Shopping

Our ward emergency specialist stood up in church and asked us to go one month without going to the store. He gave us a week to prepare. I knew that even having a week to prepare it was going to be hard. I made a list of the 31 meals that I would make, and then made my shopping list. I divided the list into the 5 weeks, making the meals with the most fresh stuff first. I bought lots of celery, carrots, potatoes, spinach, apples and oranges. I used to have LOTS of snacks in my food storage room, but the kids would just sneak in and eat them all, so I thought it was a waste of money, so I haven't stocked as many. I have went to once a week shopping because the kids just devour all the food and I was sick of having lots for 3 days, and none for the next 11. I told the boys a MILLION times at least that I was sick of being the food police, and if they ate all the snacks it would get really bad later. They didn't listen and I, being the awesome mom I am, just threw my arms in the air and let them eat, knowing that they would learn a tough lesson. Chet and I did amazing with the meals. We had plenty of "meal" food to make dinner every night. We just marked off the meal we had already made and kept going down the list. Snacks were all gone within one week. Luckily I had hid some fruit from Colby (in the garage fridge) so the boys had apples to take to school most of the week.) We did however, run out of a few other things. I did not have any extra dishsoap. And we ran out of body soap. We had some we COULD HAVE used, but we like our normal stuff (Lever 2000) so we went to the half store (WalGreens) and bought some. Somehow we were also short 6 Valentines. I must not be able to do math when I bought them all for them. We still went out on date night and picked up the boys pizza on the way home twice. I never miss my date night, and we made a deal with the boys that they get pizza every other Friday (Don't mess with Friday night traditions!). The boys were rockstars! They were whiny sometimes, and they learned the lesson, but they were so creative. They started making baked potatoes. They were making green smoothies with the spinach and frozen fruit. Carson started cooking. Like cakes and rolls and yummy homemade snacks. They asked for banana bread. They never asked to just go to the store and buy things. I was SOOOOOOO proud of them. After 24 days, I broke. I needed some produce! I went to Walmart, and had the funniest shopping trip ever! I never knew how much my kids love fresh fruits and veggies. They were hillarious!!! I looked like mom of the year! I had a friend tell me once to "Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear (gossip form)!" It was true this day. As I walked up and down our 3 produce isles, my kids were pointing and screaming in delight for everything they saw. They were yelling, "Mom look!!! Watermelon, and oranges, and apples, and peaches!!!" Then we would go to the next isle and they were yelling, "Mom! Peppers! Brocolli, where is the brocolli (Colby is IN LOVE with brocolli! He wants to eat it all day every day and it doesn't stay good very long in the fridge so he had been a little while) Wheres the br... MOM it's lettuce! MOM LOOK!" They were just pointing to everything! I was laughing and all the people around were laughing and telling me what great kids I had. Little did they know, they hadn't had all this fresh stuff for WAY TOO LONG, and that was why they were so excited. I was laughing sooooo hard inside! It has now been 4 days, and my boys are being REALLY careful with the snacks. They portion them out, and eat left overs in the fridge (a new thing they started during this too!) and ask me 1/4 as much as they used to. I am SOOO happy with the results. It was hard at times, but I liked having my meal list, I liked seeing the boys get creative, and I loved learning new things (like did you know you can freeze milk, and it takes at least 3 days for it to defrost in your fridge?) What I disliked the most? That cut out almost all of my socializing! I didn't realize how many people I saw at the store and how much I got to socialize in a month while out and about! As Chet would say, "Kimber was not meeting her quota for words a day!" I am wanting to be much more organized and prepared! It was a fun experiment!