Welcome 2013!

Well, it's only January 7th and I've already had some pretty exciting events this year!

My grandfather is now in his own apartment.

Bountiful Baskets is this week, and this is our first week for the year! The organization took a break
for Christmas week and New Years week- which were both of our weeks (since we only do bi-weekly contributions) so it's been like 6 weeks since we had a co-op!

I FINALLY have all of my Christmas decorations down. They are not all put back in their boxes, but they are all on the table ready to be packed up.

And I've taken on a personal 30 day challenge to drink only water, coffee, and carbonated/flavored water I make with our new Soda Stream. I buy the little squirt packs of water flavoring and use those in my carbonated water from the Soda Stream and they are pretty darn tasty. Maybe I will work myself down to only water, but for now, I know I will get burnt out on nothing but plain water, AND I LOVE my coffee. I have 2 cups in the morning, every morning. And I figure, if that's all the 'bad stuff' I consume all day, then I'm still doing good.

With such a huge amount of stress being gone from my life, I'm excited to be back to my super scratch cooking, real food eating, and menu planning. In the last week I have spent an amount of money that I am afraid to even add up on an amount of fast/processed/restaurant food that I am afraid to even think about. With my back acting up, and 3 long distance trips, Bubby's birthday, spending a few precious hours with daddy, and the money being "there", I've allowed myself and my family to eat out a lot in the last 2 weeks. So I've banned eating out again. My body/stomach has let me know how much it is effected by the 'food' I've been feeding it as well.
So I'm extra happy that I'll be getting Bountiful Baskets this Saturday as well to help me get back on track with the raw fruits and veggies. Buying that stuff from the grocery store is so much more expensive! And I love the variety I get through the co-op.

I also plan on making tortillas, bread, and pasta this week. I am out of wheat flour though, so I'll be using unbleached white flour, but I figure it's still a notch above those products purchased at the store since mine won't have the preservatives.

And I WAS going to make my menu this week for 2 weeks, but I have decided to just use what I have on hand through this week and wait until Saturday to do my 2-week menu. This is for 2 reasons- #1, Bountiful Baskets; the fruits and veggies in the baskets are a surprise. We never know what we'll get until Saturday when the truck delivers! So I do my best to plan my menu around the produce I get through them. And #2, Pay day is the Monday following Bountiful Baskets! So I can make my grocery list on Saturday, and go shopping on pay day!

I made a craft and homeschool calendar too, and I'm going to work on getting that going this week... I made myself goals for last week, but I just have to face facts that last week wasn't a good week to do ANYTHING! Now it's time to get back to the nitty-gritty! :)