hands full of goodies
Our food stamp card arrived in the mail today! They made up for the long delay in processing our application by back-dating our benefits to the beginning of the process, which means that as of Friday we'll have something like $700 to spend on food.
Dan says to be thrifty and make it last, but I'm going to head straight to the produce section and buy some grapes. Lots and lots of grapes. And maybe a melon.
No! A pomegranate! I'll make these cookies!
Once we spend down the initial burst we'll have $288 a month to work with. That's less than the total we usually spend on food, but at least within shooting distance.
I am writing this so you guys can stop worrying whether we're getting enough to eat.
And now because this blog post is too short I'm going to write about something completely different.
I walked up to the post office twice today, first because I sold something on ebay yesterday and then because I sold another thing on ebay at noon, and I am all about getting my paypal money flipped into Christmas presents as soon as possible. Also the dog needed a walk and Harvey needed to stop destroying our living room.
I go out with the dog and the double stroller every day, and when it's nice out I like to count how many times I hear, "You've got your hands full!" If it's a particularly sunny afternoon I'm sure to hear it at least three times, and one day I made it to seven!
I don't know what it is about two kids and a dog that make people gape in amazement. My hunch is that most people aren't that practiced at walking.
I also hear "you've got your hands full" it at the grocery store, but there I don't have a dog with me and that's just confusing. I have my hands full? With TWO children? Doesn't, like, EVERYBODY have two children? I mean I guess LITERALLY I have my hands full, but so do you if you're holding a basket and a phone...
I'm so used to hearing "You've got your hands full" that I get excited when anyone says something different. So today was particularly excited to hear two different things! On the first walk someone said "That's a load!" and on the second walk "You've got quite a crew there!"
I really smiled at the crew reference because it makes me sound like a captain, as opposed to some kind of pack mule or something. I sure do have a crew! Wait a few years and I'll put them to work!
I have fantasies of forcing my kids carol to all the neighbors in matching Christmas sweaters, but perhaps I should keep these things to myself. I wonder if people will say something different when they see me walking with three or even four kids. I bet they'll just cross to the other side of the street.
comments
Crew!
Thanks for sharing this. I was wondering how things were going. I always wondered what Foodstamps allowed you to get (in terms of total amount). I'm terribly ignorant of basically every other food program on the planet. It's only a problem because people assume I know all that stuff. Storehouse gives about 1/4 of that amount which is better than nothing but still not enough for most people we serve.
I know what you mean about the "you've got your hands full" comments. We get that all the time. I've come to the conclusion that people don't know what to say to parents and instead of just not saying anything they say that.
Chocolate Pomegranate cookies! That is inspired! I'm going to have to make these soon!!!! (of course I focus on the cookie recipe..I would bake cookies all the time if I could). Glad to hear the food stamps came in!
The amount each family gets is kind of a black box... we filled out A LOT of paperwork and copied A LOT of bills and income statements, and they came up with this number. Apparently it depends on how many people in your household and what your other expenses are... or the whim of the person at the DTA office, i have no idea.