Halfway There

APPLES OF THEIR EYES:  We're on day three (of five) of the United Way of King County's Hunger Action Week. We're in a rhythm at this point, we all know everything has its price.

Like these lovely Pink Lady apples for breakfast. The kids were oh-so-happy when we went shopping and found them on sale for .98 per pound - they're often twice or more that much, so we usually pass them up. This morning they each enjoyed one for breakfast, after computing the cost. 

As usual, it turned into a good math lesson. We talked about educated guesses and things they could do to make a better estimate of their apple's weight. (For instance, pick it up and compare it to something you know the weight of.) After doing so, CJ guessed his apple at 6 ounces. Annabelle guessed hers was 12 ounces. 

We studied our receipt and figured out the per ounce price of the apples was 6 cents an ounce (.98/16).  After weighing the fruit, we found CJ's estimate was spot on - 6 ounces- and he calculated his apple's cost at 36 cents. Annabelle's apple weighed in at 6.5 ounces, so she was off by a considerable margin, and her apple cost slightly more, 39 cents. 

They also enjoyed a strawberry cupcake this morning, but that was 'free' since we paid for all 18 of them out of yesterday's budget, when we made them. (Have I mentioned they are The Best Cupcakes Ever?)

The adults' breakfast breakdown:  Christian had yogurt and grapes again, $1.35 total; I had a strawberry cupcake (true confession time), but it was "free" - we paid for it yesterday. We had 58 cents worth of home brew (coffee). Total breakfast for four: $2.67

Lunch for each of the kids was a $2 slice of crappy, cardboard, burned pizza from a"Quality" Food Center in south Shoreline. Perhaps not the best choice. I had an apple, 36 cents. Christian had three eggs (.24), 3 oz. of peppers (.36) and some already-paid-for-by-us-on-Hunger-Challenge-days-previous potatoes and taco meat thrown in. Total lunch for four: $2.96

Dinner was home made, oven baked chicken nuggets. We used $3.98 worth of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, 35 cents worth of cornflakes, 8 cents worth of milk and 16 cents for eggs. On the side were .50 cents worth of strawberries for the kids. Christian had leftover salad on the side (paid for yesterday). Dinner total $5.37, including .30 cents worth of ketchup for the kids. 

Wednesday's total: $11 on the nose, exactly half of our $22 budget. 

When we were cruising through QFC this afternoon, as we walked up the baking goods aisle, I pointed out the cutest little bag of flour EVER to the kids. At just 2 pounds, I could hold it one hand . After I was done gushing about its micro-adorableness, I asked the kids to check out its price. It was $1.99.  I then grabbed a 5-pound bag and pointed out to them it was $2 - virtually the same price, except the 5-pound bag actually had a 'save now' coupon on it for,25, so it actually cost LESS than the wee little bag. Imagine that. We then talked about how bigger is sometimes better, and how you need to be able to figure out a per-unit price, so you can compare apples to apples (or flour to flour, in this case).

Of course by now, the kids are used to me going on and on about the price of flour. Here's a less-than-glamorous shot of Annabelle yesterday in Fred Meyer, trying to read the per-ounce price on the bag of flour for our cupcakes. 

Too bad they make the prices so darn hard to read, sometimes. 

Daily reflection: We are not going hungry this week. Truly. Not at all. However ... 

I have found myself supposedly more hungry this week than I can remember in recent memory  Why? I think it's because even the knowledge of the limit and the looming of potential scarcity makes me fixate on food. What would it be like to live like this every day? Wondering if you and your family would have enough?  

Food for thought, courtesy of a morning email from United Way of King County:

• 41% of all Western Washington households that visit food banks have at least one adult with a job, and 20% of those jobs are managerial.
• Two years ago, 13% of King County residents did not have dependable access to nutritious food.
• In the past four years, food bank visits have gone up 30 percent, but donations have gone down 31 percent.

Naturally, this makes me realize we should be donating regularly to a food bank. It was great to be able to give pounds and pounds of fresh produce from our organic garden to a local food bank last fall, but it should be more than a once a year event, for sure. 

TIE-DYED: We found ourselves driving by a Goodwill on the way to school, and had a few minutes to spare, so we popped inside to pop some tags (as Macklemore would say). 

We were in the market for some silk ties, because everyone in our house wears ties all the time. Not. 

What we really needed them for was an art project I saw awhile back in a Martha Stewart magazine, I do believe. 

You take raw eggs, wrap them tightly in a scrap of a silk tie (print side toward egg shell), wrap them again in white cotton (we used old socks), and then boil them.

So, first we opened up the ties .... 

then we cut them into patches big enough to wrap around an egg. 

Next, we wrapped an old sock around them, and into the drink they went. 

They boiled for 20 minutes, we removed them from the bath, waited for them to cool and unwrapped them ...

to find this. ...

They're kinda pretty, and certainly not something we could do with a Paas kit, but, honestly I was a bit disappointed. I expected the colors to be more vibrant (we picked the brightest ties we could find!).

If I had it to do over again, I'd shop the Goodwill Outlet/bins store (where they sell stuff by the pound - a tie would be practically free that way), and/or I'd look for a silk blouse, which would probably have cost the same as a tie, and have given us more/better swatches to work with.

IN OTHER NEWS: We had a science filled day, as we listened to another of our "How Things Work" physics class lectures. It was really interesting - all about the center of mass and the center of rotation (sometimes they're one and the same, other times, not). Then this afternoon in their Shoreline science class, the kids worked with levers and fulcrums, and scales that measured effort, not weight. Cool stuff. 
.
ROCKET REMINDER: A Soyuz capsule will be launched into space tomorrow, at 1:43 p.m. West Coast U.S. time. You know we'll be watching on NASA TV: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html  

Per their schedule, it looks like pre-launch coverage starts around 12:30 p.m.