Books and movies

In anticipation of the book club meeting that was held yesterday I called the library to request a printout listing all the books I checked out last year. I had looked all over my account information online and couldn't find the section where they keep track of my books. Because I couldn't remember all the books I read last year. To be truthful, I can't really remember all the books I've read this month.

It turns out the library doesn't keep track. As soon as you return them the information is erased from your account. Unless you returned them late, then they block you from checking it out again until you pay your fine. You can view all your "blocks" on your account, but none that you returned on time. So you see how being a responsible citizen and returning your books on time and/or paying your fine in a timely manner does you absolutely no good whatsoever.

So I'll try to keep track of them here. A list of books I've read and whether or not I enjoyed them, in no particular order. My only real New Year's Resolution is not to continue reading a book if I'm not enjoying it, so I may not list the ones I don't like, just the ones I finish in 2014. Also movies.

Books that I've managed to remember reading in 2013 and up to this point in January 2014:
The Bartender's Tale, by Ivan Doig. Liked it.
The Whistling Season, by Ivan Doig. Loved it.
Looking for Alaska, by John Green. I find myself thinking about this story quite often, which is not exactly the same as loving it, but still important.
The Winter Sea, by Susanna Kearsley. Loved it. It had a satisfying surprise ending that may not be a surprise for the kind of reader who likes to figure out how the book will end while they're reading. I've never been that kind of reader.
The Story of Beautiful Girl, by Rachel Simon. Loved it.
Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery. Loved it, as I always do.
Welcome to Last Chance, by Cathleen Armstrong. Didn't love it. Two minor characters that I found memorable but didn't appreciate the book as a whole. Predictable romance with no deeper meaning or symbolism.
The Letters, by Suzanne Woods Fisher. Didn't love it. Same kind of book as Welcome to Last Chance although I liked this one better. Not exactly my cup of tea though.
The Light Between Oceans, by W.L. Stedman. Expected to love it but didn't.
Understood Betsy, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. A children's book, I absolutely loved it.
While We're Far Apart, by Lynn Austin. Liked it.
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. Loved, as I always do.
Divergent, by Veronica Roth. Liked it.
Insurgent, by Veronica Roth. Liked it okay but not as much as the first in the series.
I Was Told There'd Be Cake, by Sloane Crosley. A book of essays, some of which I enjoyed very much.
I Feel Bad About My Neck, And Other Thoughts On Being A Woman, by Nora Ephron. Another book of essays. Enjoyed it very much.
And the Pursuit of Happiness, by Maira Kalman. Kind of a strange and unexpected format in that it's a picture book for adults, and I found myself sort of outraged when she puts Barack Obama and Martin Luther King in the same league. Interesting tidbits about Abraham Lincoln and democracy and the United States of America though and I liked many parts of it.
Horoscopes for the Dead, by Billy Collins. A book of poetry. I loved it.
Edenbrooke, by Julianne Donaldson. Didn't like it. So predictable. The good guy is always good in every way and always on hand to save the day, and nothing at all redeemable in the bad guy. No growth or maturation or newly found wisdom in the heroine. Move along, there's nothing to see here...
7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess, by Jen Hatmaker. Loved it. Made me inspect my lifestyle and character and ethics in a new way.
Star Girl, by Jerry Spinelli. Interesting, intriguing, liked it okay but didn't love it.

It turns out I did read a respectable number of books last year! There are a number of books I started but didn't finish because they didn't hold my attention. I also know there were other books I read but I've forgotten the titles and authors of them.

Movies I've seen lately:
The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey (Saw it in the theater when it came out in 2012, saw it again on TV in December before we went to see the sequel. Liked it much better the second time and it helped me know what was going on in Smaug.)
The Hobbit, The Desolation of Smaug, liked it.
Saving Mr. Banks, loved it.
The Host, on dvd. It was interesting.
The Magic of Belle Isle. On dvd. Loved it.
World War Z. Scary but good.
Monsters U. Okay.
Despicable Me 2. Pretty cute.
Catching Fire. Okay.
Frozen. Awesome.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Loved it. I read the short story before we went the the movie (it's a super short story which I wasn't expecting). The movie has nothing at all to do with the book except that in both cases Walter Mitty daydreams a bit to escape his tedious life.

I will try to list the books as I read them this year, and maybe do a grand finale book review sometime in December. The year 2014 is going to be The Year of Books for me!

Monday's menu plan

It's January 13, nearly half way through the no/low spending month. Last week didn't go exactly as I expected but we ate most meals at home.  I baked bread for us, made homemade rolls for a wedding reception, baked muffins instead of buying donuts for a class treat for Jake, and stayed out of the store and fast food restaurants. I fought and conquered a nearly irresistible urge for a diet Dr. Pepper. It's been 6 or 7 weeks since I've had any diet soda, but I still feel kind of sad when I think about how I'll never have it again. For dinner this week we'll have:

• leftover beef stew with cornbread muffins
• the turkey tenderloin and mashed potatoes that we didn't have last week
• bean burritos and mexican-style rice
• baked citrus-herb chicken with steamed broccoli and roasted sweet potato
• turkey salad on crackers (made from some of the leftover turkey tenderloin, some chopped celery, craisins, onion, and a bit of mayo) with raw veggie dippers/ranch dressing and a sliced pear
• smoked sausage with macaroni and cheese and a green salad

My shopping list for this week should come in under $25 and includes:

• milk x 2
• a dozen eggs
• 2 bottles of apple juice
• 10 flour tortillas
• 1 box of crackers

I continue to be amazed at the amount of food we already have in the house and how long it takes to eat it up. I got a Bountiful Basket last week and that, combined with the home-canned and frozen food that's still in the kitchen plus the long-term food storage items we have on hand, makes me feel like we're eating like kings over here!

