For years, I did all of my grocery shopping at Super Wal Mart. Everything we needed was at Wal Mart and I didn't have to take the boys from store to store, which is a pain.
A couple of months ago, I started looking at the grocery store sale papers and I decided to make my menu according to sale meat at H.E.B. H.E.B. is a Texas grocery store chain. H.E.B. stands for Howard E. Butts, a fact my boys point out constantly. Nothing is as funny as hinies and their smells and sounds. H.E.B. also has lots of coupons.
I had been spending about $230 at Wal Mart every two weeks. That's when dh gets paid. I buy everything then. Which means I don't buy a lot of fresh produce.
That first week, shopping at H.E.B., I saved about $50. So, I've been shopping there ever since and making my grocery list according to the sale meat and their meal deals. A meal ldeal is buy this item and get all these items free. The deal two weeks ago was a 2lb. bag of shrimp and you got all the fixings for shrimp pasta and sides, for free.
Just to be sure, two pay days ago, I went to Wal Mart and spent $240. So H.E.B. it is. They have cheaper meat, fresher produce and more variety.
I have just been through my cabinets and fridge/freezer. I have a lot of food. I also have a lot of left overs, which means I am cooking too much food and wasting a lot of money.
This first menu is going to be a mix of exisiting, processed food and fresh, non-processed food as I go about emptying the cabinets.
Another thought: even though I have a black thumb, I am thinking about planting some herbs. I already have some rosemary. It's super hardy and no one can kill it. I had some basil for the longest time. One of Q's friends grew it for a science project last year. I just threw it out. I was finally dead.
Alright! It's time to leave for Tuesday classes.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Factoring in Dh's Health Concerns
A couple of thoughts: Dh is on Coumadin through the end of June. He developed a blood clot during recovery from shoulder and elbow surgery last summer. He quit taking the blood thinner and developed another one. He is also taking Lipitor for high cholesterol.
Two things: One he needs to avoid foods that are high in vitamin K until July. These foods are listed here. Basically, green, leafy veggies.
Two, it would be great to know how the diet at home affects his cholesterol. He has a terrible diet. Think policeman. Enough said. Maybe I can convince him to reduce Dr. Pepper and take his lunch 4 days out of 5.
Two things: One he needs to avoid foods that are high in vitamin K until July. These foods are listed here. Basically, green, leafy veggies.
Two, it would be great to know how the diet at home affects his cholesterol. He has a terrible diet. Think policeman. Enough said. Maybe I can convince him to reduce Dr. Pepper and take his lunch 4 days out of 5.
My Own Experiment
While my Scouts were away this weekend, I watched about 30 hours of Netflix and Hulu. It was nice because dh wasn't here sighing over my choices and the boys weren't thinking they have a "right" to the computer. I just watched what I wanted to watch.
One of the programs I watched was the documentary, No Impact Man. I'd read Colin Beavan's blog while he was doing the project. While I completely disagree with most people who do things for the sake of the environment, I found the project completely fascinating. They lived in NYC for a year without using motorized transportation (except for the trains they took to upstate New York to meet some farmers), they created as little waste as they could, and went 6 months without electricity. The documentary was just as fascinating as reading his thoughts had been.
The thing that I was most impressed by, was how their eating habits were changed. They only bought food that had been grown within 250 miles. So they bought fresh, seasonal produce. They did not eat meat, because (they said) cattle emit too much gas into the atmosphere. At the beginning of the documentary, his wife admits to being addicted to fructose corn syrup and other processed foods. She did not know how to cook. They usually ate take away food from restaurants. She had had some blood work done and found that she was pre-diabetic. By the end of the project that was reversed.
I have been thinking a lot about food. We eat a huge amount of processed food. While we are generally healthy people, I do have a thyroid condition. My numbers show me as being hypo-thyroid, but my body looks hyper-thyroid. I have never been to an endocrinologist to find out all the deatils, but I imagine that it has to do with eating habits. They're bad.
Every morning, I have one large cup of coffee or two small ones with cream and white sugar. No food. Around 10:30 am, I am usually very hungry and I will eat some left-overs. Then, I might eat snacks until supper. Snacks would be chips, pretzels, microwave popcorn. Oh, and soda, dh and I drink a lot of soda. Supper is the only meal that I actually cook. Most of the food we eat is processed. Last night we had what we call burger pockets. I made stuffed hamburgers (with colby and jalepeno) and put them in refrigerator bisuits. We had waffle fries as a side.
The other side of the food thing is money. We hear over and over that the poor can't buy helathy food, it's too expensive. I just don't think this is true. I think that healthy food can be purchased at a regular grocery store for as little as processed food.
