Ringing in the New Year for me usually entails setting ambitious goals and kickstarting better habits.

Instead, we rang in the new year with lots of vomit and a broken refrigerator.

It was not ideal when the repairman said the fridge couldn’t be fixed.

It was even less ideal when the appliance store told us it would take 8 days to get our new one.

But, being someone who loves challenges, I decided this would be fun.

It would be like camping! There are tons of dry foods we can live on!

These were my optimistic thoughts on day 1.

Turns out feeding four people this way is tricky. We had 2 who couldn’t eat gluten, 2 recovering from a stomach bug, and 1 really picky eater.

So we quickly changed gears to “let’s just get takeout for most meals.”

This worked surprisingly well at first. When we all got hungry we agreed on a food that sounded good. We even managed to stay in our budget.

It felt like we were actually eating less overall. We mainly ate at mealtime with a few snacks sprinkled in.

But after 4 or 5 days of drive thrus I desperately missed fresh food and cooking in my kitchen.

Mother Nature must have heard me, so she sent cooler temps and about 10 inches of snow our way.

I put my extra eggs in a container outside yesterday, and they were nice and chilled this morning.

While I still can’t stock up until our fridge arrives tomorrow, atleast I can have a few basics chilling in the snow.

What did I learn this week?

I definitely have a new gratitude for refrigeration. But I also learned we were probably overstocking and over consuming.

So as I reflect on this less-than-ideal first week of the year, I am reminded once again of the power of less.

As I rework my goals for the year, one new mantra rings above the rest:

We don’t need as much as we think.

-Brittany