Because of our upcoming move we are going on a spending freeze for the month of September!Like most all families, there have been hard months for us of course. I remember the first month I stayed home when we went from 2 incomes to 1, (and we had added a child), Adam called and said, "We have $80, do not spend another dime!"
Well we all are forced to spend-no-more-or-else at some time, but this is an on purpose financial freeze. We want to wisely save as much as we can in the next 4 weeks, so we can use the money we save in other areas.
While moving this month, we know things are going to pop up that need fixing or replacing. Could be a little, could be a lot, and we want to be prepared.
And we don't want something to arise in which we have to say, "Oh, no, we just spent all our extra money.. cannot buy light bulbs this month."
We also want to have the house cleaned professionally. This is not for everyone, but our new house was built in 1965 and has been setting empty for 15 months. I do not have the energy to pack our house, then clean our new house and unpack our new house. I know my limits and I am willing to save in some areas to spend in this area.
AND *nerd alert* the first week of Oct is one of our family traditions- eating dinner at the Tulsa State Fair. For us, it is about the food, not the rides, but this dinner is worth saving for!
We plan to do this in many ways. One is by only eating at home for the month. No lunches out for Adam at work, no lunch out after church for the family, no purchasing little odds/ends that we need, a total and complete freeze. We obviously will have to buy gas, and if I can get away with not buying more milk, fruit or veggies, I will be able to stay away from shopping all-together. We are also cancelling cable and made the switch to using minute cell phones instead of a plan. (Wow that savings was a shocker.) I am so curious about how much we will save not buying one single thing this month?? Have you ever done this?
Here is our menu for the month. I have never done a monthly menu before, I usually do every 2 weeks worth of groceries/menu, but it seemed necessary to take inventory of what we had and go with it.
Our menu does not include two daily snacks, veggies with meals or the usual morning fruit shake. Nor does this include our sweets. We plan on a few of these things: Puppy chow, homemade ice cream, nutella on anything, baked cinnamon apples and baklava.
Most items are homemade (like pizza pockets, sandwich bread or waffles from scratch), a few things are packaged, like the cheese ravioli. But in general, we shoot for scratch. (Maybe that is the title for my future food blog- Shoot for Scratch. Hmmm. We mainly to this to be healthy and for better taste.)
Menu:
1. Oatmeal- Cheese Nachos w/beans- Eggplant Parm
2. Quiche- Grilled cheese- Crock Pot Green chicken wraps
3. Biscuits and gravy- grilled chicken salad- pizza pockets (freeze 1/2)
4. Donuts*- pulled pork (freeze 1/2)- pasta w/cauliflower
5. Oatmeal- Eggrolls and rice- Baked potato w/ chili (freeze 1/2)
6. Pancakes- Pressed Sandwiches- Coconut chicken
7. Cereal- beanie weenies- Sum Hop Day @ Incredible Pizza*
8. Banana bread- Sandwiches-Lasagna (freeze 1/2)
9. P.B. Granola bars- Ravioli- Leftover Thursday Dinner
10. Eggs and sausage- Cucumber sandwiches- sloppy joes
11. Waffles- Chicken Salad- Ham and Egg breakfast for dinner
12. Greek yogurt w/fruit- Mac & Cheese w/fish-sticks- Jambalaya
13. Quiche- Leftover Lunch- Sundried Tomato Pasta
14. Cereal- Grilled Cheese- Chicken and Dumplings
15. Oatmeal- Ramen- Tacos
16. Breakfast pizza- Veggie lunch- Leftover Thursday
17. Waffles- Grilled chicken- Chili
18. Yogurt parfait- Pigs in a blanket- Chicken Tikki
19. P.B. Toast w/honey- Egg and Sausage biscuits- Nacho Bar
20. Banana muffins- leftover lunch- Turkey Burgers
21. Pancakes- Bean burritos- Cornbread w/ ham and beans
22. Breakfast pizza- Tuna sandwich- Spaghetti w/ turkeyballs
23. French Toast- Chicken Casadillas- Leftover Thursday
24. Cereal- Pulled pork- Chicken pot pie
25. Fruit salad- bacon wrapped chicken- Baked potato soup
26. P.B. Granola Bars- Can soup lunch- Ranch chicken and carrots
27. Egg and Bacon- Leftover lunch- Naan Pizzas
28. Cereal- Ramen- Lasagna
29. Waffles- pizza pockets- Pot stickers
30. Oatmeal- Beanie weenies- Leftover Thursday
*There are two things on this menu that we are going out for... it is the donuts and Incredible Pizza. My father is coming into town from Atlanta to meet Miss Beautiful and see our new house. We have a (once a month) family tradition of Saturday morning donuts. We may go ahead and do this with him, not sure. We want too celebrate, yet want to do the whole month too. But her Sum Hop Day (Avi Joy's fourth Forever family day) must be celebrated. She has chosen I.P. the last 3 years.
In making this menu I realized many things about us. We eat a lot of chicken for one and there is not too much variety in ways of fish/seafood and I can see we love breakfast foods!
