Wednesday

Wednesday:

We are still going strong at the Houser house.  We are lucky to have no teenage boy to eat us out of house and home.  Our meal plan is working, tonight chili and tomorrow hot dogs.  Lunches have been PB&J or leftovers.  Tuna is still available and a fruit and/or veggie goes with every meal.  Popcorn, apples, bananas and boiled eggs are the snacks. 

I had the thought today how the SNAP challenge isn’t really as realistic as possible.  I told my friend no one would take up the challenge if one of the conditions was to not use a car during the week.  Particularly in St Louis, there is no easy public transportation route from here to there.
I also thought about how lucky we are. Finance aside, 61% of SNAP recipients’ income was $14,648 for a family of 3 in 2013.  Our family is truly blessed.

1.     Our family of five (one at college) is headed by two adults, not one.  With both our input, we are able to focus our attention, maybe a bit too much, on our children.  Someone is usually around after school to ask about their day, help with homework and tuck them in.

 

2.     We have books at our house.   As simple as this sounds, some children have not been read to on a regular basis before they enter kindergarten.  This along with the malnutrition puts them behind the eight ball at the age of three.  Both adults in our family have a college education and have impressed upon our children how reading and education is empowering. 

3.     We have a car and I work ten minutes away from home.  We don’t have to plan our lives around the bus schedule.  We don’t have to leave at 5 am to catch a bus that will make countless stops until we hit our destination across town and an hour and a half later.

4.     We have stability in our health care. We can afford our medicine and we go to the doctor on a regular basis.  We have not been limited to public clinics nor emergency rooms.

5.     We have two grocery stores within walking distance of our house.  We are not in a food dessert where produce is sparse and gas stations snacks are our main source of nutrition.

All of this we are blessed with.   If a family is without some of these blessings, the stress can be debilitating.  We have done well in this challenge so far because we bought whole foods that I had to create meal with.  If I was a single mother with a sick child and I lived in a food dessert; I most definitely would not be as diligent as I am this week in making sure I have healthy food to eat.  Survival is enough to deal with.