Hunger Action Month

Did you know that September is Hunger Action Month?

Now you do. In 2013, 20% of American households participated in SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. A household qualifies for assistance when the household is at or below 130% of the Federal Poverty Level, at this time 100% is at $11,670 for a household of one person.  Working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year equals less than an hourly minimum wage ($5.6/hour).

I knew about Hunger Action Month but I'll admit I'd never really educated myself until this year because The Junior League of San Antonio is partnering up with The San Antonio Food Bank to eradicate childhood obesity in San Antonio.

In the spirit of this partnership, Junior League of San Antonio is going orange (the symbolic color of Hunger Action Month- #JLSAGoesOrange) and challenging it's members and the community to participate in the SNAP Challenge. 

Obvious question: What's the SNAP Challenge? 

Answer: It's a challenge to live on $4.50 a day for food. This is per person, not household. Why the $4.50? It's comparable to the daily food budget of a snap participant $1.50/meal. 

Of course I got Justin to join me, partly cause I wasn't sure I could shop for one person for $22.50 for 5 days worth of food for just me. I'm pretty sure I spent that much at happy hour in the last month. On drinks alone. 

So $45 seemed more manageable for 30 meals. Read that again. 

Turns out there are pros and cons to buying for two. One loaf of bread is enough for 8 lunches, but I needed enough for 10, so I needed another loaf. How do I stretch that loaf out so that I'm spending my money efficiently? We're having sausages for dinner this week. All week long. So things like that would pop up while shopping.

I ended up spending $45.48 on food.  I feel pretty good about that.  I did a lap around the grocery store to assess my options because, honestly, I rarely pay attention.

And I came home feeling pretty good.

My Receipt:

What all those lines translate into:

 

 The fixings for our chicken salad sandwiches:

What we'll be seeing more of this week for lunch:

The menu for the week will basically be...

Breakfast: 2 eggs and 1/2 banana (Justin will likely have coffee that we already have in the house. I can go without)

Lunch: Chicken salad sandwich made with canned chicken breast, celery, almonds (I bought almost 60 cents worth from the bulk organic section) and mayo.  The sandwiches also have some mustard we already had in the fridge, a slice of swiss cheese and spinach. And a half a green apple!

Dinner: A sausage or bratwurst that will be cooked on the grill and likely wrapped in a slice of bread.  We'll split one of the containers of chopped broccoli pieces and maybe each get 1/2 slice of swiss melted on our portion.  I also have butter in the fridge, but I feel like the mustard is already a "cheat" of sorts. 

Snacks: I used the tiniest pieces of celery for the chicken salad so there's enough piece left over for us to enjoy with a tablespoon or two of peanut butter. And we have the yogurt which can be a daily snack or maybe dessert. 

I have stuff going on in the evenings on Wednesday and Thursday and then a friend coming in to visit on Friday, so I will likely eat dinner out of the house, but I went all in when it came to the grocery store trip and already know what I could have done to cut the 48 cents. I bought two 8-packs of yogurt and could have just bough two individual yogurts, but the bulk mentality that usually resides prevailed and so it goes.

While I'm excited about these tiny successes, I have to admit that thinking that hard about every grocery trip seems like a daunting task. But let's see where the week takes us. 

Did I say 500 words a day...

I meant I would do some number of words a week, thus posting to my blog on at least a weekly basis. 

Cause yeah 500 words is a lot. 

Daily is a lot too. 

Especially when you spend all day at work on a computer and the latest episode of America's Next Top Model is on (Cycle 21!! Yeah I can't believe it either, but I'm still watching.) and you just discovered #OITNB and you have Words with Friends games to catch up on and are reading books before they disappear from your iPad cause they were checked out from the library. 

I mean evenings are packed. 

And mornings? Well those are spent hitting the snooze button because we'll get up early tomorrow and work out cause that ain't happening today. 

Except today is Saturday and we did get up and workout. In fact we did five miles. I did the dishes. I worked on a project for a friend's baby shower. I did some stuff for Junior League.  I caught up on the latest episode of Project Runway and even watched that awful Below Deck show on Bravo (bad TV is my opium).  

Currently, I'm cheering on the Gators while sipping a craft brew at our favorite local hangout, Freetail Brewing.

And while doing the above, I wrote this post. 

Laboring on Labor Day?

Labor came at us fast and furious this year.  Not only was it the first Monday of September, it was the first day of the month too.

This means summer is basically over that many days sooner.  Yes, technically summer isn't over until September 22nd, but Labor day is typically considered the death knell for sunshiny fun.  Unless of course it's college football.

