How the Pantry Challenge Went...

We did it! Today is the first of June. Payday was yesterday and I went grocery shopping!

Dorina's help with my pantry was so inspiring. I'd almost venture to say that we had more goodies around than usual because I had ideas. I made blueberry muffins (Simonian Farms had a BOGO on blueberries and then gave me an extra one with my total purchase!) and granola. The granola (pictured right) was a HIT! That's made a permanent place on my pantry shelf and for very few dollars! No more luna bars for us!

I made wonton chicken cups with Chinese Fried Rice. We had green bean casserole, home made pizza (with whatever variety of cheese I had left in the fridge, most of which were NOT mozzarella. The pizza had a cream of mushroom sauce which ended up being REALLY yummy!

I used left over wonton cups for lunch the next day. I filled them with peanut butter and served with sliced apples.

I also made bread for sandwiches since we were out. Saturday we ALL had pb&j on our home made bread. It was SO good. I finally found a recipe that my bread-maker can actually manage! Check it out here.

It was definitely rough to start- but such a fun challenge to figure out how to feed my family until payday! The last couple of days included a trip to visit my husband's sister in the Bay area. She was sooo generous! She let us crash her condo, made us breakfast, got a couple of our meals out on the town... and was just all around wonderful! She made our final days even better! Hopefully the small tokens of appreciation that we left behind will keep the invitations flowing! :)

As I said in my last post... Dorina would LOVE the challenge of giving you meal ideas for your pantry too! Just leave a comment on her blog (including your pantry's ingredients) and she'll send you a list of meal ideas too! I couldn't make every recipe with every ingredient... but I was able to make them with what I had. In fact, there are a couple of meals on my meal list for THIS week that carry over from our pantry week. Praise God!

Comment on Dorina's blog here: http://www.health-full.blogspot.com/

The Pantry Challenge- Feeding Your Family With What's Left

We are making progress on "halving" our home! It's almost June... halfway to next January and I have a LOT more to do! But there pressure usually only motivates me.

On that note- we've also discovered that May is an exceptionally long month and our food budget is at zero. Our refrigerator is a sad reflection of our end-of-the-month financial status as well. Bummer.


Fortunately, I have amazing friends. One in particular. I can rattle off a list of ingredients and she can respond immediately with meals I can make with those ingredients. Seriously.


Rather than hog her incredible ability to make meals out of random pantry items and keep her to myself- I decided to share her.*
          *See my P.S.S.S at the bottom of this post to see Dorina's free special offer to do the same for you too!


Her name is Dorina. She has a blog and you should follow it: Health-full: join us on our journey to eat, play, worship God and live life more fully. She's amazing for a million other reasons, but I'm going to focus on this one for a minute.


This is my evidence of her incredibleness. Tonight I texted her the contents of my pantry (I'm a little ashamed of some of my pantry's inhabitants, but the reason they are still in there is because... well, they aren't all super healthy- this is my disclaimer!)

Here's what I sent her: Green chilis, canned chicken, cream of mushroom, lots of different beans, tomato sauce and paste, coconut milk, ramen, rice, various flours, noodles, corn meal, bread crumbs, chili beans, wonton wrappers, edamame, applesauce, pumpkin puree, honey, peanut butter, instant oatmeal, marshmallows, raisins, green beans, raw and brown sugar, flax, lemons... stuff like that.


And that's pretty much it. My fridge is nearly empty. I have 1/2C coconut oil left. 1/4C butter. Sad.


This was her response:

• Casserole: Chicken, beans, mushroom soup, bread crumbs on top or corn meal

• coconut chicken with ramen noodles on side
• Creamy chicken pasta with the soup as sauce, simmer with chilies
• chicken salad cups with chicken and wontons
• ravioli dessert with pumpkin and wontons
• pumpkin muffins
• tomato sauce plus chili beans plus chicken= chili
• white bean chicken chili
• Edamame with salt, spices, and olive oil can make hummus
• granola
• lemon squares
• green bean casserole 

I should mention that her response came sporadically, with lots of excited "ooohs" and "ahhhs" and smiley faces. She even offered to send me direct links to her blog for the recipes. Uh-MAY-ZING.


My brain DOES NOT work this way. It sees a list of really random things. Hers sees meals. I LOVE IT.


So follow her blog. She even has a whole section on the Pantry Challenge... living off what you already have. (Trust me, she knows from experience!)


In our family pursuit to live simply, holistically, and abundantly, we have found the area of food and eating to take a primary role... as a stress-causer and stress-reliever!  It's usually only a stress-reliever if you have access to amazing friends like mine. Now you do. Follow her and your pantry will never be the same!

I'm off to plan some meals for our week! I suddenly feel less stressed about it and a lot hopeful about getting us to June 1st with the food we have, as little as it seems! If you need me, you'll know where to find me. HERE.

P.S. She's also an incredibly talented children's author and has the cutest book called Cora Cooks Pancit (complete with recipe!). While you're following her blog, you should buy her book. Just sayin' :) 

P.S.S. You can follow her here too :) @GilmoresinHaiti 


*P.S.S.S. Dorina just read my post and offered her talent to you all too! Leave a comment on her blog listing your pantry items, and she will send you meal ideas too! What a bargain!

