Aprovechar

I’m bringing you enough to read that you could procrastinate nearly all day! Aren’t I fabulous for helping you out like that?  Here are my tidbits to share with you:

Many of us are struggling a bit (or a lot) with the regular rises in grocery and gas prices. (My organic ghee has gone up 2 dollars a container this year!)  Laurel at Happy at Home has a great blog post about what she’s doing to eat healthfully while cutting food costs this summer.  AzSustainability has another great blog post on the same topic, including a startling Brazilian poster that drives home a type of money-wasting most of us are guilty of committing.  Epicurious also has a collection of ideas for budget-conscious eating.

For those of you who have started to feel like the weight of debt or bills are stacking on your chest or shoulders and making it difficult for you to feel at peace, my husband and I followed the first steps of the Dave Ramsey plan to get us out of debt, build an emergency fund, and start saving for long-term goals.  Some people swear by the plan and some say it is too simplified, but we needed concrete, clear steps that would march us toward an endgoal.  The first year we followed the program, we paid off $17k in debt (on salaries that were about average for an American family).  Now we have only student loan debt left, which we do pay toward monthly but which we’ll begin paying off vigorously when my husband finishes his Ph.D. (10 more months!)  And in the meantime, we tend to save 1/4 to 1/3 of our income each month without feeling pinched by it and while spending a good bit of money on food.

Trisha at Ideas for Women interviewed me as part of her series on fitness bloggers.  It was interesting trying to speak relatively succinctly about what I believe and why I write this blog.  You can read my interview here and read through a list of her other interviews on the same topic here.

Julie, one of my blog readers, works for On the Home Stretch, an online radio show (with archives!) about self-care for women that may interest some of you. It has a particular focus on middle-aged women, but I don’t qualify for that group and have still enjoyed listening to a couple of the downloads.  I love the nurturing nature of the show.  On the Home Stretch also has a blog.

Two Atlanta businesses that have impressed me lately with their commitment to allergen-free/gluten-free living are Return to Eden, a grocery store on Cheshire Bridge Rd., and Improv’eat, a meal-ordering service that has unbelievably tasty gluten-free wraps made from coconut. (You’d never know!) Return to Eden was closed for a while recently during a switch in ownership, but it’s come back with the best, most thorough, biggest collection of gluten-free mixes, flours, and other products that I’ve seen in any store in Atlanta (or nearly anywhere, for that matter).  Many of the products that I could previously only find online are on Return to Eden’s shelves, and they have an employee who specializes in the products who offers tours to people who are new to the store.  Moreover, the store is responsive to requests for additional products, which I find is pretty rare in grocery stores. (You generally get good lip service with nothing happening, but not at Return to Eden!)  Improv’eat is a business that creates mostly hand-held meals that focus on locally grown, organic produce (and meats for some).  When Dan and I attended their opening event, we expressed concern to the owner that there was nothing gluten-free that was also dairy-free.  He listened to us (and, I’m sure, others), and Improv’eat now has gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, soy-free concoctions that I can eat.  Tasty ones, too!  The products are not cheap, but I would totally splurge on some for a special occasion or to take as a travel meal.  (And if I were a busy mom with a higher income, I would probably buy their products pretty regularly.) It’s so wonderful to have businesses like these be responsive to the needs of the gluten-free/allergenic community.

My friend Nikki made me a get-well present and brought it over last week, and I have to say it’s one of the coolest gifts I have ever received.  Knowing that I love Marimekko patterns and products (and that I regretted not buying something Marimekko when I visited Finland), she used a Marimekko fabric to make one side of a really cute, very girly two-sided apron for me. I adore it!  Here’s me in it, with the Marimekko side out.  The Marimekko side is treated so that I can just wipe stains off of it.  The other side, which is also adorable, is featured in the next photo.  I don’t know if you can fully tell the attention to detail in this apron from the photos, but it’s truly awesome.  Every girl who comes over to our apartment admires it.

My husband has been working on developing his skills for brewing gluten-free beer. (See our first gluten-free homebrew in the photo below. We’re gradually working toward darker beers.)  Drinking good, microbrewed beer together was a feature of our life pre-celiac and pre-food allergies, so it’s exciting to have him working on this project.  We’ve been in conversation with another gluten-free, beer-loving blogger, Ginger at Fresh Ginger (I love her blog name), who’s now working on a gluten-free beer made with caramelized honey and roasted oats.  I can’t wait to see how her latest foray into gluten-free beer-brewing comes out.  For those of you who don’t have the inclination to brew at home but want a decent beer, although I may be in the minority, my favorite kind of bottled gluten-free beer is Toleration. (My gluten-consuming husband likes it a lot, too. I had to buy a case of it to get Whole Foods to get it for me, which cost me a lot of my blow money (see Dave Ramsey note on this post), but it was well worth it to me.) One of my daydreams is about having an entirely gluten-free, top-8-allergen-free bar/pub with lots of good, gluten-free brews! (Along with my dairy-free/top-8-free/gluten-free ice cream shop, dairy-free/gluten-free/top-8-free coffee shop, etc.

Last but not least (certainly not least for me, and maybe not least for you if you really lurve my blog), I took the plunge two days ago and bought a new MacBook.  I’ve had many problems with my previous laptop (which my husband had used for several years before he got a MacBook that his lab bought him), and the internet going out on it intermittently was the last straw. (I have a blog to write, computer! And meals to plan!) My husband and I decided that I would need a great laptop when grad school starts in a year (one year now! Yay!), so we decided it was worth it to go ahead and buy one.  Because we bought it with my husband’s student ID, we got an iPod Touch with it, and we’re currently selling the brand-new iPod Touch on E-Bay.  So if you know someone who might want it, please pass along the link so he/she can bid on it (or, hey, even use the “buy it now” option).  I’m comfortable with the money we spent on the computer, because we had plenty of savings to buy it with cash, but I’d love to recoup a bit of the cost with the sale of that iTouch.

Okay, whew. . . . I think that’s enough for now.