Let's close those tabs and get back up to date!

[conuly]

Well, the Mojave Desert cross issue has been settled. I'm still not happy with it, but you take what you can get.

From Cracked.com, 7 Commonly Corrected Grammar Errors (That Aren't Mistakes)

A quick article on why children lie, and it's all pretty obvious.

A piece on the food stamp challenge in Philly. Yes, you try feeding your kids on less than $2 per meal, no snacks, and then come talk to be about how "unfair" it is that these people still get free lunch in schools.

And an explanation of kangaroo genitals. WTF?

Comments

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

I has a couple of years where I had no more than $20 a week (And sometimes as low as $10 a week) to feed myself. Those were not fun times.

Still, if I budget, I can feed myself on $35/week, easily. But I had to be trained to do that by poverty.

[dandelion.livejournal.com]

$35 a week really doesn't sound that onerous; am I missing something?

[conuly]

It's not impossible, but it certainly stretches further when lunch and/or breakfast are provided.

[dandelion.livejournal.com]

Well, of course it goes further, but I don't see why a person with $35 a week to spend on food needs any extra provided meals. I average less than $25 and eat very well, including meat basically every day and plenty of snacks. That sort of budget doesn't mean rice and beans for dinner, and I'd have even more variety (and bulk discounts, less food wasted like the ends of milk cartons, etc) if I wasn't cooking for me alone.

[marveen.livejournal.com]

Less than two dollars a meal? Piece of cake.

Budget for the two of us (both adults, one with a factory job): $50 a week when we're flush. When we have no income, that's down to $10 a week plus food bank.

If you're getting food stamps to the tune of two dollars a meal, that's....*calculates* almost two hundred dollars a month per CHILD.

There should be room for snacks in there. Hell, there should be room for three meals, two snacks and a bedtime treat. Add in food bank stuff to the hunnerd-and-eighty-some dollars a month, and you're golden.

Sample menu:

Breakfast:
Oatmeal (free from food bank) with a teaspoon of brown sugar (less than one cent) and a teaspoon of jam (canned last year, probably also less than a penny)
Milk (free from food bank/purchased with WIC/purchased with food stamps: 15 cents if purchased)

Snack:
Handful of raisins (purchased, about thirty cents)

Lunch:
Fried-egg sandwich (bread, .96 per loaf--two slices, 10 cents; egg, free from food bank; a penny's worth of salad dressing on the bread)
Carrot sticks (dug fresh from last year's garden)
Half a banana/apple (ten cents)
One half cupcake (homemade, ingredient cost 6 cents per serving)

Afternoon snack:
Crackers (14 cents) and cheese (18 cents per serving)

Supper:
Meatloaf (fifty cents per serving: hamburger bought with stamps, free egg, free bread, bought onion/spices, free bell pepper, ketchup canned last year)
Boiled potato (free from food bank, served with butter, 14 cents per serving)
Side salad (lettuce seeds, 98 cents: per serving, about 1 cent)
Green beans (canned last year)
Other half of cupcake (see lunch)

There WILL be leftovers: meatloaf becomes lunches (meatloaf sandwich), any extra potato is hash browns for breakfast, the green beans can even be frozen to await reincarnation in a minestrone.

I'm a housewife. This is what I do.

Now, there will be regional variations in how much gardening one can do and what exactly food banks hand out. But it is possible.

[conuly]

1. Stop being a show-off.

2. Is getting from food banks really in the spirit of things? Well, I mean, I guess it is, but....

[marveen.livejournal.com]

1. *snickering*

2. I figure if you're down and out badly enough to get food stamps (remember, they wouldn't give them to US), you're going to patronize the food banks. The free stuff in the menu is based on what we got last time we went. I also included a sack lunch because I remember the horribly nasty school lunches when I was a kid--I'd rather have had a cold sandwich than their version of "pizza" any day.

[conuly]

Fuck yeah on school lunches. Just the thought of them makes me nauseous. I once forgot my lunch three days in the row and the school called my parents, deeply concerned, to tell them to tell me it was okay to take school lunch if I had none and that it's never too late to get on free or reduced lunch if necessary. I never bothered to explain to the staff that I knew all that, I just thought the sheer smell was disgusting. Jamaican patties were a weekly thing, just piles of grease.

