Neighbor's rock, and cook! - 5/15/08

So our neighborhood mothers’ group has an informal dinner drop program where families with newborns get 3 weeks of meals, 3 nights a week. It is an extremely nice deal, and great example of neighbors helping other neighbors because it allows people to help others they may not know yet. With our 3 kids, we of course are signed up to participate, waiting until the week after Grams comes back to stay with us.

This week however, I have stayed home and had planned on cooking each night. Slightly disturbing thought if the meal is anything more than hamburger helper or mac & cheese. Not that I am worthless in the kitchen, but more that I get stressed easily, and a 3 year old and 18 month old running madly around the house doesn’t always lower my stress levels. But I was keeping an open mind, and even spent some time this past Sunday looking at cookbooks for some new recipes to try out. Fortunately, that got put on hold, as when we were out walking with the kids Monday, we ran into a few neighbors down the street, and learned that 3 had planned to make us dinner on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday! Sweet, no work for me. And they brought over some great food: Tuesday was red beans & rice with awesome cheesy corn bread, Wednesday was delicious chicken enchiladas, and Thursday was an interesting take on Shepherd’s Pie using sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes; this came from the Scottish family of course. It was all wonderful, and we were very grateful that we could eat so well all week. Can’t wait for the “official” dinner drops to start.

Oh, and we are not freeloaders at all or anything. Sarah has been very active in dinner drops, even during the pregnancy, participating in every drop over the past several months. She even got mad early on in the program when she was left out of making dinner for families.