House Projects

When we first moved here, we were Highly Motivated Unpackers.  Of course, everyone is highly motivated to find their underwear, coffeemaker, and bedsheets.  But after a few weeks of hard-core unpacking, we took a little break.  We were in a new town, and we needed to explore and have fun.  Well, that little break lasted for quite a while, and we lost sight of our goal.  Fortunately, we've had some houseguests recently, and that has forced us to get back on track.  This past weekend we hosted cousin Keith and his daughter Lexi as they came to check out University of Iowa as a possible school for her next year.  This coming weekend we have some VIP guests visiting, so we have to get crackin'!

Here are some things we've done recently:

Our front door proudly displays this fall wreath that i snatched up at a garage sale down the street.  The mailman derives the most benefit from this seasonal decoration, since he comes to our front door on a daily basis.

Cooler weather means it's time for layers, so The Professor hung our coat racks by the kitchen door.

This is the view from the kitchen sink window.  I stand at the kitchen sink approximately 32 hours a day washing dishes.  We've had a gusty fall here so far, so i tied some ribbons to our little tree and have enjoyed watching them dance in the wind. 

The Professor and the BabyGirl invite you to come over anytime for a visit!

 

We Did It!

Thank you Lord, we did it!

We survived a week without buying groceries.  I'm so proud of us!  The Professor ate some things he never would have eaten otherwise, and did it like a champ.  He definitely stepped up to the plate (Ha!).  I also ate some things i never would have eaten before, but on the other end of the spectrum.  I ate some really nasty processed foods. 

The funny thing is, at the end of the week i felt really good physically.  Like, eerily good.  So there is definitely something that i eat regularly that was affecting me more than i gave it credit.  My first hypothesis is milk.  I've been lactose intolerant for several years, and as a result i use Lactaid milk.  But Lactaid milk costs way more than either rice, flax, or coconut milk.  I decided to give it up and just drink the same milk as the BabyGirl.  After a week without milk, i feel awesome.  Apparently my dairy intolerance involves more than just the lactose.

I'm about to break my own rule and talk about recipes.  Usually, i firmly believe that i should leave the food blogging to the food-bloggers.  My true love is storytelling, so this is a storytelling blog.  And the two shouldn't mix.  But i'm quite proud of the meals that i was able to pull out of my hat this week, and i want to document it for posterity.  One day The Professor and i will be 80 years old and toothless, and we'll be sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch of our assisted living facility, and he'll ask, "Remember that time when you wouldn't let us have any groceries?  What were the crazy things that we ate that week?"  Naturally i won't be able to remember, so we'll come here to find out.  So you can quit reading now if you want to, it gets pretty boring from here.  The rest of this post is purely a documentary.  I don't have pictures of any of my createions because i didn't know at the time that i would be blogging about it, so I have collected some visual aids from the internet.

Sunday Night: Grilling Night!  We grilled some hamburgers that we had in the freezer plus potatoes and a pineapple.  It was a big batch of potatoes, and provided some good leftovers.

Monday Night:  Hmm, now i can't quite remember.  The BabyGirl's gym class is on Monday nights, so our dinners are always kind of weird anyway.  I think The Professor had a frozen pizza, i had leftover soup, and the BabyGirl had something. 

Tuesday Night:  Sketti!  We eat sketti a lot, so this one wasn't that impressive.  I had sauteed spinach as a side.


Wednesday Night: By far the most impressive, and also the most disgusting.  I made a very ingenious Macaroni Hack.  We had a box of Kraft Cheddar Explosion Macaroni that had expired in 2010.  I kid you not, we ate that sucker!  I don't know if the reason that it was disgusting is because it's box macaroni, which is inherently icky, or if it was a year expired.  The noodles were the most pale noodles i've ever seen.  They looked like those creepy fish that live in the deep part of the ocean without any light.  They'd had every semblance of wheat processed out of them.  I added a ton of stuff to this Cheesy Noodle Dish: green peas, lentils, garlic, onions, paprika, and fish sticks.  We had exactly 5 fish sticks in the freezer, so i cut them up into little bites and mixed them in.  It was unfortunate that my dish was so gross, because i put so much effort into it.  My personal theory, and you can never tell The Professor that i admitted this, is that it had too much garlic.  On any other occasion, i will swear up and down that there is no such thing as "too much garlic".  I LOVE garlic, and put it in everything.  The Professor doesn't like it, and complains that i put it in everything.  Part of my strategy was to cover up the nasty taste of expired powder cheese substance by using lots of garlic.  Lesson learned: powder cheese substance does not pair well with garlic.

Thursday Night:  French Toast.  My defeat from the night before took the wind out of my sails, and i was hesitant to use so many ingredients on something that would be a total flop.  The BabyGirl and i also had leftover acorn squash as a side.

