Food Stamp Challenge(Alternate Title: Stephanie is a Numbers Nerd)

"Live simply, so that others may simply live." --St. Elizabeth Seton

$31.50 per week to feed one person. That breaks down to $4.50/day or $1.50/meal, if you break it down even further. Does that even sound possible?

It's not only possible, but millions of Americans that receive food stamp benefits do this week in and week out as they feed themselves and their families. $31.50 is the average per-person weekly allowance of an American who receives food stamps. For many, these are their only food dollars, and they have to make it work.

I read an article on a local Indianapolis news website today about the Food Stamp Challenge that is going on this week across the country to help increase awareness about SNAP (food stamp) benefits and hunger in the United States. The article followed one local man who was engaged in this challenge and how he found that his food choices were limited by the $31.50/week limit for all of his food for the entire week and that he chose to eliminate breakfast in order to have enough money to eat lunch and dinner, as well as choosing less nutritious options to save pennies.

While I was unaware of the challenge, I was curious how possible it is to live on $31.50/week per person. So I pulled out our family budget to see how our family compares. Our family of six has spent slightly more than $5,000 in the first 10 months this year on groceries, also including the cost of seeds and plants for our garden, all bulk fruit and vegetable purchases for canning and freezing, 1/2 hog and 1/4 beef. We don't purchase formula or prepared baby foods, but it does take into account my extra caloric intake for nursing as well as all foods used to prepare baby food for Eliza.

If I extrapolate that $5,000 figure out for the rest of the year, we will probably spend around $6,000 this year to feed our family of 6. When I break that $6,000 figure down, it figures out to roughly $1,000 per person per year, or about $19.25 per person per week. That's $12.25 less than the $31.50 average for food stamp recipients.

Now, the $31.50 for the Food Stamp Challenge needs to include ALL foods, including eating out. So I checked the budget again and added in the almost $2,000 our family has spent dining out and school lunches in the first 10 months of this year. Again, extrapolated out, let's call our 12-month dining budget $2,500. When added to the $6,000 food budget and broken down between 6 people, the weekly average is still only $27.25.

$27.25 per week to feed one whole person? Well, surely we must eat only processed foods and rice and beans, right?

Actually, no. Over the past few years we've eliminated almost all processed foods from our house except cereals (I'm not a morning person and I have a 2-year-old that demands breakfast immediately upon waking at 6am), crackers, pasta noodles (because that's one thing that's just not worth my time to make), Annie's shells and cheese (because they are just too yummy!), granola bars, tortilla and potato or veggie chips, yogurt and ice cream--which I don't plan to ever give up. Otherwise, it's a rarity for other processed foods to jump into our grocery cart unless they are free and we will use the item.

We have chosen to purchase as much locally produced, whole foods as possible, and when that is not an option, we then choose the most naturally produced, whole foods as possible, including our choice to purchase only local, pasture-raised chicken and pork, and 100% grass-fed, pasture-raised beef.  Amazingly, when we began purchasing local and organic whole foods, our food bill is actually lower than purchasing prepared, processed foods. 

We make almost everything from scratch, down to the whole wheat bread and strawberry jam we make our PBJ sandwiches with. We do have meatless meals, but most days we have meat with 2 out of 3 meals, but we plan ahead.

Many weeks I will roast a chicken and get 3 meals out of it. The first meal is roasted chicken with our vegetables and other sides. The second meal I use the rest of the chicken that is removed from the bones and shredded--instead of purchasing the pricier boneless, skinless chicken breasts--to serve with pasta or to make chicken enchiladas, or another chicken-based entree. For the third meal I make chicken stock from the carcass and vegetable scraps and use the stock to make chicken noodle soup, or chicken and dumplings, etc.

This week I made French dips with a beef round steak one night, then used what was left to make beef and noodles for lunch the next day and had enough leftover for Jason and I to each have leftover beef and noodles for a second lunch.

Eating well for under $31.50 per week is possible, but it takes discipline and a lot of hard work.