The reason we buy processed food is convenience. It's fast. Stuffed burgers could be done with homemade, whole wheat biscuits (ok I don't think whole wheat biscuits exist, but you know what I mean,) but it would require more time on my part to prepare dough.
So, I'm going to do my own experiment. One month at a time.
I'm going to try to buy local, in season produce as much as possible. There is a farmer's market up the road. I will not limit us to that, though, I will also buy produce from H.E.B. (a Texas grocery store chain.) I will educate myself on what is in season and try to stick to that. We will not be going vegetarian. But I am not going to buy any more processed meat. I have been wanting to learn to make sausage, so this is my chance. We are going to eat kosher (no pork, shellfish or non-scaled fish). Not because I think we have to, but because if it was God's idea, there must be a reason.
I'm going to make our bread products. and when I say I, I mean to have the boys learning to use the bread machine and I think they will enjoy using the grinder to make sausage.
I am going to find a more healthy way to consume coffee.
And I intend to show that it doesn't cost more. The hard part is going to be getting dh off Dr. Pepper. Or at least not have it in the house.
I'm going to try to replicate my last grocery bill. And compare it to the next grocery bill. I will post websites and recipes that I use. I think the first step is going to be to use up all the existing food in the cabinets and fridge. I buy every two weeks and so it is usually low by Wednesday before payday. Today is Tuesday and it's not so low.
Next post last grocery bill. That should be fascinating reading.
One of the programs I watched was the documentary, No Impact Man. I'd read Colin Beavan's blog while he was doing the project. While I completely disagree with most people who do things for the sake of the environment, I found the project completely fascinating. They lived in NYC for a year without using motorized transportation (except for the trains they took to upstate New York to meet some farmers), they created as little waste as they could, and went 6 months without electricity. The documentary was just as fascinating as reading his thoughts had been.
The thing that I was most impressed by, was how their eating habits were changed. They only bought food that had been grown within 250 miles. So they bought fresh, seasonal produce. They did not eat meat, because (they said) cattle emit too much gas into the atmosphere. At the beginning of the documentary, his wife admits to being addicted to fructose corn syrup and other processed foods. She did not know how to cook. They usually ate take away food from restaurants. She had had some blood work done and found that she was pre-diabetic. By the end of the project that was reversed.
I have been thinking a lot about food. We eat a huge amount of processed food. While we are generally healthy people, I do have a thyroid condition. My numbers show me as being hypo-thyroid, but my body looks hyper-thyroid. I have never been to an endocrinologist to find out all the deatils, but I imagine that it has to do with eating habits. They're bad.
Every morning, I have one large cup of coffee or two small ones with cream and white sugar. No food. Around 10:30 am, I am usually very hungry and I will eat some left-overs. Then, I might eat snacks until supper. Snacks would be chips, pretzels, microwave popcorn. Oh, and soda, dh and I drink a lot of soda. Supper is the only meal that I actually cook. Most of the food we eat is processed. Last night we had what we call burger pockets. I made stuffed hamburgers (with colby and jalepeno) and put them in refrigerator bisuits. We had waffle fries as a side.
The other side of the food thing is money. We hear over and over that the poor can't buy helathy food, it's too expensive. I just don't think this is true. I think that healthy food can be purchased at a regular grocery store for as little as processed food.
The reason we buy processed food is convenience. It's fast. Stuffed burgers could be done with homemade, whole wheat biscuits (ok I don't think whole wheat biscuits exist, but you know what I mean,) but it would require more time on my part to prepare dough.
So, I'm going to do my own experiment. One month at a time.
I'm going to try to buy local, in season produce as much as possible. There is a farmer's market up the road. I will not limit us to that, though, I will also buy produce from H.E.B. (a Texas grocery store chain.) I will educate myself on what is in season and try to stick to that. We will not be going vegetarian. But I am not going to buy any more processed meat. I have been wanting to learn to make sausage, so this is my chance. We are going to eat kosher (no pork, shellfish or non-scaled fish). Not because I think we have to, but because if it was God's idea, there must be a reason.
I'm going to make our bread products. and when I say I, I mean to have the boys learning to use the bread machine and I think they will enjoy using the grinder to make sausage.
I am going to find a more healthy way to consume coffee.
And I intend to show that it doesn't cost more. The hard part is going to be getting dh off Dr. Pepper. Or at least not have it in the house.
I'm going to try to replicate my last grocery bill. And compare it to the next grocery bill. I will post websites and recipes that I use. I think the first step is going to be to use up all the existing food in the cabinets and fridge. I buy every two weeks and so it is usually low by Wednesday before payday. Today is Tuesday and it's not so low.
