Away.

At last a real break and not just a neglectful one.

Time for really fresh fruit and picnics and bodies of water.

I'll be back in August.

Pray to End Hunger

That's what the sidewalk-chalked entrance to the prayer labyrinth said.

"Pray to end hunger."

We went to the ballpark for church on Sunday in what may be a new tradition for our congregation.  Our Christian Education coordinator used to work for our local minor-league team and has a great affection for baseball, so using her connections last year, our pastor got to be the "starting preacher" for the day.  We returned this year, with a few more folks from a few more congregations, and another chance to support our local food bank. 

On the lines that traced the labyrinth, we placed rows of canned goods and boxes of pasta.

We're headed out of town soon for a trek west, so on Saturday we shopped lightly for the few days we're here.  Jonathan wondered when I started piling the boxes of on-sale noodles in the cart--since noodles aren't much on the menu these days, anyway--and then he recalled the food drive as part of Sunday worship, too.  I also had a chance to get to the back of the pantry, which I try to do every couple of months, to pull out the things that have been languishing (again, a bit more than usual since I've adjusted to the new restrictions) and add them to the offerings.

So as the photographer from the local paper tried to snap pictures of her in her pink hat and new glasses, Jo got to line up pineapple and salad dressing and pizza sauce in the "maze" that people were walking through, reflecting on the plenty that so many of us have right in our own kitchens, praying and learning how to share, so that all may be fed.

What's for Dinner?

The company that collects our trash and recycling has "points" to earn for pounds of recycling each week.  These points can be redeemed for a variety of coupons (most of which are useless to me) and free magazine subscriptions (a self-perpetuating system, if you will).  So, I subscribe to a variety of home and garden and cooking magazines--all aspirational, I assure you--and each month I review the steady stream of tips about exercise plans and organizing my house and planning my meals.

Planning my meals?  Who does that?

But since every month at least one of these magazines finds the advice useful for someone out there, I contemplate it briefly, and promptly ignore it. 

Planning meals at my house means keeping a (relatively complete) running tally of what's in the fridge and freezer in my head at any given moment and knowing that we can go out for dinner on Friday night since by then there's precious little left (Saturday morning is shopping day, as you know).

Planning meals means picking up the kids from daycare and preschool and asking "what should we do for dinner?"  (Lately, Jo's answer has been "pot roast," which is not particularly helpful at 4:47 when we need to eat dinner by 5:30 in order to get out the door for Dad's concert by 7:00.)  It means getting in the door, finding any necessary snacks to stave off complete collapses in blood sugar (we not always quite quick enough on that, but somehow we all survive) and turning on a DVD with Dad while Mom escapes to the kitchen to figure something out. 

But this system works for us.  Some nights are more put together than others, and sometimes I even feel accomplished in finding and using the resources at hand.  Some nights it is more eclectic and crowd-pleasing: turkey bratwurst, the end of the tater tot bag, edamame, and the remains of the snow peas from the farmer's market.  Matt got to have peas, too, trying them for the second time in the schedule of green and orange vegetables. 

And then there's others--frozen tamales with farmer's market asparagus or oatmeal with an edamame and grapes chaser.

 Maybe there's something to this meal-planning thing.