When we were still students at Anderson University and not yet dating, Jason and I would meet for lunch every Sunday after church to clip coupons, look over the grocery ad, and plan our food purchases for the week, being mindful of our meager RA stipends that were paying for our groceries. Today, on Sunday afternoons, you'll still find us doing the same thing. Now, however, we are sitting at the kitchen counter and checking the online ads at our favorite stores. The habits we've learned from the humble beginnings of our relationship continue to stick with us and are second nature.

I do understand that at 20 and 21, we were forming habits that would be much harder to try to learn today, but it's not impossible. If you are interested in trying the Food Stamp Challenge, check it out. Even if you didn't do it this week, you can try another week between now and Thanksgiving. Anyone CAN live on $31.50/week for food, and some people have no choice.

For just one week, you can make the choice to live simply, and perhaps you can help someone else simply live.

A lesson in discipline

I should have known that it was too good to be true. That really should have been my first clue not to let my guard down.

This afternoon, so it seemed, the stars had aligned and somehow both Ian and Eliza were soundly napping, at the same time. This is no small miracle these days since Eliza is transitioning to one nap, and it's at an odd 11:00-1:00 time most days, and Ian has taken to napping about 2 days out of 7. So, for them both to be asleep at 2:00pm was fabulous, and I decided to take advantage of the time and slip back to my bedroom to do a little bit of reading for our small group that meets tonight. Our church, Crosspoint, is working through the Strong Challenge along with about 50,000 people in churches across the midwest right now. This week our focus is on Study, so I thought that 30 minutes of quiet in the middle of the day would be a great time to practice this discipline today.
A bit later, I thought it was a little too quiet in the rest of the house, so I went to check on Ian. His room was empty, and I found him in the living room, playing with his cars.


For some reason I didn't notice the 2 canisters of flour, can of dry milk, canister of salt or bag of sugar on the table as well--only a VERY. LARGE. MOAT. surrounding the coffee table. Suddenly I forgot that I was going to scold him for coming out of his room before rest time was over and became concerned that there was a huge puddle of water in my living room.


I asked Ian where the water came from. His response? "I don't know!" So I asked again, thinking that maybe he didn't understand my question. Same response, "I don't know!"

"So what is that on the floor, Ian?" Ding, ding, ding! That was the correct question!

Ian then brought me an almost empty bottle of Canola Oil. The same bottle that just an hour ago had been nearly full and sitting high on the kitchen island.

The subject of my "Creative Problem Solving" for today

It was not water on the floor at all. What a relief! It was vegetable oil--what a nightmare! How on earth does one clean up a half-gallon of canola oil from wood laminate flooring? And how do I keep my busy little boy out of the pool of oil?

I cleaned what I could with old towels and did a quick mopping, but clearly soap and water were not going to cut through the oil. A quick internet search didn't give any more help, so what's a mom to do?!?

Twitter and Facebook to the rescue!

mama_skull Stephanie Simpson

How do I clean up 1/2Gallon cooking oil on wood laminate flooring? #curiouslittleboy, #tooquietatnaptime, #goodthingheiscute, #momisanidiot

How did we ever solve crazy, time-sensitive predicaments like this before social networking?!? Within 10 minutes I learned from a Facebook friend that oatmeal may help absorb the oil, so I got out the canister of oatmeal and Ian and I proceeded to dump handfuls of oatmeal all over the floor until every last bit of oily floor was coated in oats.

My Mom always said that when you clean, it gets worse before it gets better.
Yes, he is wearing his duck suit from Halloween. Again.

Well, should you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to clean up a large quantity of vegetable oil from your wood laminate floor, I can assure you, from experience, that oatmeal does, indeed, clean up most of the residue. The things that you never knew that you needed to know!

Now, Jason and I have very different capacities for handling chaos. Jason is awesome at juggling lots of busyness and wrestling and activity-type chaos. That is not my gift. I try to redirect toward imaginative play and reading books when the rough-housing gets to be a bit much. Consequently, I don't tend to get upset by large messes, spills or other non-permanent instances of mass destruction. I figure, what's done is done, let's make the most of it.