Friday Night:  Takeout!  For free!  It was beautiful.  We had a coupon for a free small pizza from Papa John's and a free small pizza from Casey's General Store.  The BabyGirl and i split a peach as a side.  You might remember that the BabyGirl is allergic to milk, and i am lactose intolerant, but times were desperate and free is free.  We ate that pizza happily.  Well, happily at first.  Fifteen minutes later, i felt TERRIBLE.  All of a sudden free pizza didn't sound like such a good idea anymore.  I felt sick and grouchy and I turned into Cruella DeVille.  We also had our Celebration Cake, pictured above.  It was compliments of a cake mix i found in the pantry that had expired in April.  It tasted so great, you'd never know.

Saturday Night:  A triumph!  My most successful meal of the week.  The Professor even said that he would eat it again (whoa).  I made Black Bean and Tuna B.F.G. (which stands for Big Fat Globs).  They were supposed to be Black Bean Burgers.  Or at the very least, Black Bean Cakes or Black Bean Patties or something of that nature.  But for some reason my meatless burgers always turn into big fat globs of mess.  Somehow it worked though, and was delicious!  I added some canned tuna to the black bean BFG's, which i thought would be a total mistake, but it tasted great.  I'd been hoarding that can of tuna all week long, waiting for the opportune moment.  Fortunately the BFG's were so satisfying from a texture standpoint that The Professor was willing to overlook some of the taste.


We are definitely looking forward to our next grocery shopping venture.  I'm desparate for some fresh veggies and The Professor is desparate for some meat.  I'm sure next week will hold its own challenges, but for now we are happy to have survived this week!

Strict Budget Week 1: Major FAIL

I recently told you about our new budget.  It's quite a challenge.  A very depressing challenge, but also an exhilarating one at the same time.  I was upset about it at first, but now my competitive side has kicked in and I'm ready to do this thing.  Bring it.

So as i said, we have $300 that has to last the whole month, and includes every single purchase.  I've been doing a lot of research on the internet about frugal living, and i found a mom-blog about "100 Days of Real Food on a Budget."  This woman took a challenge to buy organic, healthy, whole foods for her family of 4 on a budget of $125 per week.  (Unfortunately i don't have time right now to track down the link to her blog for you, but i'm sure you could google it if you are interested.)

She had $125 per week, i have $75.  Her budget didn't include household items like diapers, toilet paper, paper towels, etc.  Mine does.  But then again she was buying organic food, whereas i am not.

The Professor and i know that we cannot make it through this season without the sheer grace of God.  We believe that God brought us here, so we have to believe that He will provide for us.  Like the Israelites, He didn't lead us out of Egypt just to starve in the desert.

Already we have seen answers to prayer.  One night i prayed, "God, whatever the heck you do or don't do about me, please PLEASE provide for my BabyGirl."  The next day i was getting the BabyGirl dressed to go to Toddler Story Time at the library, and her jeans, which were pretty tight a few days before, now didn't fit at all.  I don't have any jeans in the next size for her.  Those jeans were it.  I thought, "Well, praise the Lord we have several pairs of fleece sweatpants that Granny sent; she'll just have to wear those all the time."

Wouldn't you know, THAT VERY AFTERNOON Granny called me from Old Navy.  Said she was looking at boots and wanted to know the BabyGirl's size.  "Oh, and they have some jeans here too, does she need jeans?"  I immediately got teary-eyed with gratitude.  God was providing for my BabyGirl.

Due to the aforementioned auto repair costs that ate up all our money, i had resolved not to buy any groceries this week.  Nope, not going to do it.  We would live off of whatever we had in our freezer and pantry.  Fortunately i had a good amount of leftovers in the fridge, so it wasn't an impossible mission.  And i'll tell you, if i was the kind of person who took pictures of their meals and blogged about it, we could all have quite a laugh because i have made some pretty dang creative meals this week.  You would be amazed at what you can do when you have to.  Also, you would be amazed at how outdated some of the things in your pantry are.

The one exception to the no-purchases-for-a-week rule was the BabyGirl's rice milk.  She has to have it, and i didn't have enough on hand to last all week.  So after Toddler Story Time at the library, we stopped by the store to buy three jugs of rice milk.  We were really rushing to get home in time to feed her lunch and put her down for a nap before she turned into an ogre.  We zoomed home, and i saw that the trash collection had come, so my garbage can and recycling bin were strewn all over the place.  I wanted to go ahead and bring them in, but i can't carry the can\bin and the BabyGirl at the same time.  I decided to leave her in the car in the garage for a minute so i could bring in the garbage can, then run back and bring in the recycling bin.  It took about 45 seconds, but when i returned to the BabyGirl, she was crying because she'd been left all alone in the [creepy spider-infested] garage.  I comforted her, assured her that i didn't leave for good, and took her inside for lunch.

