Day 7 #31dayLWSZ- Proverbs 31 Woman

The challenge was freezer meals...lets just say I am not a freezer meal gal. Most of the time, mine have not turned out well. To be honest, I am just plain lazy. I just haven't had much luck with them and for something I am not very excited about, I just don't feel like doing it. It kinda makes me feel guilty because I have always desired to be that wife and mom that comes up with ways to be more resourceful and save some money. I want to start a garden with the .65 acre of land we just recently bought. I want to be able to write to earn money. I want to make meals that my husband would be excited about eating. All of this makes me think of the Proverbs 31 woman.

This challenge has really made me think about her (the Proverbs 31 woman) and what that means to me. There are some days where I am just so lazy and wish that I had more motivation to do something productive. I know I am not the only one who has felt this way. Is this desire based off of her? Or is it being a product of today's society of constantly always having to being doing something or looking at something? What would the Proverbs 31 women look like today? What about grace in all this? Am I expecting perfection or do I need to step it up? Is there more that I can be doing or is God going to show me in His timing and I just need to be still? Yeah lol I am thinking about all of this just from freezer meals : ) I have always been a person who wants to please. How much pleasing does the Proverbs 31 woman do? Does it come naturally because of her character? I know Ruth is not saying we have to do this and if we don't, we are bad. This is just something that I am thinking about and freezer meals got me there.

I believe I just added another goal to this month: to understand the role of the Proverbs 31 woman and what that means to me right now during this 31 days and as a wife and as a mom. 

Day 6 #31daysLWSZ- Hungry Girl

Day five was a very simple day. Eating out is probably one of the hardest thing when it comes to this challenge or even just being on a budget. It is one of the first things that seem to go.
 

Ruth challenged us to eat out at home and gave us many recipes for food from various restaurants. My hubbie and I don't really don't do that too much. It got me thinking of what food I actually miss from restaurants that I like. My mind went straight to Hungry Girl. It is an amazing website that gives you healthier alternatives. She has a email that she sends out what feels like everyday. The details of the emails range from what things or meals to avoid at restaurants to new items you should get at the store.
 

My all time favorite copycat recipe is her orange chicken. Amazing. Instead of frying the chicken after you bread it, you put it in the oven which actually does taste good. The sauce is common Asian ingredients like soy sauce and rice vinegar with orange marmalade. Kinda cool. 

Another recipe I like from her is her spoonable BLT. It is such a simple meal with common ingredients you most likely have in your house. It is exactly what it sounds like. You put turkey bacon (Hungry Girl alternative) for the B, spinach for L, and the tomato soup is the T. She puts diced tomatoes in there, but I am not a fan of that. You then top it off with croutons for the bread. Very simple but very good.

 

The Hungry Girl website also has breakfast in a mug recipes ranging from your basic omelet to a deconstructed sausage mcmuffin.

 

Hungry Girl is a very resourceful website. You should check it out! 

Day 5 #31daysLWSZ- Meal Swap

Yesterday's challenge was something I was not expecting at all but became more and more excited as I learned more about it. Since it was Sunday, we had our periscope meeting at three instead of ten thirty. This just made me so happy that this challenge was led by someone who was Christian that attended church. Before the meeting I read up on our email and found our challenge was meal swapping. I never heard of it before but the basic idea is that you and one or more people get together make some meals and swap them between themselves. Ruth told us at our periscope meeting that it was a time to get together and have fun but also save money on gaining other meals from your friends all the while blessing them too. So for example, if I go over to my friend's house and she invites two other people. That is three meals I get to take home. Kinda cool.

So after periscoping, I went on Facebook and asked four of my friends that I think might want to try this. I found out that one of them already sort of does this every August with her friend and was unable to do it this year. One person. Check. Then I thought of another girl who is going to have her first baby next month and thought she would love to have some meals. She is a maybe! : ) It then made me think of another mom who is also going to have her second little one in November also. It really got me thinking of how the church could do this for pregnant women in their church. A fun time of fellowship while blessing a mom to be. Just a thought : )

Yesterday I also used a can of crab soup that I really never ever thought I would use but I found good use for it. I just added more crab, some milk, and some cornstarch to thicken it up. I then put this sauce on top of noodles and top it off with breadcrumbs and cheese. It was not bad. Kinda salty but thinking next time I could add corn or even put it on toast. I think I will do that today.
I am very happy with this day. I learned a lot but also got me thinking about other people in the process. Kinda like being a Proverbs 31 woman : )    

