Grateful for Food

I'm going to get all personal and talk about something that's a bit taboo: money.  

One thing that we've learned during Matt's 11 years of service in the military is that our money/pay is going to be fine, and everything/back pay/reimbursements we are supposed to have will come. 

It just might take thousands of phone calls and months of waiting.  

Which was the case (again) this fall.  We kinda, foolishly, thought Matt's pay would be worked out by October so that we'd be able to start paying off certain loans come due.  

After a big scare in September known as "we have only 100 dollars to our name to last for the next 10 days," we started to get really worried about the coming months.  

We were getting paid, for sure, but at a level of someone who didn't have any previous years in the military; and none of the reimbursements from lodging Matt had to pay for were coming through.   

October was tight.  Like squeeze my heart--twist my intestines--curl my feet--tight.  

We had a budget, and every penny went somewheres, besides to us for living (it seemed).  I became pretty creative in the kitchen!  Biked a ton, and barely left our few blocks so we wouldn't use gas. 

One day I joked to a friend about living on rice and beans. 

That night she and another friend showed up with big bags of groceries.  I was very overwhelmed, and teary, but very grateful for their act of kindness.  

That wasn't the first time someone had dropped groceries at our door--sometime last Fall in Boise, when our student loans hadn't been processed and we had to spend our extra money during Eli's heart surgery in SLC, lots and lots of food were anonymously left on our door step.  THANK YOU anonymous person(s)!  

So our pay is being worked out.  Thank the Lord above (seriously)!  We are able to meet all our needs, and have extra for other little things... you know, like groceries, gas, fun little things here and there.  Also the reimbursements are coming through, which is sooo nice.  

Last week, for the first time in 6 weeks, I went REAL grocery shopping. 

Having lots food makes me really happy...

What we came home to after Thanksgiving break.

 "Laa!"   <<< Angels singing
Do you see the light of Heaven shining down? 

... and this experience has also made me realize that I really need to get our food storage in order.  

3 months supply of food and 2 weeks of water, here we come!!