After almost 2 months, I am starting things back up again!
When I last left, I was sitting in the hospital after my husband had surgery wondering what in the world I was going to do. The two weeks that followed were the most difficult and trying weeks I have every gone through. There were times when I didn't know how and when we would ever get back to living our lives the way we had. Once my husband was back on his feet, the financial toll of almost 1 month without his paychecks hit us...hard. I was embarrassed to come back to my blog to post that we couldn't afford the meals that I had been planning. We were eating the many items we had in the house--hamburger helpers, mac and cheese, freezer meals, etc--so we were doing just fine, but I didn't want to make that one of my "weekly menus". We are getting back on our feet, still, but with the encouragement and support from my friends, I've decided that the show must go on.
I have made a few more tweaks to my plans since we can't go out and buy a ton of groceries every week. I am only having 1 or 2 "fancy" meals a week, a CHEAP and EASY meal (which is a meal that we usually have the supplies for in the house and make when in a bind), and watching the meals I select to try and keep the ingredient lists low on most recipes. I don't feel like I've done any damage to my meal planning ideals, but rather I've made it work for our finances, time, and life style right now. I have also cut out the breakfast items for the time being until I feel like we can do more than just an egg and toast or bowl of cereal for daily breakfasts.
I feel a little guilty that I backed down so quickly from sharing my experiences when things got tough. I will work on that and realize that those are actually the points that need to be shared. I think that every family struggles at times and has a hard time keeping afloat. I'll keep planning, sharing, and floating a long...
