a peek inside the fishbowl

Heeyyyy! I received a donation! Thank you Anonymous, may you always have salt at your table and never know hunger. :)

We had a quiet evening last night, which included a long walk with the dog and trip to Home Depot to pick up a couple of things. There came a point around 8:00 that I started to feel exhausted and slightly nauseous, but I persevered. For the record, I did not go to bed feeling hungry. I don’t know why, but there it is. I went to bed a bit early, and read. I felt ok.

Breakfast today was exactly like yesterday’s:

I am pretty happy with my breakfast plan. It doesn’t seem like very much but it’s hot, sweet, and does the trick. I do miss making my oatmeal with milk though.

I had a half of a banana and some tea as well. I am trying to figure out how many cups I can get out of one teabag. The thing with hot tea is that it’s a zero calorie, low-cost, filler. It takes the edge off. It’s warm and comforting, a bit of caffeine to stave off the headache, and it keeps me distracted and feeling content even though I’m really not. I need to drink it hot though. If it cools it’s not nearly so satisfying. It’s funny how the body can be tricked this way.

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This was today’s lunch, which I started thinking about around 10:00 a.m.:

Mishmash soup! I boiled two cups of water and dropped 2/3 of a bouillon cube in there, along with 1/3 cup of pasta. It was looking a little sad (I am detecting a theme here) so I dropped in a couple tablespoons of my diced tomatoes, a tablespoon of canned peas, and some of the parsley I have growing on my window. When it returned to boiling I cracked an egg in there. I ate it slowly, with a fancy spoon.

Pictured above wasn’t even the whole portion. I saved a bit for an afternoon snack.

As you saw in my first post, I don’t have much in the way of variety.

As a solo Live Below participant I am at a real disadvantage because of my low buying power. The budget is $8.75 per person, for the week. According to the rules I am not supposed to shave off a tablespoon of oil that I already have in my pantry, even though I may have been able to make it fit my budget.

If Mark had done this with me, or the kids, we would have had a better budget to work within. And a better budget means that I would have had a greater variety of foods, and maybe even a fresh vegetable.

I might break down later, but that remains to be seen.

My new strategy to stave off hunger is to drink lots of water before and after each meal and brush my teeth five times a day with super minty toothpaste. Hey, whatever works right?

Here’s my dinner:

1/3 cup white rice (measured uncooked), with a 1/3 of a vegetable bouillon cube, 1/4 cup peas and a slice of onion that was “cooked” a little on a dry frying pan, and a bit of parsley.

It was pretty tasteless, and I’m upset I didn’t plan my menu a bit better. This lack of food isn’t just hunger-inducing, there’s much more to it than that. There is so much comfort and joy to be found in eating, to have all that taken away is very very depressing.

I honestly don’t know how people do it. I really don’t.

This post was written for the Live Below the Line challenge, in which I am trying to feed myself on $1.75 per day, for five days. You can support me by making a small donation right here. Even donating the amount you’d spend on your coffee today would make a big difference. Thank you!

I spent most of the day at a big We Day event (more on that later) but I wanted to spend a few minutes letting you know what my day was like foodwise.

This was my breakfast this morning: 1/3 cup of oatmeal made with water, two teaspoons brown sugar, one tablespoon of raisins… and one cup of black tea, which I normally take with honey and lemon.

And for lunch I had this, AT the event:

An egg, albeit an organic egg that was locally sourced. It was all I could bring on short notice. Tomorrow’s lunch will be better.

Around 3:00 I had a cup of tea (I am using each teabag twice) and half a banana. I had a pretty shaky afternoon. I had a massive headache but I attribute that to a serious lack of caffiene.

I was pretty hungry by dinnertime. I planned a pasta and tomato dish (1/3 cup fusili with 1/2 cup diced herbed tomatoes) but at the last minute I chopped up 1/3 cup of my onion and tossed it in there too. The whole thing looked pretty sad so I tossed an egg in there too. It resulted in something that ended up looking like a dog’s breakfast, but heck, beggars can’t be choosers, right?

The specks of green in there are bits of parsley from my windowsill “garden,” which is free for me to use.

A dire lack of seasoning forced me to crumble a corner of my boullion cube over the whole mess.  And when I was done I licked the plate.

This post was written for the Live Below the Line challenge, in which I am trying to feed myself on $1.75 per day, for five days. You can support me by making a small donation right here. Even donating the amount you’d spend on your coffee today would make a big difference. Thank you!

So here is the food I’ve prepared for the Live Below the Line challenge. This is all I will be eating from Monday April 29 to Friday May 3rd:

12 eggs ($1.00 and locally farmed – my saving grace. Thank you @NancyfromCanada!)
1 tin of herbed diced tomatoes ($0.99)
1 small tin of peas ($0.77)
.240kg fusilli ($0.84)
3 bananas ($0.65) (AND SOMEONE ALREADY ATE ONE)
.120 kg of brown sugar ($0.21)
.215 kg of quick rolled oats ($0.52)
.390kg of white short rice ($1.13)
.070 kg of raisins ($0.35)
1 potato ($0.50)
1 onion ($0.82)
2 vegetable bouillon cubes ($0.60)
5 black tea bags ($0.37)

For a grand total of $8.75.

I’m planning on having the same breakfast every morning because it’s just easier that way. It will consist of:

• 1/3 cup oatmeal (made with water) and 1/2 tablespoon of brown sugar and 1 tablespoon of raisins
• black tea
• 1/2 banana

I included sugar and raisins as a sweet treat to start my day because I know I’ll need it. And I hope the oatmeal sticks to my ribs a bit too.

Lunches and dinners will consist of various combinations of the aforementioned. Do note the sad lack of milk, juice, vegetables, and coffee in the list above. It’s also worth noting that I have no seasonings other than the bouillon cubes.

I have a rough menu plan, but I won’t lie. I am worried that I won’t be able to do it. I’ll do my best to upload an update every day.

This is the second post in my Live Below the Line challenge, in which I am trying to feed myself on $1.75 per day, for five days. You can also support me by making a small donation right here. Even donating the amount you’d spend on your coffee today would make a big difference. Thank you!