I also do not cook with red meat. I use varieties of turkey instead. Turkey hot dogs, turkey sausage, Italian turkey, turkey pepperoni for the pizza pockets... all very good!
Beautiful made a fun calendar for us to X off each day. I already look forward to that!
A countdown to moving and a daily reward for saving.
And since we are on a new kick, here is a picture of something new. Think this is in another country?? No, sadly, this idol has been newly built, 3 miles from my current house. It is built between the Hindu temple and Buddhist temple right next to where we take Vietnamese lessons. I could see it a mile away. Made my heart so sad.
"But their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men.They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but they cannot see; they have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but they cannot smell; they have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but they cannot walk; nor can they utter a sound with their throats. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them." Psalm 115: 4-8
The Perryman's
5 comments:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guan_Yin
Aw shucks, The Goddess of Mercy is harmless. It's your vengeful God who gives me the hibijibi.
"Leviticus 26:30
I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you."
"Numbers 33:52
drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. Destroy all their carved images and their cast idols, and demolish all their high places."
I'm so excited to hear the results of your freeze. BTW, Miss Beautiful is just that. Big changes for your family and much needed because it's right where God has you to be. AND, I would pay to have that monstrosity of a house cleaned!!! Congrats!!!!
Transcendental Neon Blob, that is not the God I serve. The Bible has the law of doubles and you must rightly divide the Word. There are verses elsewhere that will also show the flipside of the ones you quoted. The Bible can be difficult to understand, but the one thing I know is my life has never been better since truly knowing the God of Heaven and Earth. I think what the author was saying is she feels sad for others who have bought into the whole idols business. I feel the same way. I hope you can truly delve into the correct meanings of the Bible and understand Jewish history so these verses would not be taken out of context.
Amanda, I'm glad you've found a higher power from which sprang justifiable attributes of your being so sated spiritually. I fear however, the God of the Abrahamic tradition delves so deep within realms of the metaphysical so as to be beyond the grasps of my mortal comprehension. I will not be disagreeable with you in regards to whether “He” exists or not, because frankly, I don't know.
Ah, that is the mark of an agnostic, you say. Then yes, I am an agnostic.
I'm more than willing to tell a perfect stranger there is an energy in this universe, a profound spark of light if you will, which can coils itself within a dog-eared Bible in a foul smelling motel room with cigarette burns in the bed sheets, and that such force can also manifests itself in the form of an elephant headed deity, or a stars filled sky on the Texas plain.
I believe to be aware of such singularity within context of the awesome grandness that is the universe, is to come to the realization of our painfully inane trivialities. Which, we as human beings have somehow meticulously shrink wrapped into neat packages labeled politic, religion, philosophy, ideology, Super Bowl Sunday, low fat yogurt, and anything else that ends with the suffix ‘ism’.
Please do not misunderstood me to be a promoter of reckless Nihilistic abandonment. I think Nihilism is a dangerous philosophy, and its followers are intellectual slouches. I’m simply asking you to see things in perspective. [Warning: major nerd-speak ahead]
In the quantum blip that is our existence within the space-time continuum, who's to say the singular moment, some eons ago, of one caveman's sudden awareness that a stick and another make two sticks, is anything less significant than Albert Einstein's discovery of E=mc² ?
It's God, you say, who's the arbiter and common denominator. But Amanda, by that logic, could God also be the definitive incarnation of Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, whom idol's existence so saddened the author of this blog ?
Yes, I know it's a winding and slippery slope towards the negation of written words which are held sacred by you. Fear not however, for such things have been done in the past by saints and mere mortals alike. I'm sure you've heard of the Bible's well earned moniker as the world's most heavily edited book before. Point of which lastly, leads me to your assertion about seeing biblical passages in plights of the Jews of yore.
The Israelites were a nomadic tribe who had to endure numerous transgressions and indignation meted out by their politically entrenched and numerically superior foes who frequently loathed and ridiculed them*. (Kinda like what the Tea Party is going through now a day).As such, a rigidly overbearing unifying spiritual 'oneness' was a necessary requirement for the maintenance of group cohesion. This is where the profound spark of light that I spoke of earlier, or in your case, divine intervention, came into play. Although let me clarify that I'm in no way, shape, or form, drawing parallel between Yahweh, God of the Israelite, and Sarah Palin. I think the only things that are possibly unifying about her for the Tea Partiers are the heavy make-ups and those salaciously high pumps.
With that note, I say: To each his own. Live and let live, until the sun implodes and the universe collapses, only to be reborn again in a spark of light that is your God, and my delicious bowl of Pho noodle soup.
*e.g. the Exodus was an incredibly tumultuous time for the Jewish people.
I know this because I have watched a very scruffy Charlton Heston led a highly organized general strike against ancient Egypt. Which unfortunately (for the Philistines LOL), ended with mass dismissals of the disgruntled Jewish employee by a lecherous Pharaoh, whom I suspected, nefariously took advantage of some obscure contractual labor clauses that allowed him to replace his peeved workers with Nubians who walked the picket line. :)
I love the countdown! Stay strong on your freeze, it will be worth it!
Can't wait to see the new digs!
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