Coming up on finals week!

My posting might be a little less frequent in the next week and a half or so as I get ready for finals week. When I'm finished with this term, I will have a lot more time for household things and hopefully more time to take breaks for myself. If I don't take care of me, my whole family suffers for it. I'm learning that as wonderful as it is to be selfless and to serve my family, if I am doing too much, I don't have the energy or good attitude to give them what they need. I'm getting really excited for this break from classes. There are a lot of things I'm looking forward to doing this Spring, especially delving into gardening, which I'll be blogging about along the way.

As for this week, I went to Gleaner's on Monday as planned. March is Count the Value month at Gleaner's. For 4 weeks, we've been asked to write down everything we get and estimate the value for each item, as well as note what we spent on groceries outside of the program. This should be a breeze for me since I'm already writing everything down. David and I were having fun the other night figuring out how much each item was worth since he has a bar code scanner app on his smartphone. We were able to scan and get prices for about half of the items we picked up. I had picked up a pair of Danner boots for David for work (they donate returned boots to Gleaner's) and they were brand new! They were perfect for work, all-black, and even still had the paper stuffed inside them from the shoe store. David looked them up online and they were $160 boots. What a blessing! In the past, we've had to put his work shoes on the credit card and pay interest on them for several months. I'm so thankful that we have been given the opportunity to use this amazing program. It is really changing our way of life. Here's what else we got this week:

Gleaner's trip
18 month jammies for William (still looking for a couple more 12 month jammies)
16 oz sour cream
1 block margarine
16 oz cottage cheese
1 veggie pizza from Pizza Hut
3 pieces of sidewalk chalk for the girls
1 banana cake for the freezer
1 pkg frozen mixed veggies
1 box beef taquitos
9 pieces of whole wheat flatbread
1 box cajun stew mix (just add meat)
1 bag green leaf lettuce
4 artichokes!
1 lg papaya
1 box fruit snacks (for potty training treats)
21 oz. grape tomatoes
1 box snack crackers
30 oz tropical trail mix (special helper item for the month)
1 bag natural veggie stix snacks
1 bag Fritos
1 pkg whole wheat english muffins
6 sesame hoagie rolls
26 oz strained tomatoes
6 sodas
10 doughnuts
1 box Tuxedo crackers
plum pudding
1 can organic cream of celery soup
1 carton Second Nature eggs (mostly whites)

I'll be going to Safeway tonight for WIC things and a few other items. One thing I was really pleased about is that our natural gas bill was about $10 lower this month just from using the new water faucet attachments and taking 5-minute showers. Our electric bill was still up there higher than I would like, but once I figure out the line-drying situation, it should go down by quite a bit.

Tuesday's Tasties
B: Cinnamon Raisin Oatmeal
L: Veggies with ranch dip, crackers, grapes, and cottage cheese.
D: Chicken vegetable soup with cheese breadsticks from the freezer. The soup turned out really good.



Chicken & Cabbage Soup
1/2 lb cooked, shredded chicken (from freezer)
1 small head purple cabbage, chopped
4 small summer squash, sliced
2 cups frozen carrot & green bean mix
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1 med onion, diced
1 can organic diced tomatoes, undrained
3 red potatoes, diced
5-6 tsp better than bouillon chicken base
7 cups water
1/2 tsp celery salt
1/2 tsp dill weed
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp dried parsley

I threw it all in the pot together and simmered it for about 45 minutes to an hour.

Wolf-it-Down Wednesday
B: Scrambled eggs, sliced oranges, and whole wheat english muffins with butter and honey. When the girls finished their food, we shared some maple bars.
L: Leftover soup with buttered whole wheat flatbread.
D: Ham and baked potato soup topped with cheese and sour cream.