Next post last grocery bill. That should be fascinating reading.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Heh!
Blogger installed this jazzy (got that from my friend KC) designer. It allows you to make all kinds of changes in your template. Go check out my homeschool blog (in the sidebar under "My Homeschool Blog). Pretty cool, huh? I love this background that I put here yesterday, but I will be needing to fiddle and play with this.
That's Not Kosher
This lady from church called me at 9:45 last night. You answer the phone when church people call you that late at night, something might be wrong with someone.
Something was wrong! She was in a panic because her 20 year old son was butchering a hawg (not to be confused with hog) in their driveway, would dh come help him? Sorry, dh is still at work and not feeling well.
She was scared the police were going to drive by. It's not illegal to butcher a hawg in your driveway, I tell her. Heck! Out here, they might help him out. If they stop he should offer some meat for help. But the blood and the guts! This woman is going to nursing school, lol. Her husband wouldn't help him, said the kid brought it home, he has to clean it. That is true. Think of it as a right of passage, I tell her. She said it stinks. I said I know, that's why I asked dh not to kill any more hawgs and bring them home.
To try and make her fell better I told her this story.
Back to my late night caller. Yes, 9:45 is late for me. Besides, I was still waiting for dh to get home so we could watch Lost on Hulu. It was awesome, by the way. It was all about the mysterious Richard Alpert. LOTS of questions were answered.
She asked if that was supposed to make me feel better? No, but it makes me laugh. I told her to put on some white noise and go to bed.
*In previewing this I realized that I have made myself out to be both a liar and a poacher. Please forgive me. It's a good story and it's completely true. I have another story involving dh and some venison steaks. It makes me out to be a shack up honey and dh a thief. It's a scream! Hey! we all have B.C. lives.
Something was wrong! She was in a panic because her 20 year old son was butchering a hawg (not to be confused with hog) in their driveway, would dh come help him? Sorry, dh is still at work and not feeling well.
aren't those babies cute? (I think adding baby pics to every post is going to be my new thing)
She was scared the police were going to drive by. It's not illegal to butcher a hawg in your driveway, I tell her. Heck! Out here, they might help him out. If they stop he should offer some meat for help. But the blood and the guts! This woman is going to nursing school, lol. Her husband wouldn't help him, said the kid brought it home, he has to clean it. That is true. Think of it as a right of passage, I tell her. She said it stinks. I said I know, that's why I asked dh not to kill any more hawgs and bring them home.
To try and make her fell better I told her this story.
When dh was first a patrolman, we lived in a townhouse style apartment in south Austin. He worked nights. He came home one night around 3 am. It's always kind of a scary thing when policemen come home when they're not supposed to. I had been asleep, but the huge amount of racket he was making woke me. He walked through the downstairs to the back, sliding glass door, threw N's plastic wading pool around, then walked back out. For a long time I could hear him on the back patio talking and making some unidentified noise. So, I got up. And what did I see? Dh on the back patio with a deer strung up in the tree, hanging over my sweet baby's plastic wading pool, now coated with blood. "What the foul filth and foul are you doing?!" I wasn't a Christian then, and cussed a lot more than I do now.
Turns out some fancy lady in west Austin had hit it with her car and called the police. Because that's what fancy west Austin ladies do. Dh was in the area and responded to the call. In an instant he called his sergeant to take a few hours off, tossed it in the trunk of the cruiser and brought it home. He'd called his dad in California (it was only 1 am there) to get help. This was also before we knew anything about butchering game. He gutted it, quartered it and because our next door neighbor was a night owl with a huge deep freezer in her living room, bagged it and put it in her freezer.
He took a shower and went back to work. Those were personal hours that he took off, in case you were wondering.
The next day, he spent a while on the phone trying to find a processor who would process the meat out of season. He did and they charged us an arm and a leg, which is why we do all our own processing now. The only thing I can't do is make sausage. I'm learning. Last season I found a real good recipe. Unfortunately, it called for too much salt and it was inedible.
Back to my late night caller. Yes, 9:45 is late for me. Besides, I was still waiting for dh to get home so we could watch Lost on Hulu. It was awesome, by the way. It was all about the mysterious Richard Alpert. LOTS of questions were answered.
She asked if that was supposed to make me feel better? No, but it makes me laugh. I told her to put on some white noise and go to bed.
