First Days

The upside of this challenge is that I can ease into it, and I spent months preparing for its execution. Consequently, the last three days have not tossed too many hurdles our way. Our house is still full of holiday junk foods, and our pockets are still flowing with gift cards. We haven't felt too challenged...yet. Having said that, on Sunday I was tasked with providing Grammy's birthday cake. Given all of my "to-dos" (that rarely seem to get done no matter the circumstances,) I was not too enthusiastic about baking a German chocolate cake from scratch. Nevertheless, B pulled up his stool and we got to work. After all, buying anything pre-made is not on the agenda for the year. Admittedly, what we created was FAR superior to anything we could have purchased at the local grocery store bakery.

The only other real challenge was when Ryan wanted lunch. You see, he eats out every day with his work buddies, so on the weekends our house is always void of his favorites. (I can't even get him to tell me what those are...) On a "normal" weekend we may have packed up the family and headed off to Freebird's. Yum. I'm craving it already. But we couldn't. We had to find something to eat at home. Ryan, already disgruntled with my fanaticism, pouted and ate PB&J for lunch on Sunday. Of course, this catapulted us into a "discussion" about how his jelly would be replaced. I'll take care of it, Honey...but you'll never get that brand again. Red dye will kill you (kind of.) Monday I was able to produce some nice round steak, cornbread, and salad for lunch, so no more complaining. (Of course I was the only one to eat the salad.)

Minor challenges so far.

Yesterday I used my last disposable coffee filter. Today I had to use this...
It is a reusable filter that I will have to wash daily. One more thing to add to my list, right? I'm curious to know if I can wash this cloth in the dishwasher.

I have three goals for the week:

1. stay out of the grocery store
2. eat all of the produce from our food share (this will be VERY difficult...more to come on that)
3. plant garlic...on Saturday (this doesn't come in our food share, but I will probably die without garlic)