I finally did what I’ve wanted to do almost every day of the week; I set a plan for myself and I followed through with it. When I got home from work, Joey and I took a very brisk walk around the neighborhood for a little over half an hour. Then, I cooked TWENTY pounds of potatoes. Yes, TWENTY. First, I made potato soup (yum!). Here’s my recipe:

• a crap ton of potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks (we used Yukon Golds)
• 3 cans of fat free chicken broth
• 3 celery stalks
• 2 onions
• garlic powder
• salt & pepper
• milk (your choice. I took powdered milk and made it with twice as much powdered milk as called for)
• A few instant potato flakes

Boil the potatoes in the broth until tender. At the same time, dice up the celery and onion and saute in a pan until soft. When potatoes are done, use a masher to break them up and make the more soupy. Add the onion/celery mixture and seasonings. Let cook for a little while and then add the milk and a handful of potato flakes to thicken it up. Serve with Cheddar Cheese!

The rest of the potatoes, we roasted in the oven with some olive oil, garlic powder, salt/pepper, and Italian herbs. They’ll be very good.

The soup ended up making ten servings, so Joey and I each had one for dinner and I put two in the fridge and froze the other six (in our saved egg-drop soup containers). We will have a few roasted potatoes tonight and then I’ll freeze them as well.

ALSO! In addition, I made a SUPER frugal yummy chicken salad today for my lunch at work tomorrow. Here’s how I did it!

• picked the meat off a thigh and drumstick leftover from lunch on Sunday
• in a tiny chopper (the little one with the button), chop 3 of the inner stalks of the celery and 1 dill pickle spear.
• Add chicken to chopper and top with some light mayo and deli mustard
• chop until satisfied with consistency.

I was totally amazed with how good the combo was and I’m totally psyched about my lunch tomorrow and about my FRUGALITY! I did the same with some tuna because I had more celery to use up before it rotted.

Today, I did really well to take care of myself. I ate right, exercised, was productive. That makes me feel like an adult, and I’m glad for that. I also got a LOT done on my knitting this weekend while spending endless hours watching the Olympics.

Oh, and the grad school app has left Charlotte. It will be at ECU tomorrow. I’m awash with relief and scared to death all at the same time.

It was a good day.