This week's menu plan and recap of last week

This week dinner main dishes will be:

• beef stew
• spinach/bacon/feta quiche
• smoky black bean and lentil soup
• baked rotisserie-flavored turkey tenderloin with mashed potatoes
• ham and beans
• turkey/dried cranberry salad on crackers
• leftovers

Last week a friend of mine gave me some ham and a large ham bone with lots of meat still on it. I used some of the ham last week in the potato au gratin casserole instead of the smoked sausage so I still have the sausage for another time. I will make a big batch of stock out of the ham bone and use it in the smoky lentil soup and also in the ham and bean dinner. She also gave me two frozen pie crusts that she had leftover from Christmas and I will use those to make two quiches this week - one for us and one for her.

Last week I spent $20.48 at the store! This morning I bought:

• a gallon of milk
• 5 lbs. potatoes
• 1 head of celery
• 2 dozen eggs
• a small container of feta cheese

and spent a total of $8.34. I am going to see if I can get through this week with that being my "big" grocery shop for the week! I anticipate that I will have to buy milk twice more before next Monday but other than that I'm going to try to get through the week just on what we have in the house. I have had a few moments in the last week where I felt an impulse to run out and buy fast food and a few other things that I wanted but managed to wait for those urges to pass, and they did. I hope to end the month with my shopping and eating habits better under control. Not that I have a problem with overspending, it's just that I am somewhat of an impulse shopper when I'm already at the store for something else, and I'd almost always rather eat out than in, and it's always possible to do a better job of managing your resources.

Goal for the new year

I found a free Kindle-based daily devotional program for the Book of Mormon that I hope to accomplish in 2014.

On lds.org I found this quote about gospel learning:
"The Lord commands us to actively 'seek learning, even by study and also by faith' (D&C 88:118). We seek learning not only because it is a commandment - we seek it because the desire to ask, to seek, and to find answers to life's questions was planted in our hearts by our Heavenly Father. He wants us to continually seek eternal truths because this is central to how we come to know Him. Through sincere study of the restored gospel, we learn of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. We learn who we are, why we are on this earth, and how we should live in order to enjoy happiness and peace in this life and a fulness of joy in the next."

Monday's menu plan

I start my month of skimpy budget this week, even though it's not January yet.

• Chicken enchiladas with Mexican restaurant-style rice
• Bierock
• Homemade pepperoni/veggie pizza
• Bean burritos
• Potatoes au gratin with smoked sausage
• Hot dogs with potato salad and coleslaw

I have most of the ingredients for these meals in my pantry and fridge/freezer, but will need to purchase:
small package of corn tortillas
a couple of tomatillos
small head of green cabbage
one bell pepper
1 lb. ground beef
1 lb. breakfast style sausage (I might have a roll or two in the freezer - I need to check)

I will also need eggs and milk before the week is over. I plan to bake all the bread we'll need. My goal is to spend $25 or less total on groceries this week!

Goals for January 2014

For some reason Blogger will not let me add any images to this post, so I will share a quote from Pablo Picasso without his picture;

"I'd like to live as a poor man with lots of money".

I think I will get into why I feel that way at some later time.

I have made some financial goals for the month of January. These goals are a way for me to challenge myself and to be creative and imaginative rather than spendy. Hopefully at the end of the month I will also be well on my way in making progress toward some good habits. The goals are:

• Spend only $100 for the whole month on groceries by eating food we already have on hand, menu planning and shopping sales; 
• have 20 no-spend days in January by grocery shopping once per week, 2 bill-paying days, and combining errands and other shopping on the other 5 days; 
• spend no money at all on craft supplies by finishing projects I have already started or have the materials for; 
• check out books and movies from the public library for free entertainment instead of going to the bookstore or movie theater; 
• find one free thing to do each week to spend time with my BFF instead of doing our usual shopping-as-entertainment; 
• be diligent about tracking spending by writing down receipt totals and keeping receipts. 

Stay tuned to see what I'm going to do with all the money I save in January!

the wonder oven

I tried out my newly-made wonder oven today for the first time to cook a pot of dried pinto beans. I:

• picked through and washed the dried beans,
• soaked them overnight,
• drained and rinsed them,
• put them into my cooking pot with fresh water, a little salt and some pepper,
• brought them to a full, rolling boil and boiled them for 15 minutes with the lid on the pot,
• transferred the hot pot and hot lid to the wonder oven,
• immediately put the cover on top of the wonder oven,
• and waited about 5 hours.

When I took the cover off the oven and the lid off the pot I immediately put my candy thermometer in to see how hot it was after five hours. (You can see in the picture that there was lots of steam coming off the surface of the water/beans.) It registered 170 degrees Fahrenheit, which is safe according to a food safety chart. I tasted the beans and they are completely cooked with a grand total of about 20 minutes worth of cooking fuel, in this case my gas range.

First try is a success! I will divide this batch of beans into quart size freezer bags and freeze them for whenever I feel like having a bean burrito or some chili for lunch.