Catching up

It has been 1598 days since my last post. A lot can happened in 4 years, 4 months and 15 days. Let's do a quick recap from where we left off...

8/18/10 - When I wrote this post I was dealing with a lot of personal issues. Mostly, depression from dealing with infertility. We had been trying to get pregnant since early 2008. The longer it took, and the more problems that arose, the more the people around me were successful in getting pregnant. So when I heard about someone terminating their pregnancy, after announcing to their family they were going to be grandparents, I was furious.

Little did I know, only 4 months later, I would find out I was pregnant after a successful insemination.

8/6/11, 11:40pm - With a final push, my daughter takes her first breath in this world. An easy healthy pregnancy under my belt and I was ready for motherhood. I figure the lack of morning sickness and any other complications was the universe's way of apologizing for the hardships of trying to conceive.

Sleepless nights and troubles with my husband bottle feeding when I was not around to nurse the little one are all part of the parenthood package. I did have many blessings through the first year. My child, obviously,  as well as an abundance of breast milk. I had such a surplus,  I donated 930 ounces to The Mothers Milk Bank in Denver, CO to help feed premature and sick babies.

My Darling Daughter (DD) nursed until 16 months old. She refused my breast on Christmas eve 2012.  I have become very passionate about breastfeeding and encourage and support all the new mothers in my life. I highly recommend The La Leche League's The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding.

I received two promotions at work.

My husband started his own landscaping business.

We have traveled a lot more then usual: California five times, Daytona Beach, Seattle, South Dakota a few times, and most recently Texas for a cousins wedding. Family has visited us, even some that have not visited before.

Two of our close friends moved to the area from California, both living with us breifly. My parents are planning a move to be closer to us this year, as well as another school friend with her family.

My DD is now three and as stubborn as me. We're potty training, going to dance classes and crafting. She has every family member wrapped around her finger but seems to have a particularly special bond with her Uncle.

Now that we are mostly up to date, we can move on to why I came back to the blog. My husband and I, as most families are this time of year, are broke. One way we are working on tightening our belts is to not buy food, except staples/perishables like milk, eggs, bread etc. We plan to eat our way through our pantry improvising meals as we go.

12/30/14 - made diner with egg noodles, cream of chicken soup, canned diced tomatoes,  canned carrots, leftover onion from Christmas dinner. It was tasty and a hit.

12/31/14 - Made tacos for dinner with leftover brisket, taco shells from an office food fest (we don't buy the shells, we prefer fresh), salsa, cheese, sour cream, leftover beans from nachos. We did buy lettuce for this meal. These were super tasty.

1/1/15 - Breakfast was pancakes from the last of our bisquick,  we were out of our usual pancake mix, with frozen blueberries.
Lunch was homemade gnocchi from leftover Christmas mashed potatoes in a lemon butter sauce with mini bell peppers.
Diner was nachos using the last of the leftover beans, olives, cheese, salsa, sour cream. I paired it with a Republic Margarita with the tequila we picked up in Texas.

This will not become a food blog. I just want to record the meals we make from what is in our pantry to help keep me focused on the goal of curbing our eating out spending habbits, our health, and cleaning out our overstocked pantry and not wasting the money that went in to stocking it.

Happy New Year.