For example, this was my dinner tonight. It's stir fry noodles with green peppers and pork.
It cost me $1.25.
I also bought this today at an import store (for chili dogs on Friday).
It cost me $5.
The normal things like fruits, veggies, eggs, rice are either the same price as the States or cheaper. You can buy sodas and bottled water for about 0.25 on the street. Daniel and i can both eat local food for around $3-8, depending on how 'fancy' of a place we go.
But if i want to buy bagels, cheese, or things like chips that we eat in the states, we're going to pay a pretty penny. Obviously i would NEVER pay $5 for a can of Hormel chili in the states. But when my grapes are less than 0.50 or my dinner is about $1, i take a little splurge every now and then. I do try and make things from scratch when possible (so far whip cream and crescent rolls).
I tried to make my own ricotta cheese this week. It started out well....
You're supposed to scald the milk then add vinegar and it's supposed to immediately curdle and then you can make ricotta cheese. However, i tried it twice (and went thru a lot of milk!) and didn't come close at all. I'm going to try again though, because no matter how much money you have, you just can't buy ricotta cheese here.
I was planning on making lasagna on Sunday, and i didn't want to give up after the milk fiasco, so I used cream cheese instead. It's pretty crumbly here, and honestly other than not being as cheesey, it tasted okay.
Even though we've just been here over a month, we've got a pretty good schedule going. Monday and Wednesdays we have class in the morning from 9-12. So i get up about 6:45-7, put on a little make up (i usually don't shower on these days), have my quiet time, have breakfast, and try to check email before class.
After class is lunch, study for an hour or so, clean, run any errands, make dinner. i've been trying to study in the area around our apartment in effort to meet people and make friends. I would really like to meet some people in our community.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays we have class from 1-4 in the afternoon. I actually get up earlier on these mornings, about 6:15, so i can run a few miles, shower, and catch up on emails and extra study time.
Things like cooking, cleaning and shopping take a bit longer to do here than normal, so that takes up a lot of my time. Which brings me to my answered prayer this week......
I've been vacuuming and mopping 3-4 times a week in our apartment. And going crazy doing it. The floors drive me literally INSANE! Even after i clean, there are still marks from the vacuum or mop all over, and visible dust and dirt by the end of the day. It was hard not to feel like a failure as a woman or wife believing the lie that because i couldn't keep a perfectly clean house equalled failure.
I had talked to Daniel about it, but don't think he really understood that the floors were occupying every free thought and i felt utterly helpless. So we prayed about it. i literally asked Father for a miracle that the dirt wouldn't bother me. That was Monday night.
It's now Wednesday night and the floors haven't been bothering me at all! I keep looking at them and questioning my sanity that they're not bothering me. They still look dirty and have mop marks all over, but PTL it's not driving me up the wall or taking up any more wasted thoughts.
That's a little bit of what life is like here......i'll try and think of more things to share!
love
Laura
Just checking, did you use full-cream non-homogonised milk?? The first time I made my own ricotto I used homogonised milk and it didn't work. I use lemon juice instead of vinegar.
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