Pantry Week Night 5 & 6

I was reminded tonight that I failed to post my Night 5 & 6. It was a rough few days in mommyland... so by the end of the night, I just wanted sleep. But I am back with pictures to prove that Pantry Week continued.

Night 5...



A lovely pasta / salad/ with homemade garlic/cheese biscuit. (I GOTTA HAVE BREAD WITH MY PASTA...please note that I needed it so bad, it was half eaten by the time I took this picture.)

Night 6....



Tacos. We seem to have plenty of Mexican food around here. And I sure don't mind. Curtis grilled himself up a hamburger... double patty with cheese. I threw up in my mouth when I looked at it, so I didn't take a picture.

So tomorrow was supposed to be my shopping day, but I had to break the rules a bit and go today cause my schedule is messed up tomorrow. So the pantry is once again restocked and we are ready to rock! Looking forward to another pantry week. But don't worry... I'll spare you the pictures unless something fascinating comes up!

Pantry Week. Night 4.

Well I will blame tonight's dinner choice on the fact that my body is all kinds of messed up.

But it's messed up for good reasons... my sister had her daughter last night. I got a phone call from my mom a little after 1am, and off to the hospital we went. Kinley was born at 5:53am. So beautiful. So perfect. What a sweet little miracle. I was so glad to be a part of it. I will post some pictures as soon as I can find my camera cable... I have no clue where it is.

Anyway...I came home around 8:30 and tried to rest for a couple of hours, then had to go to work. Wednesday is the only full day I have in the office, and my kids are at Grandma's house...so I don't know what their dinner was.

I got home a little after 9... scanned the fridge and the pantry...and this is what I came up with.



Yep...I am embarrassed to even show you.

Turkey Dog & Trader Jo's Reduced Guilt Potato Chips.

And you know what's worse? I ATE TWO OF THEM!!!!!!

Pantry Week. Night 3.

In spite of my bad mid-day Sbux/Target Craving... we made it through another day.

I am including a bonus pic with this blog because our breakfast was so good...it should be shared with the world.

I proudly introduce the 'Breakfast Shamu Bowl'... vanilla yogurt/ flax granola/topped with blueberries. DELICIOUS!


Tonight's dinner was my Chipotle knock-off. White rice topped with black beans. Sliced tomato (only have 2 in the house... so I made one work). Cheese. Green Onions. Sour Cream.

Curses! I was out of avocado. I LOVE avocados. Then like a bolt of lighting above my head (DING!), I remembered I bought FROZEN avocados at Trader Joes a LONG time ago. I pulled one out and thawed it in a bowl of water. And was STOKED I remembered that...and that I could help clean out the freezer a little more.

A few minutes after I started defrosting the avocado, I looked in the sink and found this....



Apparently Lexi's pony wanted to "take a bath with the avacodao." Cute.

Oh... and I took some plain tortilla chips and warmed them in the oven. Right before we were about to eat, I squeezed lime juice on them, salted them, and put them back in the oven. They came out exactly like Chipotle. I WIN!

Here was our finished product.....



Now it's time to make brownies.

I Need a Hit...

Seriously... so this whole new budget thing...the one where we don't spend any money (suck)...and can't even go to the grocery store this week (double suck) will be good in the long run. I know. But I'm telling you people, I am like an addict looking for a high.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to drive Haley home from school?

At one intersection, I have Starbucks on one side, and Target on the left.

I might as well be addicted to Crack, and have a dealer standing in front of me saying "All this can be yours."

I will stick through this, cause I got a STRONG stubborn streak (ask any one of my closest friends)... but I'm telling you, today is a dark day people. A dark day indeed.

Pantry Week. Night 2.

Pantry Week continued and it was delicious. All 4 members of the family were a part of the "Clean Plate Club."
Hurray! Hurrah! Horroy!

A look at our dishes...





The menu : Grilled Turkey Sausage. Wheat Bowtie Pasta. Steamed Broccoli. Freshly grated Parmesan.

Variation on the menu : Adults had sauteed peppers/onions while the kids opted for olives.

Overall : Delicious.

Free Dinner: Priceless. (Literally.)

Pantry Week. Night 1.

Since some of you have done this idea...others are trying it... I thought I would blog my experience of the week.

Here are the rules. No grocery stores allowed. If we don't have it... too bad. Must use what is in the pantry/fridge/freezer... and perhaps the orange tree which appears to be bearing fruit at precisely the right time. (A little manna from heaven if you ask me... cause you KNOW I need my fresh fruit.)

I will take pictures of what we came up with (expect nothing too exciting.) With the exception of last night. Night one. I didn't know anyone would really care, so I didn't really take any pictures.

But here's what we did.

I had 4 potatoes.

I baked them in the oven with lime juice/sea salt on the skin. (Baking potatoes in the oven is always an extra little treat).

Made fresh broccoli.

Made bacon.

Finished product?

Potatoes / Broccoli / Cheese / Scallions / Bacon / Pico De Gallo / Sour Cream.

