Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Good to the Last Drop .. Creativity and Savings Come from Eating ALL Your Food



A few years ago I realized that we had a lot of food sitting around.  Things that we had bought and never used.  In the pantry, in the freezer, even some things in the fridge.  A box of pasta that was a shape no one ever seems to want to eat, a can of black eyed peas, 4 hot dog buns, a lot of homemade chicken stock, a bag of frozen broccoli.

I decided that I needed to do something about that waste.

I decided to stop grocery shopping until we ate all the food.

I loved this exercise so much that I do it every couple of months.  Here are just a few of the reasons I fell in love with doing this ...

1. We are not wasting food.
2. We are saving money.
3. We are forced to be really creative in coming up with the random ingredients we have to make up a meal.  Sort of like that old show Ready, Set, Cook!  Or maybe Stone Soup!
4. My kids eat better knowing there is really nothing better that they are going to get at the next meal.
5. We eat less because we eat little random bits of leftovers at some meals instead of creating a whole big new meal.
6. We talk about our food more since the kids want to know what random things they are eating.

We are doing this exercise this week because we are headed out on vacation and I like to leave with a clean fridge.  Tonight I made a fabulous stir fry with a package of sandwich steak, some frozen bok choy, a few limp carrots I found in the crisper, a pepper, the last of the brown rice and the dregs of a bottle of hoisin sauce.  Healthy and creative and my kids gobbled it up.  For lunch today, one daughter had make her own PB&J with saltines and a container of peanut butter and a container of jelly.  The other had a very small serving of leftover pasta.  I split one apple between them and a few carrot sticks.  And breakfast was some pancakes I found in the freezer, yogurt, juice and the last of the fruit.  My husband has been polishing off the soup in our freezer for lunch and I have been trying to finish off the eggs, the cucumbers and an assortment of  random crackers.  The best meal of the week was either the pasta sauce I made out of a few leftover slices of bacon, the rest of the onions, a few tins of anchovies, wilted celery and a can of tomatoes or the scrambled eggs with leftover kale and some sort of cheese.

Tomorrow is going to be a real challenge since I think we are down to yogurt, capers and beer.  But you never know!

YOUR TURN
Don't go grocery shopping for a week!











Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Secret Notes ... A Bond Between Mother and Child



While browsing Pinterest a few months ago I stumbled up on this cute idea from Mama Jenn, a notebook to share messages with your child.

This past Valentine's Day I made two little notebooks for my daughters with little "Mommy & Me" labels.  I wrote a sweet note in each one and left them on their beds.  That night I found the two notebooks on my bed, each with a sweet note.  And we have gone back and forth that way every once in a while.

Then the other night I got a note from my 6 year old.  It said "Thank you so much for believing I was a cat."  And it really touched my heart.  It was such a minor thing in my day that I threw a cat toy for her to chase and reminded her to use the litter box before heading to bed.  But it clearly meant a lot to her and I might have never known.  I love that it is a great place to capture the little sweetnesses of life that might never come up in conversation but pop in our minds when we are quite.

My older daughter is very closed about her feelings and I have already seen that she opens up a lot more on paper than she does in conversation.  So I love that this can be a vehicle for us to share things in a way that feels safe for her.

I love this idea because there is no pressure to do it on a consistent basis.  There is no pressure to write a note right back or to do it every day.

And I love that they can keep these little books forever and look back on them when they are no longer little and remember how special they always were to me.

YOUR TURN
Create a special way to help you and your child share your thoughts and emotions.  A notebook, love letters,  a nightly dinner topic, a shared drawing.  Whatever works best for you.

Monday, March 25, 2013

Passion ... The Root to Compassion


I have been out of sorts the past few weeks .... hand in a cast, horrible pain after having cast removed, a 3 week long illness, week long illnesses for both kids, dance competitions, a breakup, bad weather, getting back to work ... and it has been an excellent time to sort out lots of my limiting beliefs.

Around the time of the Spring Equinox I felt a huge release of all the difficult lessons and felt a beautiful lightness.  And I wrote something in my journal that seemed to neatly sum up all that I had learned over the past few weeks.

Passion is living in the moment and doing it for yourself.  Compassion is embracing another person living in the moment and doing things for themselves.

If you live with passion, you do the things that you love (dance, travel, cooking, etc.) and love the things that you are doing (laundry, bills, today's weather,etc ) in the moment that feels right for you.  And you if you do this with love and confidence, you don't need to explain yourself to anyone.  

If you live with compassion, you embrace other people doing the same, even if you don't agree with what their choices.

In my life, I am thinking about the mom who sends herself on vacation 3 times a year without her kids and my friend who expects her husband to do everything at home after working all day while she runs off to the gym after being home by herself all day reading and the guy in our town who broke into a friend's house.  I think it will be really hard to not pass judgement, to embrace that person when I don't agree with their choices.

But then I think about the father of one of the victims of the Sandy Hook School shooting.  The one who was  so compassionate towards the shooter.  He certainly did not agree with that man's actions but he did not judge.  He was a shining example of compassion and I think he will be my "mentor" as I look to have more in my life.

YOUR TURN:
Think about how much passion you have in your life.  Make some goals for having more.

Think about the people in your life you are judging and  how you might be able to feel compassion for them.  Pick someone as a "mentor" that you can look at to help you find more.