The next morning as i was brushing my teeth, i realized that when we had gotten home i never got the milk out of the car.  It was still in my trunk at that very minute.  I was sooooo devastated.  It was such a costly mistake.  I could not believe that i had been such an idiot, and completely wasted THREE ENTIRE JUGS of milk.  That milk was the only thing i was allowed to buy for the whole week, and it was gone.  When money is so tight that every ounce of milk matters, the loss of three jugs is significant.  I was so mad because it was my own stupidity, and there was no excuse for it.

So i had to put my tail between my legs and go right back to the store to buy milk for a second time.  And where do i buy rice milk?  At Walmart, of all places.  A store the size of an entire African village.  The worst place to quickly run in for 1 thing.  The milk is on the back wall, which is a football field's length from the front door.  We had to battle the Evil Aisle Blockers of America to get to the farthest corner of the store to obtain our milk.  And then, wouldn't you know i had to get in line with the exact same cashier as yesterday?  It was so humiliating.  I tried to avoid eye contact so that he wouldn't recognize me.  But the BabyGirl loves to push the buttons on the credit card machine, and when you press zero repeatedly it makes a very satisfying beeping sound, which she then imitates.  Yesterday when we bought milk, she pressed buttons and made beeping noises while he very neatly bagged up our milk and put it in my cart for me.  Again today, she made beeping noises while he neatly bagged up the milk and put it in the cart.  Unfortunately, i'm pretty sure he remembered us and our beeping.

I drove home with the milk in my lap so that i wouldn't forget it this time. =]

 

Neither Snow, Nor Rain, Nor Gloom of Night

One day last week, the BabyGirl forced me to take her on a walk.

We were playing outside, which is her #1 all-time favorite thing to do.  We hadn't been out there very long when she went in the garage and started pulling at the stroller.  Just the day before we'd had a playdate at a potential friend's house, and they had a little doll stroller that the BabyGirl LOVED.  She pushed that doll stroller all over their house.  So when she was yanking at the stroller, i thought she wanted to push it around.  Granted, it is much more difficult for her to maneuver than a doll stroller, but she doesn't always think these kinds of things through.

I put the stroller out on the driveway for her to push around.  She played with it for about 0.5 seconds and then started emphatically motioning toward the seat of the stroller.  I said to her incredulously, "You want to get IN the stroller?"

The reason that i was incredulous is because we were currently playing outside.  Usually, nothing trumps playing outside.  I have never in her short little life seen her want to do anything else while she is playing outside.  Playing outside is Optimus Prime, and nothing in the world matters while you are playing outside.  Not mealtime, not naptime, not diaper changes, not thunderstorms, nothing.  She will play outside regardless of the weather.  I had a hard time believing that she wanted to get in the stroller.

Nonetheless, she ceased her whining when i posed her the question, so as a test i put her in the stroller, fully believing she would be very unhappy once she was in there.

She was not unhappy.

I thought to myself, "Great!  I have a couple of things to do around the yard, and with you contained in the stroller i can actually do them."  I pushed her over to a corner of the yard and started picking up some debris.  She then began fussing and vehemently motioning to the back of the stroller.  I said, "I knew it!  You don't actually want to be in the stroller; you want to push it around."

I started unfastening the straps in order to take her out of the stroller; major protesting ensued.  She was still pointing behind the stroller.  I said (incredulously once again), "You want me to push you in the stroller?"

Finally, after this long game of charades, it dawned on me that she must want to go for a walk.  I asked, "Walk???  You want to go for a walk?"

She exploded into happiness, smiled from ear to ear, and said, "Wok!"

I said, "Um, okay i guess.  But i need to get my phone first."  I ran inside to grab my phone and then we departed on our walk.  About 2 minutes into it, i realized that i needed to go to the bathroom and if i'd been in charge, i also would have worn different shoes.  The BabyGirl, however, had it made in the shade.  She was relaxing in the comfort and convenience of the stroller, enjoying the blue sky and fresh air while leaving all the physical work to me.  How sweet.

Yesterday she was at it again.  It was late afternoon, and i was washing dishes.  She put on her shoes, brought me her jacket, and said, "Outside!?!"  It was veiled as a question but she intended it as more of a demand.  The problem was that it was really cold outside.  The jacket she had brought me wasn't going to cut it.  I had not yet unpacked my winter outerwear.  Somewhere in the deep recesses of the basement were boxes of stuff we hadn't gotten to yet, and my scarf\gloves\hat were in one of those boxes.  I acquiesced to her request anyway, and bundled up the best i could, although it definitely wasn't sufficient.  She had a brand new winter coat that had just arrived from Granny, so she was appropriately dressed and had nothing to worry about.