Spilled milk? We all do it. Let's just clean it up and pour a new glass.

Kids went swimming in the sandbox? We'll hose you off in the yard and change clothes in the garage before coming inside.

Spill a half-gallon of oil on the floor? Let's throw down some oatmeal together and try to clean it up.

The way I see it, 20 years from now, this was probably a significant enough event from Ian's childhood that he'll remember it. At least I hope so, since we now have a "No pouring oil in the living room" Rule!

I'd rather he be able to remember it fondly, that he learned a lesson and laugh about the way that he learned it, instead of looking back upon a memory that is tempered with pain for being disciplined harshly for doing something that he didn't know that he should not do. I make a lot of mistakes too, and I find that I learn best when someone helps dust me off, and comes alongside me to help me clean up my act, instead of simply pointing out what I did wrong. I also tend to not make the same mistakes again that way.

I can only hope that I can do the same for Ian. He's got a lot of mistakes ahead of him, and I want him to know that it's okay. We all make mistakes. I may not know how to help him fix them all, but I'll do my best to help him figure it out. And I want him to know that he can count on me to to be someone to dust him off and help him make things right again. 

Dress up and pumpkins

Well, the past two days have been exciting for the kiddos.  Saturday during the daytime, their grandmother came to visit (and wear them out).  They played hard and had a lot of fun.  After grandma went home, we pulled out the costumes for the kids to dress up.  

Three princesses and a duck.  Sounds like a good joke.

We headed over to Church at the Crossing for their fall fest.  This event has a wagon ride, food, games, blow up bounce houses, crafts and everyone's favorite.....Trunk or Treat!  Instead of heading from house to house, kids get to walk down rows of vehicles with their trunk opened up that are each decorated with a theme and trick or treat this way.  Lots of fun, and the candy to walking time ratio can't be beat.  I think the only time I have witnessed a better ratio was when we did trick or treating in my college dorm.


We headed down the row of vehicles first, since it was still light outside and the temperature was only dropping.  After working their cute charms to get as much loot as possible (somehow Lydia and Ian got the most) we headed inside for the activities there.


There were some games and musicians, but the memorable part was the kids maze.  It is constructed of many cardboard boxes about the size that pumpkins come in at the grocery store.  My three oldest ones entered at the same time, but only Caroline came out.  After waiting about 10 more minutes and seeing 20 kids exit that had entered after mine, we sent Caroline back in after the other two.  Right as she headed in, Lydia pops out.  I asked her where Ian was, and she gave me a blank stare.  So we waited another five minutes and right as I was getting ready to head in myself, out comes Caroline and Ian.  We asked him if he was just sitting in there, and he was like,"Yeah" (insert cute and sheepish grin).  I guess that he was having trouble crawling around and keeping his duck feet on.  We called it a night after this.

Caroline elbow deep while Ian picks up seeds he dropped.

Sunday brought about the annual carving of the pumpkin.  The kids have been begging me to do this for several days now, so I grabbed my knives and set up for the pumpkin carving.  I asked the kids how we should do it this year.  I feel that they have been thinking this through, because they immediately returned with,"Triangle eyes and a square nose".  Easy enough.  What about the mouth?  "Umm, it should have a scared mouth", Lydia responded with.  "Do you mean a scary mouth", I asked.  "Umm, yeah, a scared mouth".  Fangs it is.  The kids really like getting their hands inside of the thing and pulling out the seeds and goop.  Once the seeds are out, they just play with the goop until it is more like mush.  


They also wanted a bat on the side, which I didn't think I would want to carve a hole that big.  So I traced an outline and wanted to do more of a silhouette.  Well, as we all know, that kind of detail work is a little hard to do with a knife.  What should I use?

Carving with power tools.  That's how we Simpsons do it.

