Today was my weekly work day doing reiki. I feel like it went a lot better this time. I was much more confident and I believe it translated. Although, just like last week, the last hour was tough, for me. I felt like I had to wring out my body just to squeeze out the last bits of energy. I came home with that odd drained feeling, but I decided that I wasn�t going to collapse into bed, again. I wanted to tough it out.

Besides, I�m not so sure that collapsing into bed is what my body needs. I need recovery time, but I don�t know if sleep is necessarily in order. I know that I�ll get used to this over time. I just need to work up to it. While at work, I committed to myself that for this week, I�m going to do formal meditation at least 20 minutes daily and do meridian exercises more regularly. I think that will help.

I�ve been doing fairly well with my nutrition, too, and I�ve been keeping it cheap. When I see how easily I can save money on food and household items, I am shamed to think about all the money I�ve wasted over the years. A big part of that was for the luxury of not having to think about it. Obviously, if you don�t think about it, you don�t cut a lot of costs.

I�ve decided to stop drinking hemp milk. It�s way too expensive. It�s one of the more expensive non-dairy milks, and the only real nutritional advantage is that it has omega-3�s. Big-hairy-deal. I can buy bulk flax seeds, grind them in the coffee grinder and voila; all the omega-3�s I want.

I�m not a big milk drinker, though, I never have been. I only really use the hemp milk to put in my morning tea, and so one box lasts ages. Lately, I�ve been eating cereal some mornings, now that I found one that�s not so sickeningly sweet that I may as well be eating candy soaked in milk, but also not completely unsweetened. I didn�t think there was such a thing as middle-ground sweetened cereal, but I found some.

My other use for non-dairy milk is in cooking. I usually have to use my hemp milk for that because I like unsweetened original, which is only the only flavor that can be used in a lot of recipes (you don�t want to make vegan mac & cheese with sweetened vanilla flavored non-dairy milk, trust me). Adam only likes sweetened vanilla flavored milk. He�s a huge cereal fan - all kinds - so there�s always plenty of sweetened vanilla milks in the kitchen, and only one kind that�s not.

Anyway, to try out some really advanced cost-saving measures, I decided to try my hand at making my own rice milk. Since there�s a lot of waiting involved with this recipe, I also threw together some chocolate chip cookies. These activities were how I kept myself from falling face forward onto any flat surface this afternoon.

The cookies came out the same as usual. The rice milk endeavor� well, I�ll just say that nothing works out exactly right on the first try. I told this to Adam as he watched me spill rice milk all over the kitchen counter while attempting to strain it through cheese cloth. He said, �You? I�ve never seen you mess anything up like this before, not even on your first try.�

In the end, my sweetened vanilla version turned out well. At least, I think so, and plus, it was a learning experience. I know how to make things go smoothly next time.

My unsweetened original version needs something. Maybe a pinch of salt? I don�t know. However, later in the evening I used it to make vegan cheese sauce and it turned out well. So, maybe for my purposes, it�s fine.

Ok, so I know that a carton of rice milk is only a few dollars, and one has to be a serious rice milk fiend to get any significant savings from making her own, but I will say this: to make 3 cups of rice milk, it takes 1/3rd of a cup of rice. The other main ingredient is water. I�ve always been a bulk rice buyer, so I have tons of rice on hand. As a matter of fact, we really have too much rice. I always fall victim to the, �Hey, look what a good deal this rice is! Let�s buy a bunch!� situation. I guess that�s an Asian holdover. One can never have too much rice, especially if it�s cheap.

Also, I like the idea of being able to control the flavor. Maybe I�ll create a lightly sweetened version that I�ll actually like to drink.

Anyway, other than that, I still got one foot caught in the door of my old job as I try to escape. It has not been a walk in the park, but being part-time makes it tolerable.

Oh, I registered for classes and paid my tuition for the first quarter. I�m officially a grad student. I don�t feel like it, though. I guess we�ll see how I feel once school starts.

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