Ah back to reality. Mountains, foothills and valleys of laundry. A cat who decided to make, ahem, a mess on our bed and that stale mustiness from a home that hadn't been opened in over a week.

Laundry is gradually decreasing, load by load, the bedding has been changed and I've lit beeswax candles to help with the mustiness. D is out grocery shopping and for the first time that I can ever remember, our list for Whole Foods is longer than the one for Trader Joes. It's going to be very interesting and probably scary to watch our grocery bill increase as we try to eat mostly organic, real foods. Whole Foods is not the best place to be doing this shopping I know, but with bare cupboards and an empty fridge, we are kind of desperate for replacement fare. As I move into a normal routine starting Monday, I'm hoping to figure out how to keep the grocery bill within non-heart attack distance. In the summer, when we grow most of our veg, it will be easier, but in winter, chard is the only thing thriving out in the garden. That's another thing I have to work on, getting the fall crops in the ground in enough time so that they actually start before it gets too cold.

We have never had a huge amount of food waste, mostly because we have chickens. Those girls are awesome at eating anything and everything we don't. We eat in mostly local and in season, I make weekly menus (I'll start posting them) so we never buy much 'extra' at the store and I have learned the hard way not to shop while eating. I sound like a Yahoo! article. What I'm saying is I do pretty much everything right, but we only have so much each month for food and I am determined to eat real and not go over our budget. I should be holding some scales because that's what I feel like I'm doing. Money on one side and real food on the other. The first couple of months may involve some serious freezer diving at the end instead of grocery runs...

Updated to say that sending the husband to run grocery errands works well. He came back having spent only a little bit more than what we normally spend on a week of groceries. We may make it through the month, not having to buy any meat (besides bacon - you ALWAYS need bacon), definitely helped.