Dessert? Orange slices & strawberries.

It was a HIT!

Today at Yoga...

Have I mentioned how much I love yoga? Especially on Mondays. What a great way to start off the week!

Each time I go, I feel so much more comfortable and am having fun experimenting with all the crazy poses.

Our instructor is amazing. She is hard but also encouraging. And I like that she throws in some "Jesus Music" (as my kids would say)... it centers me, and focuses me on what is important.

Today, as the instructor was walking around the room "fixing people" (adjusting arms, legs, etc.), I was certain she was going to come to me... I kept checking my poses in the mirror, and they looked alright, but I'm new at this...so who knows. So, I kept expecting her to come over and fix me. But she never did.

I thought to myself... "hmm... I must be getting pretty good at this"... and right about that time, we switched to a new pose and I got a wiff of my stinky self, and realized without a doubt that it was my sweaty stench keeping her away from me.

Ego deflated.

Maybe I'm not so good after all. Just average. And stinky.

I am Wealthy...and introducing Pantry Week.

That's what my pastor reminded me of today.

Even when I feel like I am broke. I am wealthy.

A Haitian (before the earthquake) averages $2.00 a day.
A person in India averages $1.00 a day.

I buy coffee that last for 10 minutes and cost $4.00.

I am wealthy.

But I need to do a WAY better job of managing my money. And my husband and I talked about that in great detail today...still are. But we aren't gonna mess around anymore. We are serious. We are trying to figure out ways (and some might end up being drastic) to be completely debt free and at peace with our finances.

The first is PANTRY WEEK! I love to buy fresh groceries (ESPECIALLY FRUIT AND VEGGIES), but my house has a lot of food in it, and I suggested to Curtis we try a whole week without going to the store... whatever we have right now is whatever we eat. Next shopping day is a week from today. Let's see if we can make it.

Anyone else out there working on their budget? Finances? Let's hold each other accountable.

Homecoming.

It is so encouraging to see good news come out of Haiti. One of those stories came out of Oregon, when a team of women who went over on a missions trip to distribute clothes and toys to the children of Haiti. After the earthquake hit, they had quite a journey home.

But they are home. They are safe. And they are friends of my friend Jen, who posted this video of them arriving of them at the airport (on Facebook.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QOPJl-nzKM

When I watched the homecoming in the airport, my eyes were filled with tears. The expectation of the families waiting. Listening to children say, "I can't wait to see mommy." Watching the first woman run in as her kids were running to her at the same time. Tears, laughter, hugs, shouts of joy... it was all so beautiful.

And as I thought of their journey home, I started to think of it in terms of our journey home to God. For some of us, we make the decision to follow Christ. Life is relatively easy. We stay on the right path and we make it home.

For others, we choose to ignore truth for too long, and struggle all through life before we find Christ. Or perhaps, we meet Christ early on in life, and then fall away. We struggle trying to make it on our own...and then like the prodigal son, we return to Him. This particular sort of journey parallels so well with the women returning from Haiti. Their journey was difficult, from the earthquake, to the loss of family contact, to the attempts to leave the country, and the actual trip home... And as the woman said at the end of the video, "never have I longed so much for America..." I'm certain her family/loved ones felt the same way.

I can only imagine God...waiting for us in heaven (already fully aware of whether our journey will be an easy one or a difficult one)...ready to run to us with arms wide open, and welcome His children home.

Don't read my blog...

Read this one: http://brazenlilly.blogspot.com/

We share the same thoughts on the Haiti crisis and our friend Kristen's journey... and her's will be much more eloquent.

If you decide not to read it... keep praying for Haiti. And in your prayers, thank God that he brought our friend Kristen home and her sweet baby Karis.

Jesus Talk.

Tonight, as we (the girls and I) were coming home from a rehearsal at church, I put a cd in of one of the songs we are doing at church this weekend....

It started a very interesting conversation between us girls....

Here are some of the highlights:

H - When we get to heaven will we see Mary and Joseph?

Me - Yes.

L - They will be there?

Me - Yes.

Both girls erupt in spontaneous clapping/cheers. Apparently Mary and Joseph are a big deal.

...........

H - I am going to take my money to make the streets with. (Referencing "streets of gold.")

...........

L - Will there be food there?

...........

H - Mom, in heaven you won't be tired anymore. Seriously... you won't have any bags under your eyes anymore!!!

...........

L - In Heaven, we will get to see MaMaw Bootsy!!!!! I've never seen her before.

M - You've seen her, you just don't remember cause' you were a baby.

L - Yeah...she hasn't seen me like this.

H - I miss MaMaw Boots... she gave me jewelry and candy. I like her.

...........


H - One day we will here in the horn, and the zoom...we will go right up to heaven.

H - Mom... no one has seen the face of God. I want to see his face.

..........