Still Moving Ahead :)

Okay, so even though I haven't posted anything since February doesn't mean we've quit!

This is really hard work! The hard part is finding the time. Sheesh. It feels nearly impossible to do wtih two toddlers around, which is always. I wish my playroom still looked as nice! My son has been "napping" in there (i.e. reading every book on the shelf, emptying the three bins of toys, and coloring in all of the coloring books).

Regardless, we are moving forward! (pray for me! :)

A playroom half full!

We did it!

I couldn't have done it nearly as well without Jeremy's help. We had three baskets/bins.  One for "get rid of it," a second for "put it away" and a third for "sell it."

Before the night was over, we had removed over half of the toys and furniture from the room AND made $40! Seriously, I put a couple toys on our Clovis Yard Sale Yahoo group and our organizational toy bins. The same woman came and bought them all. THEN, I asked what else she needed and proceeded to GIVE her as many other toys as I possibly could! It was great knowing that our things were going to such great use AND I had helped earn $40 for my husband to buy the sprinkler heads and screws he was hoping to purchase to finish some gardening projects. Yeay! I love how it all works out!

My kids have already been playing in our playroom again... its so... stress-free! So much less stuff! AND, the mess they left behind was not anything like it usually is! My 3 year old took a nap the first day after we cleaned. He was surrounded by tons of books. He just didn't want to leave. Love it! I can tell this is going to be a super fun adventure.....

My kids enjoying our new stress-free playroom. One book shelf. Two corner shelves. Three bins. Thats it.

Enjoying some time in his clutter free playroom with some books! A reader!

Purging in Action!

Okay, I had to stop just to tell you... WE ARE DOING IT!

I've been avoiding the playroom for ... well, since my last post. It overwhelms me. I had plans to do it this weekend. I walk in there and.. walk right back out. I have a personal attachment to many of the things as well.

WELL, I asked Jeremy to help me... and now we are doing it! It IS possible! Stay posted on how my playroom ends up.

P.S.  the kids are napping!

It's a GO!

I'm not even sure I finished the statement, "Jeremy, I think we should get rid of half..." when he agreed. I knew he would.

What surprised me was my oldest daughter (10 years old). I ran the idea by her and SHE was all for it too! Well okay!

My three year old? Mmmm, not so much. Well, he's not sure anyway. He's kind of just going with it at the moment. Patiently. He likes to process and mull on stuff before agreeing. But in the end, I know he'll do it.

I think I was a bit ambitious. I secretly (or did I say it publicly too?) thought I could get it done in a day. Or at least half a day. YEAH RIGHT!

Since my last post I have successfully gotten rid of HALF of the clothing of my two toddlers. Thats about it. And maybe 1/6th of our kids books. Actually, the clothing was a big chore. I mean, HALF of all of their current clothes and maybe even OVER half of all the stored clothes. I've taken them in two loads to a new consignment store in Clovis called A La Mode Clovis. I made about $30 on a bunch today. I'm going to be taking the rest of the clothes to a consignment SALE in March. Hoping to make some money on these! And, giving some to friends too.

Never got to the closet.

Too bad I started in February.

It can be done!!! I'm already feeling more free... just knowing it will be done!

I've gotten some really neat feedback. One of my friends sent this message to me on Facebook today:


Hey Marcy, just reading this, but I want to encourage you in this. We left Fresno at the beginning of Feb and are about to embark on a long term(1 year+) family roadtrip through Europe. Anyways, to make that happen we had to purge heavily. From the photo of this blog post: http://www.goodmorningfrom.net/we-arrived/
We fit our whole life in a 8x5 trailer (only about 2/3 full). It took a lot of work, but I did what you are doing. Got rid of half of our things, then got rid of half of what was left and so on. We have friends who have been traveling long term, each family member with only a carry on luggage. We won't be that sparse, but will only take what our luggage allowances allow for. (we'll be shipping our van and buying a travel trailer once there)

Anyways, purging is so freeing, especially when you can pass things off to someone else who can use them.


How cool is that????? I love that!

Here's another link that was sent to me:  http://guynameddave.com/2010/11/the-minimal-challenge/

Love it! Keep sending me all of your fun stories, your commitments to join me, and anything else you think relates!  :)

New Goal for 2011

Well, its already half way through February... but I think I finally have a goal/resolution for 2011.

I'm hesitating to call it a resolution. Perhaps its my 2011 challenge.

Whatever it is, it certainly falls in with the theme verse of this blog:

"Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."

Boy do I need to hear that again today!

Anyway... this is what I'd like to do. I'd like to get rid of half the stuff in my house this year. I'd actually like to do it this month. I have a new AMAZING job working from home (hence my unusually long blogging-silence :) and I have even LESS time to keep up with all the "stuff."

I don't know what this looks like yet. I only know that I'll be starting in my closet. I haven't even run this by my family. I suppose my next blog will consider their thoughts. I'm pretty sure my husband will agree... and probably start with my childhood toys :) 

What do you think?