The Summer of the Oatmeal

Right after Scott and I got engaged, he flew out to Boston for a summer internship. I stayed in Utah to finish the track season and then spent a few weeks in Ohio before following him to Boston. I didn't have much money, but that didn't stop me from going to pricey Boston without a job or place to stay. I found a place quickly and bunked up with some awesome roommates near Harvard Square. It took me a bit over a week to find a job; I ended up as a secretary for a small medical technologies company.

The job was actually quite fun: I did the typical answering of phones and filing endless stacks of papers, but I also edited and illustrated a user manual for a brain perfusion machine. The job paid enough to cover my rent and transportation, but I guess I didn't make enough to buy more than about $10 of groceries a week. Since oatmeal is pretty much the cheapest thing you can buy, that's what I ate most of the summer. I remember the absolute low-point of the summer was eating a bowl of oatmeal for lunch at work. I didn't have anything to put on it at home, but I'd found a pack of abandoned Red Hots and sprinkled those on for the sake of having something other than oatmeal. That was gross. Anyway, I guess I never wrote about that moment (until now) in my journal, but here are a few other awesome poor moments from that summer.

June 19, 2003: A few nights ago Scott dropped in unexpectedly. I was eating rice with canned veggies on it. It was so gross, but it's food and I figured it'd fill me up just the same as anything else. Scott was appalled that I was eating such trash. He's provided dinner every night since.

July 10, 2003: Scott and I made pizza tonight. I wasn't quite sure what we'd eat tonight, but I had just barely enough of everything to make a delicious spinach-tomato pizza from scratch. I'm out of bread, milk, and just about all else. I do have one egg left and some cold cereal.

July 12, 2003: I'm down to 53 cents. But I'm happy, so who cares?

(by the way, my bro Dave made this awesome journal for me for Christmas)