Good News!

The topper of last week's struggle was the State of Maine went into shutdown mode.  Given my husband is a state employee, that meant no paycheck for us until the budget was resolved.  No paycheck from him and no paycheck from me (I'm still on maternity leave from work).  No income for our family.

Of course, that stressed us out at first.

But then after we talked, we both knew we'd be just fine.  Early in our marriage we did the Dave Ramsey program (and were even on his TV show with our story).  Our emergency fund is in place. We have full freezers, full pantries, oodles of eggs and a booming garden.  We have been together for 13 years, and in those 13 years I have worked to make us more self sufficient. I had planned for this emergency.  Nothing to fear.

I had a whole plan. We'd use our stores. The kids and I were going back to selling bread, taking the bread money to use as our grocery money for anything extra needed. Adrian has an envelope all labeled with our food money. I was set for a great learning opportunity.

But, as luck would have it, we don't need my grand master plan. The Maine State Budget passed.  My husband WILL get paid. Life will carry on. All is well.

Through all this stress, I am reminded how blessed we are.  We live on this great farm and if there was a true emergency, we have the knowledge and skills to survive.

Although we don't need to survive off our stores and our stores alone now, I think we shall anyway.

Because this is how we do spaghetti night.

 Fresh greens, canned roasted tomatoes from last year, oregano, parsley, basil, garlic scapes. Pair that with homemade/homegrown meatballs (not pictured, they were baking at this time)- yum.

 Plus I have quite the helper.  Add a hand picked bouquet and handwritten nametags and the table is set. Emergency or not, we'll eat like kings and queens.