Is It Monday Again???

This weekend flew by. The boys were typical overactive and rambunctious boys and kept us hopping! So, with no more than a blink of an eye, here I am back at Monday again! Today's post may be kind of long, so hold onto your hats!

I had to attend a nutrition class today as part of a new WIC program. For those who do not know, WIC (Women, Infants and Children) is a food program geared to help out low income families and feed young children healthy food. They have made some major changes in the food packages we receive each month and have instituted mandatory nutrition classes every three months. It wasn't a big deal, only a 30 minute class. Today they talked about Fiber and how important it can be. I honestly did not learn anything new but several other women int he class seemed to. So, it is a good thing!

The new food package that we recived today was great! It includes a choice of 3 of the following: Fresh fruits and vegetables (choice of bags of apples, oranges, sweet potatoes or carrots) and canned fruit and vegetables (choice of 2 cans of diced tomatoes, green beans, peaches and pears, maybe more) , a choice of either whole wheat bread, brown rice or tortillas, a choice of cheese (American, string, Cheddar and others), a choice of cereals (grits, oatmeal and various healthy cold cereals) a choice of peanut butter or dried peas or beans, shelf stable milk, eggs and juices. They only had apples available this month for fresh fruits, though.

So, we get a food package for each of the boys. We ended up with two cases of milk, enough apple juice concentrate to make about 4 gallons of juice, 8 juice boxes, a package of string cheese, a package of American slices, 2 cartons of eggs, 6 boxes of Kashi Mighty Bites cereal (LOVE this!), 2 bags of apples, 2 cans of green beans, 2 cans of diced tomatoes, 2 cans of peaches, 2 cans of pears, 2 jars of peanut butter, 2 bags of brown rice and 2 loaves of whole wheat bread. I felt like I had gone shopping! What a great blessing WIC is to our family. Honestly, it is so helpful when it comes to stretching our grocery budget. Next month, I plan to get more fresh veggies and fruits rather than canned. And more bread since that is generally more expensive to buy than rice is.

Anyway. If you or someone you know is pregnant, breastfeeding or has a child under 5 years old, WIC can be helpful. It never hurts to apply! Not everyone who receives WIC is low income, some people have other risk factors that make them eligible.

So, after I finished with my WIC appointment, I did my menu planning. I have NO money to do any shopping this week. AT all. So, everything on this week's menu has to be made from things in my pantry and freezer. Hopefully it all turns out wonderfully!

Monday - Pork Chops with Creamy Orzo

Tuesday - Homemade baked beans with whole wheat biscuits

Wednesday - Spaghetti Pie and salad

Thursday - Curried Beef and Apple Couscous

Friday - Leftovers

Saturday - Red Beans and brown rice with Cajun sausage


I am participating in the 30-Day Encouragement Challenge over at Laughing Family. It is a challenge geared towards enhancing and enriching a marriage. As part of the challenge, I am supposed to say no negative things about my husband for the next 30 days. And am also supposed to say one positive thing about AND to him each day. I will be posting a positive message about my husband here on the blog each day that I blog over the next month. Since so many of my posts do complain about him and his foibles, I figured it was only fair to share the good things as well!

So, today's Encoragement is: I love that my husband will eat whatever I put in front of him! He never complains, he never turns his nose up and he rarely eats only one serving of anything I cook! This is a wonderful thing for me as I learn to cook new foods and experiment with recipes that do not always turn out as I anticipate! Thank you, honey, for always being willing to be my guinea pig!