Dremel it is.  Nothing like the smell of burning pumpkin flesh and the spray of it's insides to get in the spirit.  Sounds kind of gory, but I think that is was fun.  The kids thought it was cool with me going at it with the rotary disc.  It didn't quite work how I wanted it to, but that was mostly because the pumpkin had some thick walls.  All in all a fun time.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

No, it’s not Christmas yet, and I (Stephanie) loathe beginning Christmas celebrations before Thanksgiving has come and gone. I don't intend to offend those of you who already have the mistletoe hung, the icicle lights lit outside your home, the Christmas music playing in your home and the antlers on your car. However, my brain can really only fully take in one holiday at a time. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and unfortunately it is too often glossed over. We don't spend nearly enough time in our lives being grateful. For everything and for nothing in particular.

With all that being said, in recent years I have preferred to complete as much of my Christmas gift shopping and gift making before mid-November. It started a few years ago when our third child was due in mid-November, and my anxiety about tackling Castleton traffic and the malls with 3 kids under 3, including a newborn, alone. The next year I did the same, after seeing how much more I enjoyed the Christmas season with removing December shopping from the equation. Last year I took it a step further, with our fourth baby due around Halloween, so I did most of the shopping before November and saved only my handmade gifts to complete after Eliza’s arrival.

This year, I’m not quite as ahead of the game, but am still planning to complete my shopping by mid-November and finish up the handmade gifts by early December again. If you’ve never experienced a December without a mile-long shopping list, I cannot describe for you what a freeing feeling it is. I’ve enjoyed Christmas so much more with this approach—and we have always kept it pretty simple in the gift-giving department to begin with. But I’ll save that for another post.

With my shopping list eliminated and, in turn, my to-do list shrunk, I have found so much more time to do the most fun things of all. Such as: our daily Christmas Countdown and Advent activities, enjoying many of the special holiday happenings around Indianapolis, and being completely present at holiday gatherings. Best of all, it allows more time to reflect upon why Christmas is important to me, as an individual. Personally, it symbolizes the coming of a baby who grew up to be my Christ, and something that requires more than a token glance to fully absorb. When I take the time to remember, I am completely overwhelmed, and that’s only made possible by creating the space for experiencing the season.

Perhaps Christmas bears a different reason for importance to you. Or you celebrate a different December holiday. Wherever you are coming from, I think that we can agree that in the busyness that December can become, the most important can be shoved far to the back-burner and become an afterthought. November has not yet arrived. It’s not too late to decide that you want to do December differently this year. It may be your best December yet!

Pumpkin picking

When we left church today, it was overcast and not looking so good, but after lunch the sun came out and the temperature climbed.  So, what better to do than visit the pumpkin patch?

We headed up to Spencer Farms to find our conquest.  We visited there last year and really enjoyed their setup.  You can walk to the pumpkin patch fairly easily, but we like to wait for the hayride to take us out there.  It gives a chance to see all that the farm is producing and where they have planted things this year (crop rotation anyone?).  The driver will fill people in on what has been happening this year, what they have planted and the wildlife activity.

Look at the smiling faces!

So after a fun and bouncy ride around the property, we arrived at the first pumpkin field.  They had three planted; two that had carving pumpkins growing and one that had pie pumpkins.  We traipsed around looking for our carving pumpkin while trying not to trip over the network of vines strung everywhere.  Lydia was the winner this year for finding our choice pumpkin.  After that we headed over to the pie pumpkin patch where we let each of the kids pick one out.  These are obviously easier for them to carry, and now that we have 4 kids we can get more pumpkins to cook with.  

The girls looking around.

Lydia cleaning the dirt off.

Ian found a keeper.

Caroline showing off her pumpkin.

...and Eliza gets them all to herself.

It was a fun afternoon where we were able to go at a slow pace.  The kids had fun (as always) and I was able to get my photography on.  Next up:  Carving and then roasting the seeds.

Heartland Film Festival

Garbage in, garbage out.  I also think that the opposite is true.

I am amazed at:

A. The content that is consistently in films (language, violence, etc)

B. How popular these films are

C. The younger the viewership has become

What has also surprised me is how popular an institution that goes against this model has become.  At this time each year, a film festival occurs in Indianapolis that honors films with pro-social content.  Heartland Film Festival has occurred for the past 20 years (I believe), honoring those whose films present the better part of life.  These are the films that touch us, that inspire us, films that truly move us.  