*In previewing this I realized that I have made myself out to be both a liar and a poacher. Please forgive me. It's a good story and it's completely true. I have another story involving dh and some venison steaks. It makes me out to be a shack up honey and dh a thief. It's a scream! Hey! we all have B.C. lives.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Regular Blogging Vs. Facebooking
I was looking through a friend's blog today. And just being amazed at how she posts almost every day. Even though she says she doesn't.
I could post every day. Something happens every day that I could post about. There is always some word study floating around in my head that I have a desire to share. Right now it's "salt."
I even have my camera out of the bag and sitting, right here in front of me.
Instead, I resort to a one line, FB status update, "M and Q went to catch turtles." There was a great story. And the picture...Oh! you should have seen the picture I didn't take. They were wheeling their bicycles out the front door (we keep them in the school room, not outside - there's a good blog post too) with fishing nets in hand. M was holding the big one, the one dh bought for deep sea fishing. It was priceless.
There's also the story about the patio table frame sitting on my deck right now. actually, that will eventually make a blog post to make my sweet mother-in-love proud.
Facebooking is like writing junk food and blogging is like a meal...or something. You know where I'm going. That's as deep as I can get with visions of Kate Gosselin on DWTS, stumbling around in my head and antsy-ness over waiting for dh to hurry up and get home so we can watch Lost. I think they're going to tell us how old Richard is!
More blogging fodder, my TV viewing habits.
Maybe I can enter blogging topics on my iPhone calendar and sit down and do that every morning instead of seeing what people on FB aren't doing at 7:00 am.
I could post every day. Something happens every day that I could post about. There is always some word study floating around in my head that I have a desire to share. Right now it's "salt."
I even have my camera out of the bag and sitting, right here in front of me.
Instead, I resort to a one line, FB status update, "M and Q went to catch turtles." There was a great story. And the picture...Oh! you should have seen the picture I didn't take. They were wheeling their bicycles out the front door (we keep them in the school room, not outside - there's a good blog post too) with fishing nets in hand. M was holding the big one, the one dh bought for deep sea fishing. It was priceless.
There's also the story about the patio table frame sitting on my deck right now. actually, that will eventually make a blog post to make my sweet mother-in-love proud.
Facebooking is like writing junk food and blogging is like a meal...or something. You know where I'm going. That's as deep as I can get with visions of Kate Gosselin on DWTS, stumbling around in my head and antsy-ness over waiting for dh to hurry up and get home so we can watch Lost. I think they're going to tell us how old Richard is!
More blogging fodder, my TV viewing habits.
Maybe I can enter blogging topics on my iPhone calendar and sit down and do that every morning instead of seeing what people on FB aren't doing at 7:00 am.
And because no good blog post is worth anything without a picture, here's one from the files:
Moe at 4 months old. HRL-B had it on a disc or her computer and sent it to me. I'm finally doing something with it. Is that not the most awesome bunch of chins you ever saw??
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Where Have I Been?
Not blogging, obviously. Also not playing Farmville. I got a little obsessed. So obsessed, in fact, that I created a second FB account and acquired 240+ "friends" from all over the world, teen girls in France, middle aged Italian men, teen, Muslim boys. Okay, it was weird. But I was desperate. On my "real" FB account, only 5 of my real friends were regular FV players and you can't exactly get your barn built, or acquire enough gold for Blarney castle with only 5 farmies. I had 194 FV neighbors on my fake account. I logged on several times a day, because it ate me up to think of all the eggs and collectibles that I wasn't getting off the feed. Then, I'd get on my "real" account and just be depressed at how cute it was and how it wasn't progressing. I made level 30 in a matter of weeks on my fake account. It took me a year to get to 40 on my real account.
One day, dh said something that embarrassed me, so I decided to quit. Both FV accounts. I deleted the "fake" FB account. And then deleted the FV app off my real account. An hour later, I was clicking "block this application" from a gift request. I have been FV free ever since. And I don't miss it.
Little League baseball started three weeks ago. I went through my "start of the season blues." We have a lot of Scout friends on this team. We all sit together during practice. It has a potential to be fun. Only thing is...the talk of the first three practices was centered around middle and high school sports. I have nothing to contribute and it makes me super introspective and somewhat depressed, wondering if I'm doing something to harm my child by homeschooling him. Y'all I've been homeschooling for 10 years and the boys have been doing stuff with the same small-town public school kids for 10 years. When am I going to get over it?
I took N to the doctor because he has been complaining of severe knee pain since the middle of wrestling season. Not sure why it took us so long. Me just being chicken mom, I think. We went to our primary, she sent him for an MRI. The MRI showed an "unusual bone contusion." My dad, who still thinks N is going to get into the Naval Academy, was worried that N would have to have knee surgery and that would destroy his military career. Turns out it is still the Osgood-Schlatter's disease. And the ortho sees no reason to bar him from any activity, just take anti-inflammatory meds and rest when it hurts.
