Live an economically, socially, spiritually and environmentally responsible life for 2009

I’m really excited about this food thing. We really are down to bare bones so it’s not like I can just use existing stuff. I’m happy though because we had developed such bad habits in feeding the kids processed and fast food. We ate way too much sugar and almost no veggies.
One silly discovery was about making bread. I’ve been waiting to get a breadmaker. A friend said, “why don’t you just bake it in the oven?”
how goofy was that!? I used to make all our bread but I forgot I cooked it in the oven. My brain sucks.
There is an organic farm near here that does a box of veggies a week for $40 so I’ll check to see if that is a value.
Costco is also a good choice.
I’m also remembering things my mom taught me. She was the oldest of 9 on a farm in Missouri during the depression. No farm animals here but at least I can bake.
There seem to be other resources online too. I’ll make a list as I find good ones.

I was watching the news this morning and one of the guests was talking about her new book “how to feed a family of 4 for $25 per week” Syncronistically my daughter gave me $100 to go buy groceries, so the challenge is on. I’m adding $25 because there are 5 people with me plus my daughters boyfriends son gets school snacks, breakfast and after school snack here.
The kids eat school lunch so we don’t have to pack it. I’m also going to exclude pet food, cleaning and grooming supplies. Food is super expensive here. We currently spend about $25-40 per day so this will be a change.

Without a good plan today I spent $33
this included dish soap and coffee($3 $7)I also splurged on cookie dough. Need a plan. These kids are not vegetable eaters.

I made chicken and rice, mac and cheese and fried apples. We shall have to work on the veggie adventure.

Got an email from a local nonprofit asking for votes at the Toms of Maine grant site. http://www.tomsofmaine.com/community-involvement/project-sponsorships.aspx One was for the Fi-Do program to increase the number of service dogs here and the other was for a community garden on Molokai. I was so touched by all the grant applications. Just look at how many people want to impact their communities in positive ways. So inspiring.

Went to a peace event at my daughters church and had an inspiring yet surreal experience. The Nobel prize winner Betty Williams was there to speak about peace for children. Here is a link about the work she did in Northern Ireland http://www.peacejam.org/laureates.aspx?laurID=7
She was very human and spoke about the importance of creating peace for children. One of the most moving things she told about was food assistance in Africa and how we really need to solve these problems that are well within our capability as humans. She talked about the number of children that die each day and we do nothing really to help. Other speakers talked about a program called Victory over violence and how we need to teach kids about the root causes of violence and passive violence. The local Domestic Violence assistance progrAm received an award.
Last nights news was about a 5yr old, and an 18 yr old both murdered and raped in the last few weeks.
The bizzare thing was thAt at the end of the evening a group of girls from the church did a dance presentation to “Smooth Criminal” and a rap song. It was very “hoochie” and totally inappropriate. I had to wonder if anyone had told them this. In light of the evening discussion I realized how far we have to go with kids to creat a caring compassionate world.
Then

Just read an interesting take on the law of 3’s; give 3 tomes for each thing you receive. Ok I’ll give this a shot.

Found a neat book at the library with design ideas for making books. It’s called “re-bound creating handmade books fromrecycled and repurposed materials” by jeanine stein. I’m going to make a box for my tarot cards. I need to find a material for the backs of my deck.

Just saw a story on CNN about a family that is attempting to go a year without trash. http://www.greengarbageproject.com/ The strategy is to make choices up front about your purchases. I tried the plastic challenge about a year ago and it made me very sad. I didn’t realize how unaware I was. This is really important in Hawaii. maybe I should make an island blog about it.

Got a car a couple of weeks ago, but I’m missing my bus friends. I think I will take the bus tomorrow instead. The price of gas is less if I drive and I don’t have a pass. The bus rates went up this month. How do I balance this one?