Hello world! Welcome to our blog. I'm Mary, and along with my husband, Mike, and son, Jack, we are taking on a crazy challenge to start the New Year. We are going on strike! No restaurants! No take-out! No ready-made meals from the grocery stores, either. For all of January 2012 we will be making breakfast, lunch, and dinner AT HOME!
The spark for this strike came back in early December, when Mike came home from work early. After picking up Jack and offering some hugs and tickles, he turned to me. "I have an idea," he said. "AND, before you say ANYTHING, just promise me you won't say no until I've finished." This perhaps reveals a lot about our relationship and our identities. Mike is the dreamer; I am the realist. Usually this works out to mean that Mike has wonderful, albeit outlandish, ideas; and I say give him an honest, practical no. Let me share a few examples:
Mike: Let's get a builder over here to dig a basement under our house. It would be easy! We'll stick a staircase in Jack's closet!
Mary: No.
Mike: Let's build a covered walkway to the neighbor's house!
Mary: No.
Mike: Let's buy this 22 pound turkey to smoke this weekend. It will be fun and delicious!
Mary: There are a total of 2 people in this house who eat turkey. We're supposed to eat 11 pounds each? No.
Mike: Let's go on a 25 hour car trip with a baby!
Mary: No.
Mike: Let's move to Alaska!
Mary: No.
Back to the story. I vaguely promise not to say no until I've heard Mike's whole spiel. He pulls from his pocket a folded piece of paper. It's something he found online and printed out. I'm already thinking it's something related to barbecue sauce and a Big Green Egg, and I can feel my body tensing. "It's the 30 Day Challenge," he says, "No restaurants. We have to go one month without eating out at all. This would be so fun!"
Now comes the dramatic pause as he waits for the inevitable no. But he doesn't get it this time, because I'm seeing dollar signs. Just think of all the money we could save if we didn't buy expensive dinners at restaurants! And all those fast food lunches that add up way too fast? I'm liking where this is going (that's the pragmatist in me... tell me something's cheap and I'm in). So I chirp in with a happy "Sure, let's do it!"
Mike was a little taken aback, and still hasn't quite recovered. Just to test me, he has offered lots of other ideas since then, which have met their usual response (we did not suspend a Santa on a wire between our house and the neighbors', and he did not get a Ford Raptor for Christmas).
So we are a go for the restaurant strike! We have our different reasons, of course. I love that we will save money and don't have to worry about our squirmy toddler at restaurants, and Mike loves that he will get to flex his creative muscles in the kitchen.
Follow our blog to see the fun that ensues. We'll be sure to tell you all about our favorite new recipes, old family favorites, constant attempts to encourage our picky toddler to try new foods, and all the restaurant withdrawals we are sure to have.