[conuly]

I'll also note, seriously, that the meal plan doesn't hit my criteria for nutrition. (More veggies, less grains or, as I tend to think of them, starchy empty calories.) If I make meatloaf, for example, it uses tomato, celery, onion, garlic, parsley, some spinach, thyme, bell pepper, and the ever versatile grated carrot. (Carrots - cheap and filling! I never make so much as a pot of rice without grating a carrot into it.) Oatmeal ALWAYS has some form of fruit in it, be it canned pumpkin, apple, bananas, or leftover cranberries. Crackers just aren't in the house at all because the idea of having the kids fill up on white flour is just... it wouldn't occur to me. Ana, especially, eats little enough that I feel every calorie ought to count.

It's not a horrifically awful menu, and I certainly wouldn't turn my nose up at it in my moment of need, but it's not how I'd prefer to cook my meals if I have an option, and the way I shop brings our budget up considerably - and it'd do more so if I consistently bought the good eggs and meat from the farmer's market or if I couldn't get good sales on things like apples and carrots and the ever-present sweet potato. (Sadly, I'm the only one in the house who really *likes* sweet potato, but I keep trying. I tell them it's delicious, nutritious, and cheap but so far they aren't convinced.)

[marveen.livejournal.com]

No, the crackers are wholegrain. As is the bread.

I love love love sweet potatoes, but only the dryish yellowfleshed kind (usually more expensive around here). I'll eat them baked, plain, with a dusting of black pepper and salt. (Panseared cubes with crusty edges are the bomb.)

The meatloaf I made Monday (and which Grey just took the last of in his lunch today) included onion, dried celery, bell pepper, mashed sweet potato, oatmeal, basil/oregano/garlic/chile/lovage, ketchup, and whole-wheat bread. I just throw in whatever's around and season it till it smells good.

I should point out that if you save your pennies by having days like the above, you can use the saved monies to have days like those you prefer (more expensive if you have to buy all those vegetables). This might be a good time to mention the ketchup above is my homemade stuff, less sugar than the commercial kind and probably less salt, too.

I'll also note that the only beverage I specified is milk, and the only one I very nearly ban is soda pop. (You want to talk about empty calories...!) We do buy it, but a two-liter two or three times a year. It's a treat, not a daily drink.

[conuly]

If I buy soda for myself and the nieces it's often a *can* of soda. 8 oz goes a longer way than they want you to believe!

But I don't like soda all that much! One good thing about the bottled water craze is that I *can* get water all the time and nobody looks at me funny.

Serving size

[marveen.livejournal.com]

You're right--remember the introduction of Coke, with the six-ounce bottles?

I have a little cut-crystal glass I found at a thrift store that I drink pop out of. It holds about five ounces.

For everyday, I drink coffee and tea. Occasionally some milk. But every few weeks, I just get a yen for something fizzy. (More often in hot weather.)

[rainbow-goddess.livejournal.com]

While I won't make a fuss about "hopefully" or "less" vs. "fewer," the misuse of "literally" is STILL wrong even if you understand that the person using it wrongly actually meant "figuratively."

Damn, my grammar police icon get taken away when my userpics expired.

[conuly]

Literally has been used as a general intensifier for a few hundred years now. It's time to give it up, don't you think?

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

So, if I really do mean "literally", what word would you suggest using, once the meaning of "literally" has been diluted to the point of being useless?

[conuly]

It's not useless, it's a perfectly useful intensifier. God only knows why we need so many of them, but that's beside the point.

I suggest you circumlocute if you really, truly need to indicate how non-figurative you're being.

But honestly, how often does that happen?

[conuly]

Besides, I ask you - what's wrong with using "really" in that sense?

[conuly]

Besides, as I've said before myself, it's not any different from "I really exploded that time!" or "You're truly a monster, you know?"

Why does "literally" get treated with scorn when "really" doesn't?