via Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXdYlKu3qZ0 

It was our first house bonding activity with me now that I moved in and it seemed to go well. I think they might not be ready how much time I suck up, and how needy I am.

But I ended the night with some Adventure time, bed time routine and facetime with my mom. I hit the hay around 11-11:30PM, and it didn't feel like it was enough.

Day 2 was wayyy better than my first day, way less embarrassing. What will day 3 have for me?