Meal Planning

Ugh, I am not sailing into this school year smoothly. I feel the weight of the impending schedule that is taking effect this week and it's causing some massive anxiety. Which means I try to ignore the fact that it's happening and procrastinate. I am not feeling very prepared, even though I know I am probably more prepared than I think I am. But I wanted the house perfectly clean and organized before the school year began. That didn't happen. Oh well. Let it go.

My days are going to be a little more complicated this school term since I am taking classes on campus (far, far away) and also doing internship #1 of 2. Even though I'm not feeling super prepared, I decided to take one thing out of the equation for myself. I'm giving the meal planning duties to someone else. Meaning, there will actually BE a meal plan every week because I'm paying for it.

I signed up for eMeals today on the Gluten Free Family plan. The best deal is a 12-month subscription at $5 per month (paid all at once), but I wanted a shorter term commitment in case it just didn't work for us. So I went with the 3-month plan at $7 per month (also paid all at once). That will get us through this fall school term and we can see where we stand from there. If it makes things super easy and we're trying new meal ideas that we love, then we'll continue. If it doesn't make a huge difference in things, we'll probably give it up.

Now, I normally don't do anything like this. I'm of the opinion that there are many, MANY resources for recipes out there and you can just make your own darn meal plan each week. Except if you're like me, it will take you two hours for one stinking meal plan because you can't decide what you want to make/eat, and then you'll "forget" to meal plan one week and spend every night eating pasta and sandwiches - which doesn't really work when you have a family member allergic to gluten. Note to self: Hungry husbands are not happy husbands.

So why did I choose to sign up for eMeals? One: It's recommended by Dave Ramsey. I like him and I like his financial ideas. Two: I spoke to many people who had actually used it, and heard nothing but good things. Three: Based upon everything I've read and heard, it should simplify not only our meal planning, but also our grocery budget. From the people I've spoken to about it, everyone raved about saving at least $200 per month on groceries. That.Is.Awesome.

Here's hoping it works the way I need it to. And maybe my kids will learn to love something other than grilled cheese sandwiches.

Be Back Soon

I know, I know, it's been two months+ since my last post here. If anyone actually reads this thing (but if not, that's ok because it's really more for my own documentation anyway), just know that I will be back soon. I have many things to share! 

A few weeks after my last post in June, I realized that I was slacking on the blog front and instead of stressing myself out about it, I would simply live out the summer having fun with my kids. They go back to school in one week and I'm loving every minute I spend with them. Once they go back, I'll blog again - regularly. So don't give up on me!

Simplifying Our Food

Some might argue that trying to eat healthier and buying local isn't the most "simple" thing to do. That it requires more work and planning, and is therefore generally more complicated. But when putting in that little bit of extra work and planning allows me to reduce the amount of stress over what my family is putting into our bodies....well, that's worth it.

We live in Oregon, right on the edge of a huge farming community (we can smell the cows when the wind blows the right way, so you know we're close!). We are surrounded with farmer's markets and the actual farms within a stone's throw of our neighborhood. When we have that available to us, it's just silly to not take advantage of it.

But to be honest, we've lived for almost eight years now and it's just been within the last year that we've begun to worry about the food we eat. My asthma and migraines were getting worse, my husband and I both began to have some weight issues, and suddenly we were developing food sensitivities and allergies. By November of last year, gluten began to make my husband quite ill and I could barely eat any dairy. It was obvious that something had to change.

Fast food and soda was completely cut out of our diet, getting rid of the "pounding heartbeat" issues I'd been experiencing. My asthma problems were reduced, and my migraines went from two per week to once a month. My husband lost eight pounds. And our bank account was a lot happier.

Since then we've planted locally grown organic veggie and herb starts in a small space in our front yard. It cost $150 to purchase them organic, but we have the peace of mind of knowing where they came from and how they were started. And we are going to have LOTS of vegetables over the summer. It has been amazing to be able to simply step out of my front door and grab some fresh herbs to include in my cooking.

Because of my husband's gluten allergy, I started purchasing items from our grocery store's gluten free section which is the middle of the organic section. Because of that, I've been buying more organic food. And you know what? It tastes good. Gone are the days when the health food tastes like animal feed (my mom went hippie in the 90s and oh, the healthy organic food then was disgusting!). I'm buying real cheese from the artisan cheese section, instead of the mass produced packaged stuff. I'm still and probably always will be lactose intolerant, but my reaction to dairy products isn't severe like it was with the cheese that may or may not have been real.

We're eight months in to our attempt to eat better and I now crave the healthier food instead of junk food. I still let my kids get junk food from time to time because I believe that banning it entirely is going to make it more appealing to them. But when they do choose some junk food, they now almost never finish it. They'll eat a few bites and then ask for fruit. Parenting success! We ended up being in a situation a few weeks ago where our only option for immediate food was fast food. The kids were excited because it hadn't happened in a LONG time. But what ended up happening was that we were all sick for two days because of it. My oldest missed a day of school because he had to run to the bathroom every ten minutes. To me, that makes it quite obvious that what's in that "food" is junk and is not meant to be in our bodies.

Now that GMOs and additives and artificial coloring are getting more and more attention, it doesn't take very long to realize that a lot of what we eat in this country is garbage. And I just don't want to feed any of that to my family. It really is as simple as that.