Day 6, Friday, February 19

         Cold cereal on the menu made sense today.  It is the easiest and takes no prep.  Rodger took the twins to before-school practice, so was out the door before 6:30.  The early-birds ate before I was even in the kitchen.  Everybody else left on time with only a little hurrying on the part of one who looked gorgeous with curled hair.  Strangely enough, they missed the bus anyway!  I got a call several minutes later, from the bus stop, where they had been waiting.  Rodger had returned and was leaving for work, so he rushed them to the next stop, where they barely made the bus. 

     It turns out a substitute driver didn't know the schedule and had left 5 minutes early, so the kids were vindicated, plus, I didn't have to drive all the way to school this morning.  

     I got a knock on the door mid-morning, and had the pleasure of seeing Freddie, a wonderful spiritual lady with whom I spent a lovely hour.  She brought me the movie Julie and Julia to watch, because I am blogging like Julie.  We talked about the early years of her motherhood, when she stayed home with her young children and cooked on a very tight budget.

     Freddy's husband once brought home a 50lb bag of split peas, (which she didn't even care for) and her ingenuity was tested to find ways to serve up all those peas.  When she was looking forward to finally finishing it off, he brought another bag, and a bag of lentils, same size.  Freddy learned to like the economical and heathful legumes, and had tons of ideas for me about cooking and storing beans and lentils.

  

     Noah and I made pizza dough this afternoon, and his hundred day hat, which yesterday was a mitre, today was his chef's hat.  Noah and I also spent time outside hunting for our escape artist puppy, Eppie, who disappeared out of our completely fenced back yard.  She slipped out of a corner of the fence which our big dogs have always been much too big to try.

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     The weather was beautiful, with temperatures above 55 degrees, and sunny.  Marvelous.  The children excitedly discovered that our rhubarb is already growing.  Amazing!  It is February, after all.

      

Here comes our food day in a nutshell:

breakfast menu:  cold cereal, milk, tea

Breakfast Total:  $2.00

oatmeal squares or life cereal: 1.00
milk:  1.00

lunch menu:  peanut butter and jam sandwiches, carrot sticks, pretzels

Lunch Total: $2.89

1 loaf plus 2 slices bread: 1.05
1 cup apricot/rasp jam:  .25

5 carrots:  .55

pretzels bags, 16 in each: .60

snack menu:  sliced banana in milk

Snack total:  $1.76

10 bananas: 1.50
2 cups milk:  .26

dinner menu:  pizza and breadsticks, cinnamon sticks

Dinner total:  $3.03

diced ham:  .60
pizza dough:  1.08

tomato sauce:  .25

spices: .10

mozzarella cheese:  1.00

$3.03 made a huge amount of food.  All the pans you see are different batches.   The sauce and cheese were light, but tasty.  The breadsticks, sprinkled with garlic, savory and fun to munch.  Unseen are the cinnamon sticks I made with the last hunk of dough.  With a light coating of oil and cinnamon sugar, we made a sweet and delectable dessert, satisfying every sweettooth.

Daily total: $9.75

Woo Hoo!