Tuesday Day Two

HUNGER CHALLENGE DAY TWO: Breakfast was cereal x 2 again for the kids (.65), followed by the more healthy bananas (53 cents for two). While calculating the cost per banana, we talked about how there was more than one way to peel a banana, so to speak. On the first math go round, we took the 68 cents per pound, weighed the bananas, found out they were 12.5 oz. combined, and then we found out that 12.5 ounces was 78 percent of one pound, so we took that proportion (.78) and multiplied it by 68 cents to get our total price, 53 cents. So bananas + cereal  = $1.18.

An easier way might have been to take the 68 cents and divide it by 16 (ounces), to get a per-ounce price, and then weigh the bananas and multiply their ounce weight by the per-ounce price.

Christian had a breakfast of yogurt (.99) and 3 ounces of grapes (.36 ). My breakfast of two eggs (16 cents) and 2 ounces of peppers (.24 ) came to .40 for me, plus our coffee pot ( .58) gave us a combined total of  $3.91 for breakfast for the family of four.

Lunch was 3 eggs for Christian (.24), 3 oz. peppers (.36), 1/3 of a green pepper  (.16); the kids each had a Lara bar ($1 apiece x 2), I had a can of tuna .347). TOTAL: $3.23

In the interest of testing the limits of our budget, I thought maybe we should try to do some baking today - you know, make something dessert-y or indulgent - certainly not a daily bread type item. Something that we would maybe make if we had a birthday or other occasion to contend with this week. I recalled a recipe for organic strawberry cupcakes that looked amazing. Given our budget this week, the full on version, complete with unrefined white sugar and blonde coconut sugar (what is that?) was out of the question. I was just glad Fred Meyer had strawberries and butter at great sale prices today. Even so, while standing at the cashier's station, checking out, Annabelle asked, loudly, "Can we afford this?"

I won't hesitate to admit it, I cringed and felt embarrassed. And then I was embarrassed that I was embarrassed. I just smiled and said, "I sure hope so."

When we got home, Annabelle chopped up some berries (under the watchful eye of pony Pinkie Pie) ...

while CJ enjoyed pureeing some. Strawberry swirl!

Decorating the cupcakes was lots of fun, as we had a kit to turn them into Easter bunnies (thanks Nonnie!)

The strawberry cupcakes cost us $2 worth of strawberries, 90 cents for butter, 88 cents for powdered sugar, 55 cents for flour, 33 cents for sugar, 5 cents for milk, and I'm over estimating the tiny amounts of baking soda, salt, and lemon juice at 15 cents combined. Total for the luscious indulgence, including homemade strawberry frosting: $4.86. I think maybe we could have done it for less if we bought a crappy cake mix and that awful canned frosting. But I digress.

Before telling them the total, I asked the kids to guess the cupcakes' total price tag. Annabelle said $10, CJ said $12.

Now, time to talk dinner numbers. Burgers ($1 for two patties & .25 for two buns) for the kids, hamburger patty $(1.25) on salad (.88) for the adults, plus oven fries (1.5 lbs of potatoes @ 25 cents) for a total of $3.63. That's considerably cheaper than when we go out. ;)

And now (drumroll please), it's time for Day Two's total ... $15.63, and that's including 18 cupcakes, which we certainly didn't consume today (BTW, they were AMAZING - best cupcake I've ever had even without their fancy sugars). Bottom line: We're $6.37 under our $22 budget for today, cupcakes and all. Phew.

Today's reflection: I am aware that a major part of the reason we have been able to stay on budget is we have the means/mobility to get to stores where we can purchase food at a (relatively) reasonable cost. I chase sales, big time, and am fortunate I can do so. A lot of people don't have affordable, reliable transportation to get around to multiple stores, shopping for multiple bargains.

Another reason we do OK overall food-budget wise is we can afford to stock up/stockpile certain items when they go on sale, and that saves us a bunch in the long run. If you're scrimping just to get buy from day to day, you don't have this opportunity.

ON A ROLL:  The SpaceX Dragon capsule departed the International Space Station today (audio coverage here), while most of America slept. When we got up this a.m., we tracked the capsule's descent and splashdown via Spaceflightnow.

At about 8:55 a.m. our time, the Dragon's Draco thrusters were in the midst of their de-orbit burn (about a 10 minute process). Dragon brought, 2,700 pounds of cargo, including biological samples, station hardware and trash, from the ISS back to Earth in its pressurized cabin. It's the only robotic cargo freighter in the world able to return equipment from the ISS to Earth for analysis or repairs.

   copyright - SpaceX
Fun factoid: the cargo returned today included some LEGO sets that were delivered to the ISS two years ago via Endeavour - you know, back when we had a shuttle program. :/ Astronauts used the bricks in educational videos showing how machines work in weightlessness. Here's a fun time-lapse video showing Japanese astronaut Satosha Furukawa building an ISS on the ISS. You can see it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YYLMCepxNkU

While Dragon has departed, the ISS will soon have another visitor. A Soyuz rocket rolled out to its launch pad today. It will lift off on Mar. 29 from the Consmodrome in Kazakhstan, with cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov, and Alexander Misurkin and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy.  The trio is scheduled to be on station for 5.5 months.

                                           Very cool photo by: NASA/Carla Cioffi
The crew will launch and dock with the ISS the same day - a history-making event. Typically the trip takes two days. However, this mission will employ the same approach recently pioneered by three unpiloted Russian Progress cargo ships which made same-day trips to the ISS. Their flight path will have them orbiting the Earth just four times before reaction the station.

Live coverage of their launch starts on NASA TV at 2:30 p.m. (presumably Eastern time) on Thursday.

TEETERING:  We started week four of our six-week physics class today. Professor Bloomfield  was introducing us to seesaws or teeter totters for this series of lectures. That meant we were learning about rotational motion and rotational inertia (as compared to translational inertia). There was talk of Newtons First Law of Rotational Motion, and more. ....

Here's a peek at Annabelle's notes from today's talk.

One of the topics the prof talked about was angular position and how to describe it using an amount and a direction. He taught us the right hand rule, which helps when a vector must be assigned to the rotation of a body.  In today's lecture he showed how it was used to describe your motion and position, using the direction your right thumb is pointing (up or down), when following your right fingers while turning.

If you don't get it, it's my fault I did a horrible job of describing it, but the kids seemed to understand as they went through the motions.

NASA OR MOMA?: Here's a fun, quick visual distraction for you. An article in The Atlantic has images that are either shots Commander Chris Hadfield took from the ISS, or they're part of a creation by an Earth-bound painter. The Atlantic tried to be cutesy and called their article "NASA or MOMA," but the problem with that is that Hadfield is not a NASA astronaut. He's a Canadian Space Agency guy. Oops.

That blunder aside, the quiz is fun. See if you can tell which is which:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/03/nasa-or-moma-play-the-game/274212/

I got a 19 out of 20, which tells me I probably spend way too much time staring at photographs taken from the ISS. ;)