Garden of Eating

This is before.

As you can see, I have a huge, dead backyard that needs a lot of love. We picked those children up at Home Depot. They were cheap. They work for hotdogs and ice cream bars.

This is after the weekend

Obviously a work in progress. However, we raked, weeded, tilled and watered. The hard part is done.

We are also growing herbs from seed. This excites me beyond belief. I can't wait to ask Cole to pick me some basil from the garden the next time I make spaghetti sauce.

Urban Herbs: Basil and mint sprucing up cement and a valve.

Alive...and wet

You're not really alive until you wake up at 6:00 am in the morning to water the vegetables in the garden and you attempt to the fix the nozzle on the hose without turning off the water.

Co-op!

We're planting a garden in the back yard with Ron and his kids! YEAH! We are going to have so much fresh veggies and herbs. The initial investment is going to be steep but I can't wait to eat home grown veggies from the sweat of my own brow (and that of Ron's and the kids). Plus we plan on getting all of our friends to help share in maintaining it so we can all share in the fruits of our labor.

To date, we have trimmed the huge tree, raked all the leaves and we plan on growing a compost and making beds for all of our differnt veggies. Will update with pictures soon. We have to go to home depot and get our supplies and rent a tiller to loosen up the soil. YEE-haw!! I have been dying to do this for a long time so one of my dreams is currently being realized.

Almost Spend free May

It's not completely spend free, as Cole and I just went to Walmart over the weekend because my 20 year old blow dryer decided that it had enough and we needed cat food and litter. Also, I made a promise to Cole that after spend free April, I would buy him whatever board game he wanted. He was such a super star participant of spend free April. He did not ask for anything and he went along with whatever we had to do and actually came up with some good ideas on how to save money.

So we are modifying the idea in May to necessity only May. We still have a crapload of food in the freezers and cabinets. We are going to continue along our frugal path until all of the food is gone, but will make trips to the store for necessary items, such as milk, eggs and fresh veggies.

I still love the concept of bartering, my neighbor brought me over a bag of fresh coffee because she is kicking the coffee habit for tea so I gave her all of my tea since I haven't drank tea in years. (why I had 4 boxes of tea in my pantry I'll never know)

Over in more ways than one

The Challenge is over and boy was it ever eye opening.

To begin, I learned that there is very little that we need that we don't already have. There is almost always a solution that doesn't require going to the store. I also learned that I used to spend half of my free time shopping for something, anything. Everytime I got bored at the house, I caught myself thinking, I should just go to the store...

The other thing that I found absolutely stunning is that I have so much food in my house even after a month of not bringing anything home. Towards the end of the last week, I started to notice a small dent in the pantry and in the freezers but not much of a dent. In fact, there is still so much food, Cole and I have agreed that we are going to continue our spend free month with a few exceptions. One is we will go to the grocery store for necessities such as milk, eggs and fresh fruit. But we are still going to try and refrain from solving all of our immediate problems with cash.

I really do want to get rid of the food in the pantry. I would love to use it all and then only purchase things that we really need and use frequently. Starting from scratch, a new beginning...

Speaking of new beginnings, the other result of the Challenge is that it put a spot light on the cracks in mine and Bill's relationship. I won't go so far as to say that the Challenge was the reason why we broke, I will however throw it out there that the Challenge illuminated the fundamental differences in our core values with respect to our individual relationship and attitude towards money and other important things.


If I had to do it all over again, would I? You bet I would.

One more week

One more week and we are almost there! There is still a crapload of food in the pantry and the freezer. We won't go hungry anytime soon that is for sure. And I can happily report, neither will the cat. Our nice landloard/firefighting friend brought over some vittles last week and I also gave a friend a pizza stone and in exchange, she gave the Claw her favorite bag of kibble. I wish we could do that for everything.

The more and more I think about it, I think commune living would suit me just fine. The idea of living off the land and only using what you needed and paring down your basics to true necessities sounds very appealing. Being saddled with so many wordly possessions is truly a burden. Cole and I watched the Story of Stuff http://www.storyofstuff.com/ and we were both stunned at the amount of garbage we generate. He asked me what recyling meant and of course, me being me, went into an entire technical tirade of recyling, what it means, why we should do it, why most of us don't, etc. The best part is he actually got it. He promised he will start bringing home his water bottles from school because he doesn't want to kill our planet. I love that my son is not your typical 6 year old consumer.

Par-tay (like it's 1929)

Was awesome.

We had so much fun and so much food and so much booze!! All for under 100 bones! I supplied the hardboiled eggs, hamburgers, hot dogs, mac and cheese for the kids and potato salad and everyone else brought either a food item or a beverage item and we had tons of food left over. People were able to take more food home than they brought. I'll never understand the math of potlucks...but whatever, it works and everyone was happy.

Here are a few things I did for the party that I would normally never do but saved me a shitload of money.

1) Instead of buying juices and sodas for the kids, I went super old school ghetto and bought 5 packets of Hawiian Punch at 20 cents a piece. I had 4 pitchers of punch and no one went thirsty or complained.

2) I had potatoes in the pantry that had maybe 3 more days before their little eyes started bugging out. I found a recipe online for a potato salad and whipped up one of the best potato salads ever, if I do say so myself. Well, at least, that is what Bill said. Plus I had all of the ingredients in my pantry. I also used all of the hard boiled eggs that were cracked for the egg decorating. Nothing went to waste.

3) I served beverages in large red plastic cups and sharpied everyones name on their cup. One guest, one cup. I have to say, this was probably one of the most brilliant things I have ever thought of, EVER. Not only did we not run out of cups, but people (including kids) seemed to be more responsible drinkers. How do I know? I did not have to pour out and throw away half full cups. Most of the cups I grabbed were empty because people didn't set their drink down and forget which was theirs.

4) We saved all of the plastic eggs, baskets and bags for next years party...