Grocery Day

Today was grocery shopping day.  Samuel and I went, and we went without a meal plan and without a list.  Horror of horrors.  And now I'm looking at what we bought for the next week's meals and I am completely unable to process how any of these things are going to become entrees.

Helphelphelp!

I took pictures.  Because I'm nerdy.

So here's the produce we bought.  Counterclockwise from the bottom left:

A bag of brussels sprouts
3 eggplant
2 tomatoes
A bag of green beans
A 'stew pack' (big thing around here - consists of 2 turnip, a green cabbage, parsnips and carrots)
A bag of yellow onions
A large bunch of collard greens
A bag of oranges
Dill
Garlic
Mushrooms
blueberries
ginger
apples
acorn squash
lemons

The only thing I can think of doing right now is our usual treatment of turnip, which is to cook them with apples.



Meat - but not all of it because I can't get my act together in one picture.  So here's what I bought:

Bacon
Chicken Strips
A roast of beef
tilapia
10 sausages.  They were on sale. 
Beef heart

Random *stuff*

Plain yogurt
Sour cream

Cheese (old cheddar)

pickles

olive oil

some canned beets.

Passion Orange Guava juice.

Bagels

Stuff that was still in the fridge that somehow needs to be incorporated into meals.

A head of cauliflower

2 sweet potatoes
a yam

celery

2 eggs
A container of egg

Arugula

There's also frozen pre-soaked beans in my freezer, and an assortment of little ends of frozen veggies.  There's a can of tuna, and one of chickpeas.  A few potatoes.  Rice.  Lentils, but not very many.  Plenty of spices.

I think the juice will become popsicles.  I plan to roast the cauliflower to make a snack for the children, and they'll also eat a lot of blueberries, pickles and oranges as snack food.  I have cheerios, so likely they'll have those for breakfast, or I might make pancakes with the eggs, or hot cereal with oats or maybe hot rice.

What on earth do I feed people this week?

Sky

Linking up with Cari for Theme Thursday - The Sky!  (I'm lazy, and today's sky is boring, so you're going to get lots of previously-taken photos)

1.  A perfectly blue sky always actually makes me a bit uneasy; I like a bit of cloud to ruin the stifling ideal.  This is the CN Tower in Toronto, taken in spring 2009, when David and I lived in the big city.  I vividly remember the vertigo I felt standing and looking up.

2.  Now we're going back to the summer of 2008.  These next two pictures were taken on our honeymoon.  The first one I've shared before, but the second is a favourite of mine.  Do you see the circling bird?

3.  Now we're going to go about four years into the future - to the fall of 2012.  I took this picture of migrating geese while Samuel and I were visiting a cattle farm outside of town.  It's hard for me to think that the bird above was photographed in such a very different time of life than the ones below.

And here's one that Samuel took!  Just a few weeks ago, with my camera.

Worst Baby Name Ever

There you go, right in between Fuchsia and Frythe, in the 'girls' section of the baby name book, is Fructuose.  Are you serious?

Books, steak, church.



Lunch.  Steak and mushroom pie covered in phyllo pastry. 


Yesterday David and I spent some time getting our letter to the district typed up and sent to the superintendent.  This is the internship proposal that will get reviewed by prospective churches, who will then decide whether or not they want our family to come and intern at their church.  It's all very overwhelming and I'm glad the letter is sent, but also nervous now about the next step.

Finished reading Three Cups of Tea, finally.  Now I have to get One Thousand Gifts wrapped up so I can dig into the pile of books lent to me by a friend.  First up:  The Christian Atheist.

And now, to the melodious sound of crying children, I am going to get dressed and bring several large bags of clothing to the Salvation Army drop off and out. of. my. house.

A Few Of My Favourite Things...

:: Packages done up and ready to be sent.  One to L.ubango, Angola via Ottawa and one to S.kopje, Macedonia via Ohio.  I'm taking advantage of furloughs to get stuff to missionary friends.  *wink*

Nicely decorated by just the best artist I know.

Giving Things Away.