We got a large escrow refund check in the mail. I love it when that happens. Of course I'd love it more if our actual monthly payment was less. But thank you for returning my money, anyway.
That very day, I came home from running errands (I hate that phrase, BTW) to find Q playing a game on the computer and complaining about a pop-up. So I opened it up and lo and behold! there were 33! viruses on our computer. THIRTY THREE?!?! How does that happen? Of course our anti-virus software was expired. So it told me they were there, but couldn't do a darn thing about them. I called dh to tell him that I would need some of that escrow refund to go buy new anti-virus software.
The boys are currently working on a reality game show of their own. They each contributed $1.50 (low-budget) to the prize money (sorry, there's not a lot I would do for $4.50). The game is to see who can live outside the longest. We told them they couldn't start until summer. Where do they come up with these things? They typed up rules. An example is that you have to be more than 25 yards from the house. Q is planning on trapping food. Ick! M is saying he's willing to eat grubs. Double ick! N says he's taking all the Mountain House (backpacking freeze dried food) stuff with him. This boy won't miss a meal, I guarantee it.
Spring break was last week, it started and ended with cold, wet weather. I know that as homeschoolers we could take spring break, or any break, whenever we feel like it. But in order to see their ps friends, we take it when they take it. I didn't get any good pictures because the boys all went off to their friends' houses. I love quiet. I can't wait for summer camp :-) We did try to go to our, now full, lake. The water was about 58 degrees. We didn't stay long.
That pretty much sums up the last three weeks. I have been recycling worship music, so I haven't even had that to post. I can't promise anything. Until next time.
One day, dh said something that embarrassed me, so I decided to quit. Both FV accounts. I deleted the "fake" FB account. And then deleted the FV app off my real account. An hour later, I was clicking "block this application" from a gift request. I have been FV free ever since. And I don't miss it.
Little League baseball started three weeks ago. I went through my "start of the season blues." We have a lot of Scout friends on this team. We all sit together during practice. It has a potential to be fun. Only thing is...the talk of the first three practices was centered around middle and high school sports. I have nothing to contribute and it makes me super introspective and somewhat depressed, wondering if I'm doing something to harm my child by homeschooling him. Y'all I've been homeschooling for 10 years and the boys have been doing stuff with the same small-town public school kids for 10 years. When am I going to get over it?
I took N to the doctor because he has been complaining of severe knee pain since the middle of wrestling season. Not sure why it took us so long. Me just being chicken mom, I think. We went to our primary, she sent him for an MRI. The MRI showed an "unusual bone contusion." My dad, who still thinks N is going to get into the Naval Academy, was worried that N would have to have knee surgery and that would destroy his military career. Turns out it is still the Osgood-Schlatter's disease. And the ortho sees no reason to bar him from any activity, just take anti-inflammatory meds and rest when it hurts.
We got a large escrow refund check in the mail. I love it when that happens. Of course I'd love it more if our actual monthly payment was less. But thank you for returning my money, anyway.
That very day, I came home from running errands (I hate that phrase, BTW) to find Q playing a game on the computer and complaining about a pop-up. So I opened it up and lo and behold! there were 33! viruses on our computer. THIRTY THREE?!?! How does that happen? Of course our anti-virus software was expired. So it told me they were there, but couldn't do a darn thing about them. I called dh to tell him that I would need some of that escrow refund to go buy new anti-virus software.
The boys are currently working on a reality game show of their own. They each contributed $1.50 (low-budget) to the prize money (sorry, there's not a lot I would do for $4.50). The game is to see who can live outside the longest. We told them they couldn't start until summer. Where do they come up with these things? They typed up rules. An example is that you have to be more than 25 yards from the house. Q is planning on trapping food. Ick! M is saying he's willing to eat grubs. Double ick! N says he's taking all the Mountain House (backpacking freeze dried food) stuff with him. This boy won't miss a meal, I guarantee it.
Spring break was last week, it started and ended with cold, wet weather. I know that as homeschoolers we could take spring break, or any break, whenever we feel like it. But in order to see their ps friends, we take it when they take it. I didn't get any good pictures because the boys all went off to their friends' houses. I love quiet. I can't wait for summer camp :-) We did try to go to our, now full, lake. The water was about 58 degrees. We didn't stay long.
That pretty much sums up the last three weeks. I have been recycling worship music, so I haven't even had that to post. I can't promise anything. Until next time.
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