Fall means full days of collegiate gridiron action and this year is no exception, even if your team doesn't get to play because of lightening. In fact over 8,800 strikes were recorded all over Florida between 7pm and midnight last Saturday.

Even though the Gators didn't get to play we still had fun hanging out with friends and rooting for other teams to make their season openers successful.

Yesterday was a fabulous Sunday Funday and then we had today- Labor Day.  The Barbour's didn't slack off just because it was supposed to be a day of rest though. We made sure to make the most of the day off, while also trying to balance the need to get work done.

Is Labor Day a day of no work for you?  Or is a day to catch up on work that needs to get done?

This year I was doing some Labor Day social media posts for work and my social media position with JLSA and somewhat shamefully realized I didn't really know the history of Labor Day.

This holiday is meant to be a celebration of the American labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of workers. First proposed as a holiday in 1882, President Grover Cleveland signed Labor Day into law as a national holiday in 1894, just six days after the Pullman Strike. #TheMoreYouKnow

This post is 294 words (as of the end of the above paragraph), but I don't think anyone wants to know the minutiae of our entire weekend in 206 words or more. Like the fact that I got to play two board games (Clue! and King of Tokyo) with two of my favorite people last night. It was a blast and it told me I need more game nights in my life. When was your last game night?

It's been too long, but I've been busy.

It's been too long since I last posted. And I'll readily admit that there's not enough hours in the day combined with the fact that I was too tired to divide my attention between watching Scandal and writing blog posts.  Some things just deserve a person's full attention.

Ya know?

Along with my commitment to JLSA (winning JLSA 2012-2013 Board Member of the year! what?!)

Justin's first JLSA meeting EVER!

                                               

The award!

helping a dear friend raise funds to beat blood cancers ($130,000+ for the LLS Man and Woman of the Year competition),

Justin, Bryce, Erin and me celebrating Team Bryce!

focusing on my running (which has gone past a jogrun to an actual run),

Beach 2 Bay half marathon relay team: Coastbusters (Lake, Erica, Matt, Mireya, Justin and Me).

#AintFraidOfNoCoast.  We finished in 4:43:21 with an avg pace of  10:48.

                                   
going to community events at awesome places like SAMA,

Justin, Elizabeth and me holding art we liked. Duh.

                               
keeping my Mom happy on Mother's Day (don't knock the bowling),
                                      

and visiting my best friend, Amy, in San Fran,

They have happy hours at places with views of things like the light show on the Bay Bridge. (Me, Tori and Amy) #LivinsEasy

                                   
I've also maintained my sanity by watching TV that makes the hubs retch (no pics of the poor programming choices or pics of Justin looking ill are necessary).

But I also go to Scorpions games with him, so you won't hear any real complaints.

They won!

So that's a quick recap of the last month.  What's new with you?

Inaugural JLSA's Resolve for a Better SA 5K

Alternately titled: One of the many reasons I haven't posted much in the last year.

This morning the Junior League of San Antonio held it's inaugural Resolve for a Better SA 5K. Behind the name- it's still fairly early in the new year and getting healthy/being active is a common resolution and making a better SA is what JLSA is all about.

I was fortunate enough to be on the planning committee for this (in addition to other responsibilities for JLSA), but when you believe in something you make it happen.

And did these ladies make it happen. It helped that we took a couple of 5K planning trips to Port A, that really got our gears turning, and we all completed the audacious 12 races in 12 months. So we've done our race research.

At our last run- Color Me Rad, from left to right: Our fearless leader Mireya, Erica -Communications Extraordinaire, Kristen- Master of Volunteer Coordination, and Me- "We can always move the table later" Ariana

We had a veteran community runner in our midsts and he posted about the run on a Runner's World Forum. Thanks to Scottydog for supporting our event! You can read his post on the forum here.

Thanks to everyone who came out to support the event (almost 300 registered runners and walkers), signed up to fundraise and donated to those who fundraised!   You are helpling JLSA support over 60 Community Agencies with volunteer time and money. Things like this don't happen without people supporting them and awesomely patient spouses who let them get planned.

2012 Year in Review.

What to say about 2012?

It had it's ups and downs.

My family mourned the loss of my paternal Grandmother early this year. She lived a long full life and because of her we are all here. She was a mother, a traveler, an ice skater, a storyteller, an artist. She loved and is loved and she will always be remembered.

In comparison to that the other low points are not even blips on the radar. Her long full life is a reminder to constantly go and create my own stories and I definitely did my best this year.

I completed my second half-marathon, this time properly training and beating my first time by almost an hour. Thanks to a lovely group of ladies (and one of their committed husbands and the constant cheering on from my own) I completed one race a month, besides the half along with all of them.