We went outside, and it was very unpleasant.  Gray.  Overcast.  Cold.  Not a soul was out there.  Usually there are people out walking their dogs, and kids playing in their yards, but today the world was deserted.  I said to her, "Don't you see how ridiculous this is?  No one else is out here!"

She giggled and said with satisfaction, "Outside!"

Her facial expression seemed to say, "You were born in Georgia, so we all know that you are a pansy, but i was born in the Frozen Tundra, and this weather is nothing to me."

She took off running down the sidewalk.  Usually she only goes to a certain point and then stops and turns around, but this time she ran all the way down the block.  When we reached the intersection, she turned left and kept going.  We were now in front of our backyard-neighbor's house.  Does that make sense?  The house whose backyard borders mine.  Our backyard-neighbors have a beautiful garden.  These people are real professionals.  I've seen the house's inhabitants from a distance, but we hadn't met yet.  It appeared to be an elderly lady and her grown daughter.

Well wouldn't you know, as we were running past their house, the elderly lady came out the front door!  She was headed out for a walk too.  We finally got the chance to meet each other.  She was very friendly, and said that she enjoyed seeing the BabyGirl play outside.  She said that we could come over anytime, and when the weather is nice the BabyGirl should come play in her yard.

The nice lady set out for her walk, and we turned around to run back towards our house.  The BabyGirl and i continued to play outside for a while, until i was so cold that i couldn't take it anymore.  I dragged her into the house kicking and screaming.  Her cheeks were rudolf-red, her eyes were watering from the cold, and her nose was running, yet she still wanted to stay outside.  She put up a fight as i took of her coat, and she put up a fight as i took of her shoes.

We had been inside for a few minutes when the doorbell rang.  It was the Backyard Neighbor!  She said, "I was wondering if you and your Little One would like to come over and pick some flowers."  Of course we did!  I told the BabyGirl that her wish had been granted, we are going back outside.  We put our shoes and coats back on and jaunted across the backyard.

The Backyard Neighbor had already picked a handful of flowers to give to me, and indicated which area the BabyGirl was allowed to pick from.  Most of them were sad little flowers, who, having already offered their glory to the world, were preparing to succumb to the colder temperatures.  Then the Backyard Neighbor asked if i would like some mint.  My heart stopped in my chest.  Mint?  Did she say mint?

"Oh yes, i have scads of it! I'll never get rid of it before winter."  She handed me an armful.

You don't know this, but her mint was an enormous answer to prayer.  Yes, something as simple as fresh mint was God's gift directly to my heart.  I only hoped i could make it back home before i bawled my eyes out in wonder and amazement.

The part of the story that i haven't told you yet is that our finances have taken a turn for the dire.  Moving from the Big City to the Kingdom of the Cornstalks was costly, and it used up the majority of our emergency fund.  The first two months that we were here, The Professor only got half a paycheck.  And we are still paying the utilities and assessments for our old condo. 

Even now that The Professor is finally getting paid the full amount, we only have $300 per month for all household expenses.  That's $300 for the whole month, that has to be used on everything from toilet paper to groceries to diapers.  Earlier this month, both of our cars broke down, and i'll tell you that the bill was well more than $300.  So suffice it to say that we're broke, and we can't afford most things.

The Professor came across this prayer about relinquishing worldly possessions from A.W. Toser, which has been very meaningful to us:

Father, i want to know Thee, but my coward heart fears to give up its toys.  I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and i do not try to hide from Thee the terror of the parting.  I come trembling, but i do come.  Please root from my heart all those things which i have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival.  Then shalt Thou make the place of Thy feet glorious.  Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there.  In Jesus' Name, Amen.
(The Pursuit of God)

Slowly, and painfully, i am learning to surrender my "wants" to Him.  When an item comes to mind that i absolutely don't have the money for, i have to surrender that item to Him.  Halloween costumes?  Don't have the money for it; give it to the Lord.  Candy to hand out to trick-or-treaters?  Don't have the money for it; give it to the Lord.  Coffee?  Give it to the Lord.  Sunday dress shoes for the BabyGirl?  Give it to the Lord.

And just that day, i had surrendered mint to the Lord.  There was this recipe going around pinterest for a lemonade with fresh mint that i'd been just dying to make.  But fresh herbs are expensive here, and it was too frivolous.  We can't waste money on stuff like that, so i had to give it to the Lord, but He gave it back!  He used the BabyGirl to get me outside so that i could meet my neighbor, who gave me her mint.

It was such a small gift in the grand scheme of things, but it brought me so much encouragement.  It called to mind this verse:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Romans 8:38-39, NIV

The BabyGirl refuses to let anything separate her from the outside, and our Father refuses to let anything separate us from His love.