2nd day hair

Because of the way my blog is set up at times I forget what I’ve mentioned and what I haven’t, so if this is a repeat, I apologize. This is Keeley’s ’2nd day hair’.. on the days I don’t wash her hair, it’s on purpose. I generally put her hair in 2 ponytails, then braid the ponytails and let her wear them/sleep on them. Then she’ll get a bath and I’ll take the braids out, brush her hair and put ponytails back in. It gives her hair a really fluffy appearance and has gotten some good comments, so I do it maybe once a week or so. It also keeps it a lot cleaner because it stays out of her face (food avoidance). In general, it’s better for your hair not to be washed every day anyway. Mine needs it, but her doesn’t at least for now, so I’m taking advantage of it!

Okay, back to the baths–the quick baths seem to be the worst, it makes her so mad to not get bubbles.  Sometimes I try and forestall the screaming by promising her time to play after she gets cleaned up. I tried allowing her to play for a few minutes and she always threw a fit about having to stop playing to get washed up. This is her mad face.. she’s trying NOT to smile for the camera.

Grr

So the other day, I was completely inspired, this is where the fist pump comes in! I said, “why Princess Keeley, you must wash your royal visage!” She was so shocked that she didn’t complain when I washed her face… so I plunged on ” princesses always have beautiful hair, so let’s get it all washed up”…and “your royal toes need scrubbed”…”let’s wash your princess hands” and so on. It worked wonderfully! I’m positive this would work for dinosaurs, trains, or whatever else your kid loves! It helped with hair brushing, too “princesses brush their hair 100 times, let’s see how many it takes to brush yours!”

water reflection

*note I wouldn't really leave her at the fire station.

Watching mom cook

Anyway, someone you may be familiar with from talk shows or if you’ve ever turned on the food network is the ever-red-ponytailed and orange clogged Mario Batali. As his name implies, he’s of Italian descent. He works with the food bank that’s local to the program and has been discussing (in brief) that the Farm Bill is up in Congress again and that there’s a chance that food stamps will be cut by 50% or done away with completely. He’s taking a ‘food stamp’ challenge to see if he and his family, which includes 2 teen boys, in the family of 4, can live on the average food stamp U.S. which is $124 a week. Here’s an article on it. I’m sure there’s plenty more.What he’s mentioned in this is that #1 he’s hungry, and #2 it is certainly doable, but you don’t really thrive on this amount of $/food. There’s not much quick eating/eating out because that is expensive, and there aren’t many extras.

There are hungry people out there, people that need assistance (whatever that may be). It would be great if it was ‘like it used to be’ when your family helped out where needed, but that doesn’t always happen anymore, does it? You don’t hear about ‘Johnny’ going to live with Uncle Bob and Aunt Mary in Kansas because the family can’t afford them. It just doesn’t happen. Now whether that’s a chicken or egg thing, I’m not sure. Maybe if there weren’t programs, more kids would be making the haul across the country for an extended stay with relatives? In my home county, there’s roughly one family for each day of the year that needs a monthly food basket. It provides about 8 meals for the month. That’s a lot of food every month that’s handed out. Each family gets the same amount, so if it’s a widowed woman, obviously, she eats more/better than the family of 5 that may only get 6 meals out of it. Often, the people there start lining up in the morning for a p.m. basket. Where we live now, each town may have several food pantries, so our church hands out to maybe 5-6 families a week. Overall, this seems less, but it’s hard to tell given that it’s broken up so much by each community. It might be worthwhile to note that where we are from, a significant amount of businesses have closed, and everyone’s fighting over the same few jobs, whereas we now live closer to a metro area, so there’s more opportunity, so maybe fewer people are going without, or they are going without LESS than where we used to live.

Both of us growing up were on some sort of assistance, or our families ate on the cheap. When we were first married, it was a hell of a struggle, and we ate a lot more hot dogs and fewer veggies than we should have. However, it taught us to waste very little (as if our childhoods didn’t do that originally) and to work hard to budget our money. If you’ve been here a while, you’ve seen my magic pantry that is full of SO much food. If something catastrophic happened, we could eat for a few weeks out of our larder, I’m sure. I’m equally sure that we don’t spend $500 directly on food every month. I think we could do it. I think we’d be annoyed without eating out and so on, but it would be fine. We often cut out ‘food extras’ as a first line of defense when needing to trim our budget. We shop at really inexpensive stores and rarely eat expensive items like steak, shellfish, etc. in the first place, so that part would be simple. I think the majority of the problem is that it’s hard to buy ‘pre-made’ stuff that inexpensively. The more heavily processed it is, the more it costs.  The quicker it is, the more expense and the more ‘cost’ to your body, oftentimes. Also, I’m not sure that meat lockers (which sell cheaper, fresher, better tasting meat) actually take food stamps. That would be a problem for us.

So it’s Tuesday.. let’s talk about it. Could your family live on $124 (or $93 for 3 or $62 for a couple?) a week? Would you need supplement (beyond free lunches for kids at school)? What would be the hardest part for you? Keep the politics to a minimum mmk?

Does anyone really LOOOOVE to cook on Mondays? I know I don’t. Monday is typically my catch-up day from the weekend. For instance, this weekend was mother’s day, so we visited my mom and then I did less cooking on Sunday. Still, at the end of the week, daddy getting home late or working outside tends to catch up with the ‘inside’ work. Aka, the house is a mess. I try and do a quick house-sweep on Fridays to try and stop the mayhem from completely overtaking us by the weekend! Still, Mondays likely mean: folding and putting away any laundry I managed to do Friday, Saturday, or Sunday; unloading the drainer and doing the $%*# dishes by hand; unloading and reloading the dishwasher; going through the mail and other accumulated crap in the kitchen; taking the recycling out to the garage; returning the living room and dining/kitchen to a somewhat presentable state; and in general still managing to feed, clothe and keep 2 little rugrats alive. Yes, if I took every single thing out to the recycling, or did the dishes by hand every day, it would be somewhat better. I HAVE done this. But you have to realize that things like ‘husbands’ happen magically. Egg cartons end up tossed in the corner, Friday’s lunch containers show up in the sink at 4 a.m. and so on.

I have a point, I swear.

By around 2:00 on Monday I think, F3@k what am I making for dinner? and realize I have no answer. Thus, a few weeks ago, I instituted leftover Monday. This is where we drag out everything over the last week that we haven’t eaten (and what didn’t get tossed on trash day) and just mow through them as systematically as possible. A cold grilled hot dog, a scoop of beans, and baby carrots with dressing work great for a 3 year old! I boiled some older eggs, and she asked for one of those, too, so she had a high protein night! My husband and I split additional hot dogs, eggs, homemade pizza, appetizers that were leftover from the restaurant Saturday, and the good Lord knows what else. Of course now my sink is full of– you guessed it, little plastic containers to wash! This is probably the best idea I have had in a while, though — minus what’s coming on Fist Pump Friday! Send me a message if you want to play and I’ll link you up, otherwise, come back later for Talk about it Tuesday, Wordless Wednesday, and Thoughts on a Thursday, because my paranoid ramblings make you feel better about yourself, right?

with my momma for mother's day

Matched...

....pair

May flowers

Makes the world go 'round

Mad face

"make me"