Psalm 121

"I lift up my eyes to the hills - where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip - he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep."

This week has been hard for many reasons. Partly because we're living in a rental house with half of our things in storage. Partly because I am sinful and my children are sinful...and well, that just makes for some long days sometimes. Partly because I miss my family. Partly because I am overwhelmed by all the decisions I have to make for our new house. Partly because I have GOT to get things organized for Women's Ministries at church and that is always a challenge for me.

Anyway, today I took the kids to the park to play with Cury and Praja and I was talking to Angie about some of this. On the way home these verses just popped into my head. It was just a reminder that I am not doing all this on my own, my GREAT and AWESOME and POWERFUL God is my help. He does not even sleep because he is watching over ME! I don't have to muster up my own strength to be a perfect mom and wife and Women's Ministry coordinator. The same God who made Heaven and earth is my help.

We have a hole!

Finally! Our basement is being dug. We went and checked it out last night.

Pantry challenge: Day 6 and 7

Day 6

Breakfast:

Cereal

Lunch:

Baked potatoes with cheese and bacon bits. As a child I LOVED eating baked potatoes for supper, but since I have a husband who doesn't like potatoes I rarely cook them. I had bought some a few weeks back because I got a 5lb bag for only .86 cents! I was surprised that my kids both really loved them.

Dinner:

Chicken fajitas. I took all the leftover chicken from Sunday and added in some onions and peppers from our garden.

Day 7

Breakfast

....I cannot remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday...Hannah had a bagel with cheese. I know we were out of milk so I didn't have cereal. Well for all I know I completely forgot to eat breakfast yesterday, it's just been one of those weeks!

Lunch:

Fajita nachos.

Dinner:
Grilled tuna sandwiches, cucumbers and rice

We did it! We survived our pantry challenge, and I think we ate surprisingly well. Of course we didn't have the variety of foods we normally do but we weren't eating mac-n-cheese every meal either.

I actually learned quite a lot from this little challenge. I am BLESSED! I sometimes spend my time complaining about the food that I can't afford to buy instead of seeing the abundance that God has given us! It also taught me to think about my meals before I prepare them. Every time I would use an ingredient, like an egg, I would think through how it would affect my meal planning for the rest of the week. I'm also very thankful for our garden, that thing was a life saver!

I will make a little confession though--my husband did stop by the store at the beginning on my challenge to grab some milk. While I did have powdered milk on hand, I remember drinking that nasty stuff as a kid and would rather "cheat" then make my kids drink it.

Anyway, I'm really glad I took the challenge and it's probably something we'll be doing more of. It saved the time and hassle of going to the store and I also have $75 bucks in my pocket. Let me know if any of you decide to do it, I'd love to hear how it goes.

Pantry challenge: Day five - breakfast day

Breakfast: Cinnamon bread....yet again. I do love that stuff but I also need a little variety in my diet. I think Hannah and I will make some banana muffins for tomorrow... oh wait, I'm out of flour...nevermind.

Lunch: Cereal. Hannah thought it was SO fun to eat Golden Grahams and Multi-grain cheerios for lunch. We watched a home movie in the morning and made popcorn so we weren't that hungry at lunch.

Afternoon snack: Granola bars

Dinner: Sausauge, egg and cheese bagel sandwiches. We also had some green grapes left so we ate those as well.




After dinner we went swimming in the pool and of course when we got back Hannah was "starving". So, what did she request for snack time. Cereal. Apart from the morning snack of popcorn we truly did eat breakfast all day!

Pantry challenge: Day three and four

Day three

Breakfast: Cinnamon bread. Hannah and I had fun making that on Saturday

Lunch: Grilled chicken, vegetables and biscuits



Dinner: Party at a friends house...I lucked out again. I did make some almond sugar cookies to bring along.


Day four

Breakfast: Cinnamon Bread

Lunch: leftover lasagna, vegetables and biscuits. Let me take a second here to tell you how I feel about leftovers. I don't like them. But, wasting food is wasting money so I have been trying to eat our leftover food before I make new dishes, and I can honestly say it is saving money.

Dinner: Salad and Pizza sandwiches




We also ate green grapes and pretzels for snack time today at the pool.

So far so good, 4 days down only 3 to go.

Pantry challenge: Day two

Breakfast: Blueberry pancakes with boysenberry syrup

Lunch: leftover burgers and brats.

Dinner: BBQ Pork Sandwiches. We actually got invited over to a friends house for dinner so it saved me from having to make a meal myself. Although, we thought we should contribute some food for the meal so my natural reaction was to just swing by the store on the way and grab some chips and dip...but then I remembered I can't go shopping. Hannah and I had just finished making a batch of cinnamon bread so we brought that over along with some vegetables from our garden.

So, another successful day without a trip to the grocery store. I have to say so far this has been a lot easier then I thought.