Always on my Mind (Food, That Is)

Remember how I said that we were going to be living off our food storage a little while back? (And you were so generous with the recipes?) Well, within the last two weeks, Terence was able to get three overtime wide load escorts, which will bring us enough grocery money for about a month, if we are careful with it. So even though we haven't been paid yet (the lag time is always at least a few weeks) I celebrated by going grocery shopping yesterday and buying a few normal things to eat. It was such a relief!!! Anyway, I thought I'd share a few of the things I've learned about food storage living:

1. Man cannot live on bread alone! We may have had enough brown rice and tomato sauce to feed us for a couple of months, but not enough toilet paper to last a week. And do you think we were going to live without TP? NO WAY, JOSE! (Plus we needed toothpaste, laundry detergent, dish soap, trash bags, shampoo, etc., etc.)

2. Chocolate must be an indispensable part of every food storage supply. See, when I can't eat what I want or what I'm normally used to, I crave chocolate like nothing else. I think I went a bit loony. For me, a freezer full of fudgesicles would have been a lifesaver. Maybe hot chocolate would have done in a pinch.

3. Apparently birthdays still happen, even when you are living on food storage, and your kids still expect to go to their friends' birthday parties, or your nephew still turns six even though you haven't got anything to give him (even though you all come over to eat his cake.) OK, OK, this was not a life-and-death situation, but you try telling your kids that they can't go to a birthday party because you don't have even a small gift to send with them. (Or I guess you could send them without a gift at all, and just consider it mooching a free meal....)

4. Related to number 3, my kids' teachers still sent requests for supplies for various class projects that I did not have around the house. And B's turn for snack still came up for preschool. What was I supposed to send with her? I didn't have a supply of the usual goldfish and fruit snacks!!

5. Gaining weight on a food storage diet is inevitable. Sorry, but there were no fresh fruits and vegetables, and very little of the canned stuff (which the kids refused to eat anyway, saying the canned stuff tasted "rotten." Spoiled kids.) A steady diet of pasta, casseroles, and occasionally some protein does not a skinny chick make. Plus, since I couldn't get ahold of chocolate, I turned to baking all kinds of sweet stuff, since I did have a supply of flour, sugar, and butter. Cookies were my comfort food substitute! (See, I knew I needed those sugar-free fudgesicles!!!)

6. Every food storage supply should include an excellent pair of ear plugs for both Mom & Dad. That way you can't hear the kids' complaints, like "Ewww!! I hate this, and I don't want to eat it again! Why do you always make this when we don't like it?!"

So there it is, my short list of lessons learned while living on food storage! See, I knew we had to go through this for a reason!