The Days Seem Longer This Week Somehow...

My husband reflected today.  It feels like Thursday but it is only Tuesday!

Dinner was actually very filling tonight ( sort of a compromise between stir fried and fried rice.  Two of us will eat the left over at lunch time tomorrow).  The week is just moving slowly, cleaning from dinner, preparing lunch, cleaning after breakfast, cleaning the containers we took to lunch.  Preparing the next meal, thinking about the next day.  There is no "convenience" to this food.

Our family is very competitive.  It seems my two teens have misunderstood the word "challenge".  

As we were eating dinner, I shared with the family the rest of the weeks menu:

Wednesday : lentil stew

Thursday : tortillas with black beans and chopped veggies

Friday : Shabbat Chicken and stoemp (a Belgian mashed potato mixed with veggies)

Saturday: Tomato soup and grilled cheese

I explained that I  "eye" the chicken every time I open the fridge and I have been looking forward to Shabbat.  We don't have any wine or grape juice but that's OK…  I also added that I would need to buy some flour and sugar to make Challah and that we were running out of peanut butter.  We only have $14.11 left, and my husband wants to treat it as "emergency coffee" money, in case we run out by friday.

My son interjected that we should not buy those things and we can do Shabbat  without them and without Challah. It could put us over budget and we would loose the challenge.  I explained that the only reward from winning the challenge is the fact that we would know we could make it.  He looked very disappointed. 

"What? We get no reward, no medal, no recognition?"

I can see my daughter wondering why she is eating this oatmeal every morning and the same sandwich at lunch if there is nothing to win from this.

We all realized that the situation was actually pretty funny and burst into laughter.  Competition is in their genes!  It's actually a good thing I did not elaborate on the word "challenge"…they might not have been on board!

Humor aside, there is much to win from this experience:

1. We will be able to donate money we did not use to the food pantry
2. We are more in the moment and are very appreciative of the little things
3. There is some reassurance in knowing that we could get by with less.  We might not eat a diverse diet at every meal but we could survive for a while on a much smaller food budget.  
4. I do not wish a budget like this on anyone and I think it is not enough for people who have no help, work two jobs, or take care of multiple young children.  I can see how they would not have sufficient time and energy to prepare meals this way so they would have to compromise and buy cheap processed food with low nutritional value.

I certainly am more tired at the end of the day.  I was hoping that I could be at the event tomorrow and view the documentary "A Place at the Table" with our community, but I cannot convince our family to go watch  a documentary about food, hunger, or our underfed nation this week.  We are not starving but talk about food is a good share of our conversation.