And just like we were in a movie, the song on the cd was saying "We'll keep on waiting for that day.... We'll keep on waiting for that day.... and we'll sing "Holy, Holy, Holy is our God." And of course...the tears were falling down this momma's face. I love my precious children and their sweet hearts that love Jesus.

I can't move my arms.

I decided to start working out. Just for kicks. And there have been a lot of kicks. Literally.

But here's the cool thing.... it wasn't a NY Resolution... it's not in an attempt to get skinny (although that would be sweet)... it was just something I thought I would try with some friends. And now I feel totally addicted. I am loving it.

My favorite experience so far is when I decided to take a class called 24Set. Only because online it said...step/weights/ and easy to learn movements. Um YEAH! I call that FALSE ADVERTISING. There was nothing easy about it. In fact, my friend showed up because she wanted to "support me." And with her sweet voice said, "just so you know, when I'm in my best shape...this class is hard for me." SWEET. Cause I am totally new to working out people.

And yeah, I was completely over my head. When I walked in, there was a swarm of tiny, in shape people stacking things, picking out weights, loading up their bars, pulling out hand weights, and I just stood there. Like a chick that has just hatched looking at the world and thinking, "what just happened??????" I finally couldn't fake it any more and had to ask for help...

There were about 6 specific times when I thought I would throw up but I made it through.

Yesterday I took a TKB class (Turbo Kick Boxing)... and let's just say I looked like a person with special needs. Seriously.

But I really like PILATES. And I really like Yoga.

Today I took a Yoga class from the same crazy lady that taught 24Set. And that was some legit yoga. Hard. But it felt good. Although each time I am in that room with a bunch of people in squat positions and various other strange positions... I keep waiting for someone to pass gas... It has to happen... there is no way to be in those positions and not let one fly at some point. In fact, waiting for that to happen might just keep me going back to Yoga.

One other thing I am struggling with is getting sweaty a lot and having to wash my hair... because ya'll know I'm a blonde. And I dye my hair brown...and I can't afford to dye it more frequently... so I am trying to figure out how to work out without sweating on my head, so I don't have to wash it very often. Any ideas?

Oh, and I can't move my arms. And my legs are mad at me. It hurts to even lift my arm to brush my teeth...or to sit on the toilet. I swear even the pores on my face hurt. But it's good. I like it.

So who's in? Let's work out together. At the very least, I can offer you a giggle. Because it is REALLY funny to watch me work out!

8:30

Don't buy a cheap watch at Target.

Curtis did.

And every night it rings at 8:30. EVERY NIGHT. And we have no clue how to make it stop.

I know I will sound like a snob...

And I get made fun of a lot cause of my "food rules"...

And I'm not the healthiest person I know by FAR....

But today I went to the grocery store. Actually, I went to 3. And in each one, I saw parents letting their kids decide what they wanted to buy....

Which means... I saw kids walking around with Capri Suns...Cocoa Pebbles....Pop Tarts....Oreo Cookies....etc.

And while I know that stuff tastes really good....it is just really, really bad for kids. Anything with High Fructose Corn Syrups...added sugars...additional chemicals...that's just not what we're supposed to be putting in our bodies.

DISCLAIMER : I KNOW I DRINK DIET COKE. AND IT IS AWFUL. AND NO, I DON'T WANT TO GIVE IT UP. But I'm talking about the kids....

I read somewhere this week this statement:

"If it is made from a plant...eat it. If it made IN a PLANT, do not."

This is something I'd like my family to strive for... eating WAY more fruits/veggies/natural foods... way less processed. And while I do eat food that is made in a plant, I do try to choose food that does not have any of the yucky stuff added in. I strive for organic foods and those made with whole grains.

I don't always eat organic fruit/veggies (cause I can't afford it)...but I eat a LOT of fruits/veggies and if they aren't organic, I'm careful to wash them really well.

Another quote for you...

"God made food into a God made body = God made health."

For those spiritual peeps out there... our bodies are God's temple. And if you think about God living in your body.... it definitely affects a lot of the choices we make.

Sorry... didn't mean to go all spiritual spice... Man, I'm totally on a soapbox right now. I'm sorry.

Part of me is just made at our nation for putting crap food out there...advertising it to kids... making it seem irresistible for kids...and making it harder for us parents to convince our children how to make healthier choices.

Which is why if you have little ones...teach them healthy choices now. Put food into their bodies that is wholesome and pure. Not full of junk. You will probably notice a BIG difference in their behavior.

We pulled Haley off of sugar a few weeks ago...and while that was unsuccessful because of the Holidays and other outside forces...we could tell an immediate difference when she had sugar and when she didn't. Try it with your kids...see if it makes a difference.

We can't forget that our kids are watching us and what we eat... so we need to model good choices. If we don't buy into it, they won't either.

Geez, I don't know when I became a nutritionist?!?! I think this blog probably sounds self righteous. I'm sorry if it came across like that. And I should say... I'm all about a special treat here or there...just not a continual diet of junk.

Let's protect our kids...their bodies...their future.