I've had the honor of being on the Junior League of San Antonio Board of Directors as the Community Council Chair for the 2012-2013 year (the fun continues until May of 2013).

Justin and I traveled. Mostly together, sometimes separately. We went to Minnesota to remember my Grandmother, Leakey on the Frio River to celebrate friends, San Francisco to celebrate the 4th of July with Amy and Doug, Las Vegas to celebrate birthdays, Madrid/Toledo/Paris/Brussels/Barcelona to celebrate Christmas.

I went to Cabo and Rockport/Port Aransas to celebrate friendships and Austin to celebrate music at ACL.

We renovated our kitchen. Not with our own hands, unless writing checks counts. We are smart enough to know our limits. So soon we will travel to our dining room to celebrate cooking in our house.

It's been a year to remember. The ups and the downs.

My Santa Baby....

My husband is awesome.  I tentatively asked him to play Santa for the kids at my JLSA Volunteer activity and he said yes.  Four months ago.

Time comes to actually play Santa and he delivers.  With gusto.  His "ho, ho, ho"s were superb and when asked where his reindeer were, "Magic!" was his go-to answer. 

My awesome hubby and me.

Also, this is a 21st century Santa who gave fist bumps and read The Night Before Christmas off an iPad.

He helped us volunteers rock it out and helped make this holiday extra special for some very special families at Family Endeavors Fairweather Family Lodge.

Some of the awesome ladies who make it happen every week!

Tempus Fugit...

Or as I typed it into google to get the Latin Translation that I should have known- Time Flies.

I cannot believe how quickly this month has flown by.

10/03/2010 We saw Daniel Tosh when he came through town on his "World Tour"
10/07-09/2010 We spent approximately 21 hours, not including travel time, watching awesome bands perform at ACL (Austin City Limits- not the body part)
10/13-17/10 Spent some time in San Francisco and Napa celebrating my best friend's 30th (it's creeping up on me) birthday

I have pics from everything but Tosh- for fear of lashings from a volunteer usher- those people are serious at the Majestic Theatre when they say no pictures.  And the smarties who defy them with their phones and cameras flashing deserve what's coming to them.

Tonight is JLSA Ole Preview Party!  My mom and a bunch of friends are going and I am super psyched that so many people are willing to buy a ticket to support JLSA so that they can do a little bit of shopping.

Wookie! is still a horse.  That is the one thing that didn't change.  Actually, he is bigger.

Busy. Busy. Busy.

It's been a busy week.  But I ate well. I'll post picks and the recipe later.  They're just sitting on the memory card in my camera.  My JLSA placement kept me busy organizing stuff for crafting. We're starting from scratch so it seemed like a lot.  Now that it's all organized- it just seems like a good amount of organized stuff.  Thank you Dollar Store. 

Seriously, without the Dollar Store I don't even want to think about how much I would have spent on stuff.  That and the $5 fabric I scored for the french-style memory boards we are making with the moms.

That's $5 for 5 yards, not per yard. Now I just need to figure out what to do with all of it.

I got to channel my inner child when putting together a popsicle stick frame and seeing which glues worked.  Turns out all of them did. 

I was focused on getting this stuff done so I don't have any pics right now. Maybe I'll snap some tomorrow.  Really though, we all know what a popsicle stick frame looks like.

Gooooo Gators!

Get involved...

This is a little more serious. It's about getting involved. Getting involved in your community and giving back.  It can be as easy as walking some cute dogs at a local animal shelter or as real as reality gets and becoming a volunteer at a nonprofit organization that deals with sexual assault.  This weekend I officially begin my Junior League of San Antonio volunteer placement with a San Antonio organization, Family Endeavors Fairweather Family Lodge, that helps women and their children.  These are families with histories of homelessness and the organization works with them to make sure they don't end up in that position again.

From their website: "The program opened in 2004 as a way to assist homeless women with mental illness and their children.  The Fairweather Family Lodge was developed as a place that nurtures development and provides a safe environment for these families to stabilize, grow and remain together."

We will be working with the women on basically anything with which they want help. I am a co-chair for the placement and this is the first year, so there may be some challenges in figuring out exactly where our road map is taking us, but we plan to help the families create positive experiences that they can take with them wherever they go.

This topic came to mind because we attended the 35th Anniversary Partners in Change Gala for the Rape Crisis Center of San Antonio.  The statistic for sexual assault are mind boggling and scary and really need to be combated. 

My dear friend, and one of my husband's colleagues, is on the board and it is always a prideful moment when they acknowledge here and the support she helps to provide them. This is her passion and how she gives back to the community.  Because the reality is that every statistic is not just a number. It's a person.

How will you help to change tomorrow?