I first got involved with Heartland Film Festival when I was in college at Anderson University.  Not only did it make sense for the production majors to attend the workshops and conferences that surrounded the festival, but we were hired to record and edit them.  Yay press pass!  Of course, this also included some tickets to go to the screenings.  What I love about this aspect is that the films show in the mainstream theaters right next to everything else that is showing.  This film festival is not set apart, reserving a whole theater just for its uses, but places itself right in the midst of the rest of the (good) junk that is out there.  

What stands out, is this business sets the example of how I should live my life.  Don't isolate yourself from everything else to try to preserve your standards.  Set your standards and then jump into the midst of everything else.  They have proven that they can survive without having to compromise.  Heartland Film Festival put themselves out there, and I am just amazed at how it has grown over the years.  The Indianapolis Star had a great article about HFF recently, and the title says it all: Playing nice pays off for Heartland Film Festival.

As I mentioned, in college I was able to work with Heartland Film Festival in a production role.  One of my classmates had the privilege to work with HFF for several years.  She now lives in Ireland with her husband (whom she met at HFF several years ago), but occasionally will recount her days at HFF.  You can catch up with her at View From an Irish Back Yard (link is to a specific post, but please read more).

So, if you are in Indy, go see some good films this weekend as the festival wraps up.  For all of us, it is ok to stand out for being quality material.

When "good enough" is good enough

Yesterday evening we were all getting ready to sit down for dinner. Jason was bringing the meat off the grill, I (Stephanie) was plating the food in the kitchen while the kids were cleaning up toys and books from the afternoon. We set the table and 5 of us sat down to eat--everyone except for Lydia.

Waiting for Lydia is not an uncommon occurrence in our family. Lydia is pretty much my blonde mini-twin. One of the traits that she gets from the Highley side of the family is that she moves at her own speed--most often that speed is "mosey". That was not the case last night.

Lydia was bustling around, with purpose in her steps as she was picking up and neatly putting away every last toy and book where it belonged. All of the things that her siblings left where they lay to come to the table for dinner. Lydia saw what needed done and worked diligently until it was finished.

Have I mentioned that Lydia is also our resident "messy"? This ties into her deeply creative and artistic nature. She is not one to naturally see order, and organization is not one of her strong suits. Caroline and Ian keep me on my toes and probably know better than I do how to put away our toys and books in their proper place with their Type-A, left-brained leanings.

So, the fact that it was Lydia who was cleaning after everyone else abandoned the task was noteworthy, and I took a moment to thank her for her help and for following through until the job was done. I told her that she was going above and beyond what we expected and we appreciate her effort. She sheepishly grinned and whispered "Thank you."

Not to be outdone, Caroline immediately piped up, "What about me? I did a good job too, right?"


(Sigh.)


It's always present in our lives, isn't it? We do what is expected, we try to do "good", but we look around and compare ourselves to those around us and suddenly we wonder if we're "good enough". We want the praise that someone else receives, and we compare their extraordinary moments with our moments of adequacy.

Adequacy. We're hitting the mark. Meeting expectations. We are "good enough". If everything that we did was extraordinary, it would no longer be extraordinary.


I took a pause to think for a moment how to respond to Caroline, knowing that my response in this moment was worth more than a flippant remark. "Yes, Caroline, you did do a very good job and did exactly what we asked you to do. Lydia went above and beyond and even though we didn't expect her to get everything cleaned up, she took the initiative to finish the job."


Somehow it still didn't seem like "enough" of an answer to her question, but I hope that love and grace will somehow cover over an answer that was adequate, but certainly not extraordinary. I wish that I had the eloquence to speak words of wisdom in everything that I say to my kids, but I just don't. And I try not to compare my moments of adequacy, such as this, with other moments of extraordinary wisdom that I have heard from Jason as I listen to him speak with one of the kids from time to time, or from other parents who seem to always have just the right words to say--at least when I'm around. Because I know that we're all just doing the best that we can. And that's "good enough".



So, what would you have told Caroline?