… in which I finally achieve one goal and begin to get creative.

Breakfast – homemade oatmeal with dried cranberries substituted for raisins (since I threw our nasty old dried up fuzzy crumbly raisins away in the pantry purge a few weeks before the Pantry Challenge). LightChildren declared cranberries far more excellent than raisins. I wouldn’t know … I hate oatmeal. I’ll make it, but I won’t eat it.

Lunch – LightChildren had a buffet of various frozen, then baked convenience foods (clam strips, cod nuggets) and some leftover mac & cheese, so did LightHusband. BlazingEwe and FlamingLambs were here and her children shared said frozen feast. BlazingEwe and I (on the other hand) prepared a tasty lunch of cream of tomato soup and grilled cheddar cheese with apple sandwiches. YUM.

Dinner – scones. Coffee with my friend went long. We had lots and lots to catch up on. So we just kept eating scones and grinning at each other because we were being naughty (not eating a proper dinner as our mothers taught us). I did get hungry later on and have a chicken pot pie from the freezer.

Tonight’s dinner is already half-way done … I began a beef and barley soup from some roast beef bones in my frig. I think it’s time to break out the bread machine as well. Our bread is finally gone.

I did realize that we do have some things to serve our guests on Saturday. There is an enormous lasagna in the freezer that will do well for dinner. I can make bread. I can make other yummy things throughout the day. The only thing that will be lacking is a salad.

I ought to have some erudite bit to say here.

All of this is really driving home to me how difficult it is to keep up with fresh fruit and vegetables.  If one is truly impoverished, even by our standards here in the US, having a balanced diet is nearly impossible.  Yet that is what is necessary to achieve balance as a human being.  It is the cornerstone for nearly every pursuit in life.  I am allowing this to happen in our lives because I know that it is short term.  But what about those for whom fruit and vegetables are not ordinary, but luxuries?  Or sufficient protein?

I have a foggy distant memory from my childhood of a number beyond which this planet could not sustain life.  I don’t remember what the number was.  I just remember it as a population number that was estimated we (as in the global we) had the power to attain in my lifetime.  I have a memory too, that there was much debate at the time over the number and the powers of progressive, industrial farming to overcome the number.  Or the powers of family planning methods to remove our collective feet from the gas pedal.  I remember that younger friends of my parents talked about this and made plans to have two or fewer children.  Once in a while now, as I engage in experiences like this pantry challenge, I wonder about our estimates of how many people our planet can sustain.  How do we measure that?  What does it mean to sustain life?  How do we measure a life?  I’m not entertaining any horrible notions of genocide.  But I wonder at times about our measures of life.  I think that there are some things that defy measurement.  Perhaps my question would better be:  Can we measure a life?  What does it take to sustain that life well?