Grief

Grief is like an ocean. 

If you have never experienced a loss just think about a day at the beach.  You are hanging out with friends and family.  Maybe digging holes to see how long it takes to get to water.  Or maybe you build a sandcastle with your kids.  Enjoying the craziness of making it just right.  Watching something appear out of nothing.  What a beautiful thing.

Then, something happens.  You lose something.  Something you have wanted for such a long time.  And that's when the waves hit you.  It's like a storm.  The waves of grief smash against you.  They destroy your sandcastle.  They destroy your day at the beach.  Its as if nothing will stop.  These waves of sadness, tears and your heavy heart will not stop.  No matter what.

Slowly, every so slowly the waves go back into the ocean of tears.  They move away from the shore line, from your perfect day at the beach.  The waves back up.  The pain of losing someone or something backs up.  The horrible loss feeling isn't there all the time.  It's like the first time you smile after a loss.  You aren't sure you can laugh or even smile, but you do.  The wave of grief isn't as pounding as before.

The sun comes out, the sand dries up, as do your tears.  The waves back up, the pound on the shore isn't as bad as it used to be.  It isn't as hard as you remember.  There are moments of sadness, moments when you miss that person or that thing so badly it hurts.  Moments when tears just pour out of you.

Those are the moments that are the hardest to explain.  For me they come so randomly.  Sometimes they seem so far between.  Sometimes I feel like I can go for weeks without feeling sad.  Weeks without thinking about my baby.  Then a storm comes.  Something happens.  Something sets me off and I just break down. 

Last night was a break down.  I'm not sure why, I'm not sure what brought it on, I'm just not sure.  But it happen.  It was hard to take.  I just missed my baby.

So if you are reading this and have never felt the loss in your life, please keep this in mind.  Just because something tragic happens "a long time ago" doesn't mean the waves of grief aren't going to hit later.  This isn't an excuse.  It's the truth.

Grief is like the waves of an ocean.  Lapping in and bringing memories, tears and sadness.

Feeling Inspired!

In the past few weeks a friend of mine, Jana, posted about her and her hubby making some freezer crock pot meals for when she returns to work.  I'm so impressed!  They made 43 freezer meals in 6 hours!  Talk about incredible!  If you wanna check out her blog here's the link:  Jana's CP Meals

While I had planned a weekend at the beginning of Jan I just never got around to it!

So I bit the bullet so to speak.  I found, using my trusty Pinterest pages, about  39 recipes that would work for our family.  While we aren't the best for trying new things these looked like my kids would actually eat them!  I tweaked a few of the recipes and we were good to go.  I had copied each of them into a word document and then saved it.  I then copied it all and pasted it into a new document.  I took out all the titles and cooking instructions and got 4 pages of 2 columns of things we would need.

Arnold printed them off around 2:30pm on Saturday.  I spent the next half hour to 45 minutes getting ready to go to a party and pairing down the list.  While I was setting up for the party at church Arnold did as much shopping as he could.

Then we partied :)

Sunday morning I had found a store with chicken on sale and we went there.  I picked up 36 breasts of chicken.  We were short for what I needed but I made it all work!

While I didn't get everything for the 39 recipes I started small and went with 12 instead. 

I actually did 17.  I made 5 of them into doubles. You see, our old neighbours had twins about a month ago and I've been wanting to help them out.  It actually worked out well.  Around 1 month or so people stop dropping off food and they were in need so I brought over 5 meals and a fresh loaf of bread.  I loved getting my baby snuggles too!

With buying everything we needed including a weeks worth of groceries for our family we were around $235.00!  I love good deals on chicken!!

This time around I made:
Tortilla Chicken Stew;
Chicken Taco Chili;
BBQ Chicken and Veggies (x2);
Southwestern 2 Bean Chicken;
Minestrone Soup (x2);
Turkey Chili (x2);
Teriyaki Chicken;
Sweet BBQ Chicken;
Cilantro Lime Chicken (x2);
Hawaiian Chicken;
Honey Rosemary Chicken;
and Apple, Pear & Pork Deliciousness (x2).

I found that while I didn't get a lot of time to check out the recipes I liked doing each prep alone instead of big containers of things.  I did all my work on the kitchen table.  I can honestly say that my hubby came up with a great idea!  I used the actual crockpot container and our big colander to hold the bags.  And I had bought the EXTRA large freezer bags and they were the perfect size for some things. 

I didn't get a lot of pictures but it was a lot of fun! 

(My only picture)





Since it's nice and cold outside I was able to store them outside while I was making it all.  I have a set of plastic drawers we are throwing away so I could store them flat and have them sort of dry. 

I made the first 5 that were doubles then texted the mama to see if I could stop over.

I'd have to say I had worked on it from about 2pm until about 5:30pm.  Then I went to get my baby fix and drop off some food!  I came home and had supper and watched a TV and went back to it around 6:45pm.  Things took off and I was done and cleaned up by 7:30pm.  Even had things washed, and put in the freezer. 

I'm kinda proud of it!!  Now I'm not worrying about our Wednesday meals for this month and one meal on the weekends!  This makes it nice now!

Arnold and I figured if I can do this about once a month we should be good to go!  So hands up, who wants in on my meals next time?