Food for Thought

Over the summer, I was supposed to learn how to cook. Well, things never go according to plan in my house, so I only learned three or four meals.
Coming to the apartment, I had no clue how to operate a kitchen efficiently and on a budget, much less for four people. Thankfully, we decided it was best to go our separate ways and make our own meals on most nights. So here I was fending for myself with two shelves in two cupboards dedicated to my stash of goods. It's been about two weeks and I still haven't had a real home cooked meal, but I'm alive, and here's how I have survived:
1. McDonald's has 89 cent burgers.
2. 25 block meals and over $300 in declining balance points on campus
3. I'm learning to feed on leftovers. Before, I wouldn't eat two-day old tomato soup... not even 40-minute old tomato soup. Yesterday for dinner I swallowed up two-day old ravioli! For me, that's saying something. And you know what... Ma was right these past several years. It does taste the same as the first time I cooked it. Huh!
4. Getting creative. Tonight for dinner I had macaroni and cheese and grapes with two waffles for dessert. Last night: two-day old ravioli, a large carrot stick, and cinnamon applesauce. As long as I feel full, I don't really need to have some kind of large meal. That would be nice, of course, but for now while I trying to learn how to budget and cook... I'll take it!
5. Canned food does not usually cost over a dollar per item... especially at Wal-Mart.
6. Don't mindlessly snack.

I want it to be known, I'm not sitting over here starving. In fact, I haven't gone hungry or felt pressured for finding something to eat the entire time I have been here. Honestly, I feel less stressed because I am in complete control of what I buy, when I eat it, how I cook it, and in which quantities I choose to eat it. I don't have to rely on someone to fix me something to eat and I don't have to sit down to a meal I'm not hungry to eat. Thus, less food is wasted and less food is consumed. Yes, the nutritional value has dropped a bit in my diet, but I think that will level out as I learn to manage my money better... also when I haven't just moved into an apartment and can stop spending money on household items like a toilet plunger, plastic sandwich bags, etc.

I never thought I'd feel such affection and devotion to another "home" as I would toward my home near Charlotte. But even though I co-own this place with people who are not my family, I am in such love with this place! It's in a strange city that I don't always have love for, but this place... I have turned it into my home. I can look around and see touches that are my own like the dining room chairs, the green key holder which Chris and I hung crookedly beside the water heater closet, the mosaic tile with the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote on the kitchen wall, my room with its collage of pictures, posters, and personal belongings. Everything in that room is mine from my room at home, nothing I ever have to give back, return, or take care of as it is someone else's property. I just met her but I love Kayla like the older sister I never had. CC has such an infectious laugh and Cody is one of my boys. The walk to campus will be beautiful in the fall and is refreshing, wearing me out and taking away my excess energy as I head to class. The housework gives me something to do, a chore in preserving my new home. If only I had a yard...! And I miss my cats dearly, but one day... this is just a step to owning that house with the yard and however many pets I want. This is a step to having a "real job," becoming financially independent, and starting my adult life. It's what I've been wanting for a long time, and I couldn't be happier.

 Life isn't perfect, of course. The Viking is only a few minutes down the road; we go to the school together, and we will see each other again. At least, I have the comfort of knowing I can return to my apartment and let him and everything that happened between us disappear as it never happened instead of the cramped dorm room with little privacy and cell-like appearance.  If I had returned to a dorm, I probably would have let the depression consume me until I became unrecognizable, kind of like what happened last year in May but much worse. Here, I don't feel like I'm dying inside, a caged bird trying to get free. Even if I was sitting here starving because my cooking skills were that nonexistent or money was tight, it'd still be better than living in a dorm.