Day 3 #31daysLWSZ- Blessings and my pantry

Well yesterday was a very good day despite missing the periscope message in the morning. I was able to go out with my mother in law fully wanting to surprise her and pay for the new place I found. She has spoiled my little one and I the past 2 weeks buying us things and taking us out since I had to drive her to her eye appointment since she had her cataracts surgery done. So like I said I wanted to tell her I appreciate her spoiling us. I know that I am not suppose to go out to eat for this month but my mother in law and I planned this a week ago and plus Cyrus and I budget it in our envelopes. Well when we got there, I told her I would pay for it and she said no because she wanted to take us somewhere nice. I told her she did that the past few weeks and we budgeted for it. She still said no. I mean I really wanted to do this but instead she blessed Cyrus and I for being so good with our budgeting. So I got spoiled once again and have not spend anything yet.
Along with the periscope message, I also get an email. My challenge was to go through my pantry and see what we had and organize it. I was excited because I only wrote down what I had but did not organize it. While I was organizing it, I found some cornbread which I did not know I had. I was very excited about that too. Now I cant wait to see what I am going to come up with with all this stuff we now have. That is where the challenge will begin.

Day 4 #31daysLWSZ- humble pie

Wow yesterday was so exhausting and humbling! I was gone all day with my in laws, my hubbie and little one and only got little done on the challenge. The challenge was to come up with a meal plan using only what I had in my pantry and fridge. So before I went out, just as Ruth said, I came up with several meals that I like. I then went after my list of my pantry/fridge and lo and behold I could not find it on my iPad. I looked everywhere and could not find it. Very frustrating especially since I was ahead but now was behind. After I put my little one to bed and took a shower and got into my pjs, I gathered up all the motivation I could to re write my pantry and fridge again. I did it! 

Now I had to come up with a meal plan. I have to say I have never put together a whole month of meals before, and looking at my list, it was kinda defeating. But I kept pressing on. I was so eager to look for recipes with sausage since I found out we had more than I thought. I was also anticipating to use a lot of ground meat since I got a good deal on that. I have found some new recipes that I am excited to try. I am going to share two of them right now. 

 

First the egg roll in a bowl

 

Second the chicken apple sausage pasta 
 

After humbly rewriting what I had in my pantry and fridge and writing out my meal plan, I feel little more confident then I did two hours ago. Yay! Let's bring it on!

Day 2 #31daysLWSZ Challenge

Yesterday I joined some of the Living Well Spending Zero "runners" to gather together on periscope ready to see what Ruth Soukup had to say for our first day. She answered a lot of questions that were streaming up on the screen, pumping up the ones who were uneasy and uncertain about what they were getting into. I was ready to see what our first step was. I will admit it was all introductory and where I found out I was one step ahead of everyone already knowing what was in my pantry. Ruth then told us that we needed to decide what we had to spend on with the basic essentials. That made me see that being on the envelope system made Cyrus and I one step ahead of everyone else. Everyone seemed to have little direction or fretting about the coffee they were going to miss. Don't get me wrong there is still stuff that I need to learn. I can't wait to see the ways I can get creative as she says you will have to. So I decided to step forward and spend what we decided on with our grocery budget. The only difference would be that I wanted to only spend half of what we normally would spend and not spend on anymore the rest of the month. Normally I go shopping twice a month but not this time because I want to depend on what I have in the house. That is what I am excited to see what I learn about. So we went shopping and found some good deals. My hubbie even contributed and made dinner. So let's see what Ruth will say this morning. 

My goals for the Living Well Spending Zero challenge

Cyrus and I have been participating in Dave Ramsey's baby steps since May. We have been using the envelope system which personally for me has made budgeting tens times easier. I know what I have and I stick to it. Then this Living Well Spending Zero for 31 days challenge by Ruth Soukup, founder of her blog Living Well Spending Less, came up on Facebook newsfeed. The challenge is set up for people to see their ability to live on what they have at home and only buy the essentials. I felt like this was something to try to maybe help me out with ways to be more wise with my grocery budget. So I am excited to see what happens.
 

So for 31 days I am going to write about my journey through this experience. 

For my first post, I would like to write my goals or things I desire to learn these next 31 days

1) I want to learn how to use what I have at home for food to make simple meals.

2) recipes recipes recipes- it always nice to get new ones.

3) to write on my blog everyday for 31 days. 

4) instead of focusing on money, focus bettering myself by reading more, projects around the house
 

That's it for now. Maybe I will add more during the month when more is known.

So here I go.