Food for People Not for Profit

I had a tshirt that said that once.

I am crunching numbers. There are financial changes afoot for my family this fall and Bill and I are trying to stay ahead of the changes. One of the things that we were looking at is our food bill. I mean, we feed eight people, so yeah, the food bill is big. Well, huge really. And it's hard for me to judge how much is too much. So I did some research.

I found this site from the USDA which I love. (Click on the hyperlink to bring up the chart.)

$134 to feed a family of four for a week?! For real?!

And then I found a link to a sample menu plan that is based on the USDA food guidelines and can bring my weekly food bill to $134. (I figured $112, but that doesn't account for our family of 5 and the meals that kids eat at school, etc. I am going to figure this out next week though.) Now, the USDA food guidelines is not a group of nurtitionists, it is a group of food producers. There are a LOT of bread products and dairy products and orange juice in this menu plan. I am NOT serving white bread and white rice, as suggested by the menu plan I found. But for the rest of it, I figure, what the heck, I mean, one week of orange juice every morning and milk a couple times a day will not hurt us. And a $134 weekly grocery bill would not hurt us at all!

So, next week - the blogging of a thrifty USDA mother in a household of five.

If I Knew You Were Comin'

I woulda had Mary and Frank make you a cake!

Lots has changed this summer.

I am reminded how much everyone is changing. Hannah registering for college. Anna old enough for a learner's permit. Claire too old for a "child" ticket at the movies.

We bought a family swim pass as usual, and for the first summer in four years we really have not seen the necessity. We have prodded the children to the pool a couple of times, but it has not been worth it. Bill and I agreed that next year we would not buy a season pass and just pay as needed.

And yet the library has always and continues to be a hit. I am pleased to have children who love to read. I come home from work frequently and find them reading quietly.

I also come home because they are playing circus and dressed in tutus with stuffed animals in chair "cages" and trapeze lines strung between the bunk beds. They call me frantically because Frank "The Amazing Escapo" has been tied to a chair and no one can untie him. I also come home to find them playing "Azkaban" with children locked in their rooms with skeleton keys as one child, the "Dementor," patrols the hall in a sheet, wielding the keys to the various bedrooms.

I am impressed and horrified by their imaginations. (I remember that my favorite game as a child was "Holocaust." It was an elaborate game of tag. One team the "Nazis" and the other the "Jews." The Nazis were obviously always "It" and the Jews hid. We were extraordinarily resourceful. I remember Terry propping himself in the laundry chute between the first floor and basement to hide.) Yes, I am happy that they are playing games rather than mind-numbingly watching game shows. Or even worse, getting into fights and screaming and calling me when things get to the point that I can't even understand the problem until I leave work and drive home and discover that the problem is that someone ate all the macaroni and cheese. (OMG!!!!)

But sometimes, the kids who frustrate me by playing dangerous make believe games that could hurt someone, or who rot their brains watching TV, or claim they are bored because there is "nothing to do," do something really amazing. Like make a cake and frosting from scratch since their step-sisters are coming home from their grandparents. The peaches? Were their own addition.

In retrospect I really can't believe that I was surprised about who wanted to see the movie "Julie and Julia" with me. As a blogger, I loved the book. I invited Anna to go with me, but she preferred to stay at home. Mary and Frank expressed interest, which I had not expected. I kind of reluctantly took them, thinking that they would be bored. But they loved the cooking scenes (the newlywed scenes, not so much, but they were discrete and ok).

I love that I can trust my kids to bake and use the oven and follow a recipe (or make reasonable deviations - the peaches are what make this cake truly amazing to me).

Welcome home, Claire and Sophia!

Three Minutes of Hot Water for Fifty Cents

I didn't make them shower. They spent three glorious days in swim suits with bare feet eating food cooked over a fire. They fished and swam and hiked. We read books and sat up late watching the campfire.





I am "from" Fremont in that I lived there longer than anywhere else in my childhood. I remember summers on my bike riding all over town and out to the lakes. Although I spent a lot of time at the lakes, I never camped out there. I had no idea that the showers were coin operated.

"But Mooooooom, we're just going to go swimming again! I don't need a shower!"



My car smells like a fishy campfire, there is a pile of laundry to wash and my car needs to be vacuumed badly. Sometimes I think that a trip to Disneyworld would be easier, but I am sure that it would not be more fun.