More than just dinner in the freezer....

Last Friday I received some excellent news from my husband. He received a great job for a major corporation that he has always wanted to work for! But this great news was ended with some sad news for our family. We will have to move away from the home town that we love so much. In the past few days my emotions have gone up and down from extreme happiness to absolute grief over some of the impending losses. While I look forward to the new adventure there are some things that I feel may never be replaced in my life. I trust that God has a plan for the next steps in my life and will bring new and joyous experiences for our family.

Today I am going to go to the grocery store to pick up the ingredients to cook for this month's exchange. As I began the process that I do each month I started to feel very sad that in a few months everything is going to change. Including how I prepare dinner. I didn't want to get busy and let the feeling pass me by. I decided that now is the time to say some of the things that I have felt about this group rather than putting it off because of fear that I might sound sappy.

My adventure with co-op freezer cooking began about two years ago. I had joined a group because a friend of a friend had an opening. I was excited since I had been freezer cooking on my own and really wanted to "up the game" a bit. Eventually this group evolved into the group that maintains this blog. Every month we get together over lunch and plan our exchange for the next month. It is more than just a meal exchange! We enjoy each other's company, so much so that hours can pass with barely a notice. We laugh about the food disasters from the past months, we praise each other for a job well done, and we all get excited over a new and different recipe. Our love for reading cookbooks connects us together! We talk about our families and how our lives are going. Not a month passes by that I don't look forward to our meetings and our time together.

This is so much more than a club. Maybe this is true of the many other groups that have been meeting as long as we have? I don't know for sure. But I do know that what this group has is very special and I will treasure the last months of cooking for these wonderful ladies.

I'm writing this not only to say what I feel needs to be said to them, but also so that everyone reading this blog might be inspired to reach outside their own comfort zone and try something like a freezer cooking co-op. You may find yourself with a new group of friends. I hope to find a way to put together a new group in my new hometown. Look out, I may just ask YOU! :)

I love you, chicks! Thanks for making dinner for my family for all these years! :)