It's hard to give away 100 things.  I'm being very broad in my definition of single items because, well, I just am.  It's really more because of how anal retentive I am than anything else - I had a conversation in my head that went something like this:

Amy:  "K.  We're a-gonna give stuff away!"
Amy:  "Um.  Yeah.  About that - HOW precisely are we calculating this?"
Amy:  "Shut up, please and thank you."
Amy:  "So we're counting every item?"
Amy:  "Can we guesstimate?"
Amy:  "No we cannot."
Amy:  "Fine.  Alright.  What if we count every item."
Amy:  "Even a pair of baby socks."
Amy:  "Even a pair of..what?  No.  Those can group."
Amy:  "Group?  Seriously?  Girl..."
Amy:  "Ohmyheavens.  Alright.  We count groups of items."
Amy:  "Like, by recipient?"
Amy:  "JUST GIVE IT AWAY."
Amy:  "Alright, so what we're going to do is group by date of giving."
Amy:  "Fine.  Wait.  What if I have multiple recipients in one day?"

This is probably the point you jumped to when you realized several sentences back that I was actually going to type out a dialogue I had with myself.  In my own head.  For real. 

I'm up to item #10, which if I was counting actual items would be around item 40, I'm guessing, but we're not counting actual items, we're counting times I've given things away.  So if you come to my house, and I force you to take a box of boy's clothes and five commentaries on Mark and my second Swiffer and four cassette tapes - then I've given away one thing.  This means I am one tenth of the way to my goal, and I'm feeling good about it.  I have a bag of clothing to go to the Salvation Army box, two pairs of winter boots for a little boy nearby, a few more baby supplies for a friend who's expecting, and a box of cloth diapers to send to my sister - but at some point I know it's going to get harder.  Right now I'm still just getting rid of stuff that I can completely manage without.  But at some point we're going to have to really start thinning stuff out.

I'm all giddy about it, though.  I love the idea of clean, linear, empty space.  Space not filled with stuff.  Ahhh....linen closets that close.  Bookshelves that are filled neatly with books!  SHOES IN CLOSETS!  I know.  It's just that exciting!  I tried to purge (well, I DID purge, actually) when we moved from the apartment to our house a few months ago, but even so we still have too much stuff.  I remember being on the phone with my mother, discussing towels.  I carefully outlined all of the towel options available to us, folded on my bed, and then asked her which ones to get rid of.  "I think they're all useful" she said.  And this is clearly where I get it from, folks.  I tossed a few towels away, the really bad ones, and then just packed and moved the others, stacking them neatly on the top shelf of the linen closet.  You know - I have never used the towels on the bottom.  Never.  I pull one off the top, use it, hang it up, use it again, wash it, and it gets back into place without me ever having made it down the stack of towels.  I could get rid of a dozen towels and still have enough.

What I Wore Sunday

David is home this Sunday!  We can go to church as a family!  No one is vomiting!

It's the little things that make a day great, ya know?

I'm always late to the game with the FLAP ladies simply because of our Sunday schedule.  We wake up at 7am, get everyone ready (which usually takes about 2 hours, give or take) including packing bags for the day.  Then we walk to church, a trip of around 30-45 minutes depending on the weather.  Church is finished around noonish, at which point we chat with people for a few minutes and then dress and load everyone up again and head back out to walk to our minister's house to attend our small group, again   a walk of around 30 minutes.  Once there we all eat lunch and the children go off and play/nap while we adults converse.

At some point, usually around 3 or so, small group is over and we gather up the kids and walk home again.  By the time we get back Samuel (who doesn't nap on Sundays) has walked for around 2 hours and is grouchy and tired.  Clara has napped only in the stroller, and David and I had sore feet and tired eyes since we've been going since 7am.





 

What we're wearing...

I laid out the children's clothing this morning and, surprise surprise, they are in all second hand duds.

I'm wearing a green pinstriped Ralph Lauren skirt (brand new!) that I found at a thrift store.

My green sweater is second hand.

The orange cropped jacket is thrift store.

(This post is late - but linked up anyway to Fine Linen And Purple)