Oh man, I totally outsmarted myself! See, once I’m at the gym (or out on a walk or whatever), I don’t really mind the whole working out bit. But the thought of getting ready and packing my clothes to shower at the gym… it wears me out. I don’t usually go to the gym at the weekend (it’s busier then, of course), but I got everything ready last night, just in case. And since it was all set to go, I thought I might as well have a gym day this morning, and it wound up being awesome.
I somehow forgot to bring my purse with me, though (my gym card is in my duffel), and I had planned on stopping at the co-op for nutritional yeast before I headed home. I needed three tablespoons to make the seitan for my stew, and I only had two left. The gym is about 4/5ths of the way to the co-op, so I really didn’t fancy driving allll the way back home to grab my money before driving alllll the way back.
So I scrounged around the car and found a dime (in the pocket of a coat in the trunk), a penny (at the bottom of a shopping bag), a five pence piece (underneath the cds in the center console) and — at the last minute — a quarter (buried under all the gum wrappers in the door pocket thing). Thirty-six usable cents, which, it turns out, is enough to buy a tablespoon of nutritional yeast. Win! When I was growing up, my dad and I used to practice our ‘urban survival skills’ (usually while my mom worked late, although we pretended she was in prison, more often than not), and I think this was a prime example of such skills put to use.
So I was able to make my seitan ‘beef’ stew when I got home, which turned out very nicely. I’ll make sure to take a picture soon and link to the recipes I cobbled together. Once the stew was finished, I had to go back out to the regular supermarket for cat food (which cost more than the 5p I had left after the co-op), and I took the opportunity to purchase a donut for my afternoon snack. I mean — I had an awesome workout, I saved the day with thirty-six cents, AND I’d made stew, all in one morning. It was time for a donut. I prefer a regular cake donut with chocolate icing, but they only had chocolate cake with chocolate icing. It was a struggle, but I made do.
And THEN, after all that, I cleaned the house in anticipation of visitors tomorrow. It took almost three years of home-ownership, but I just realized that if I remove the removable covers from the sofa and chair cushions, I can get all the cat hair off by just tumbling them in the dryer. A revelation. I still use the rubber glove method (which I think Em told me about) to get the hair off the rest of the sofa, but this makes things so much speedier.
What a day. Running, scrounging, cooking, donut-eating, and cleaning. AND sunshine!
Yep, you really, really deserved that donut. Absolutely! It looks really yummy, by the way.. Maybe I should go for a run now. And clean the room a bit. Would that make me deserve such a yummy doughnut too?
Your coin-scrounging made me smile. When I was a student and particularly broke, my housemates and I wolud visit the ‘bank of the back of the sofa’.
It was discusting to stick your hand down there, but often quite fruitful. We had a lot of visitors and a sofa which encouraged slumping.
That really does sound like a good day – love those urban survival skills, you totally deserved that donut. I wish I had a co-op to buy nutritional yeast by the spoonful from!
yay for scrounging! and yay for co-ops where you can bring 36 cents in and leave with exactly what you need.
What was I in prison for??