Directionally Challenged

I do lost. I do it brilliantly. It is, in point of fact, one of my greatest skills.

My sister has complained that after living in and around a certain major metropolitan area since, oh, say, the day I was born, I probably ought to know where its neighborhoods lie and how they connect to each other.

I do not. I get lost. Even in the city of my birth.

And gee, that's fun.

On Saturday I dragged my two youngest kids to the biggest mall in our area. A great big outlet style mall. Big, big parking lot. So big, in fact, that it features valet parking at three different entrances.

I know my own deficiencies. So whenever I go anywhere - work, the grocery store, the colossal mall with 87 movie theaters - I park in the same place. Always. I pick one favorite row. I know where it is. I walk down it until I find my car.

Brilliant, right? It works every time.

Unless, of course, said mall has decided to do massive construction on its parking lots. Hence the valet parking. Because there is no parking. None.

I don't pay to park at the mall. There's a sort of ridiculousness in paying to park when you're paying to shop. So we avoided the valet and, after driving around for 15 minutes, lucked into a little, hard-to-find space as someone else was leaving it. The space was not in my row. It was in the unfamiliar hinterlands. I made a mental note that the car would not be where I expected it to be. I studied landmarks. I asked my kids to help. Then we bravely left our little car to fend for itself.

In the mall, I dropped insane amounts of money on child-sized fall clothes. I'm not sure why my kids keep growing out of stuff. Possibly it's because they're kids. Oh, but I found a pair of dress pants I could wear to work, to replace all the ones I don't have anymore. And they were a size 4. 4! I'm not even kidding.

But I digress.

I got a text at that point to come pick up my oldest from his playdate. So we trucked back around the mall loaded down with our big bags of stuff, exited ... and spent 40 minutes trolling the parking lot for our red minivan that looks just like every other red minivan in this part of the world. Ours wasn't there. I pressed my panic button. No answering honk. I pressed it again. And again and again and again. Still no honk.

So we went back in the mall. Where we realized we'd come out the wrong door.

When we went out the right door, we found the car, right where we left it. So we got in it and drove straight home.

Or we would have. Except I got lost doing that too.

That'll teach me to leave the GPS at home.

When Mother Nature Is Out to Get You

Last week, we started school. Which has led to some musings. Random musings.

First, math.

Do you remember 8th grade algebra? I do. Loved my teacher, Mrs. Vaughn, who taught me to enjoy math and take some pride in an ability to do it well. I still can't add long columns of numbers, and I'll never know my multiplication tables by heart. But at one point I could do both well enough that I managed a whole year of algebra with a cheap-ass calculator. Peabo and his generation, however, are apparently so mathematically challenged that their 8th grade algebra class requires the firm plunking down of $140. For a calculator.

A calculator that comes with a USB cord and 20 pre-installed apps. It's like an iPod, only, you know, not.

Actually, I could have bought him an iPod at that price. It has a calculator built in. And for a measly $4.99 you can get Angry Birds, too.

That thing does make graphs, though. For my fine-motor challenged Peabo, that's a plus. (Note: math pun. Ha ha.)

Second, the first day of school. Which should maybe be first, not second, except that we bought the calculator first. Or rather, hemorrhaged money in the direction of the local office store.

Our first day of school was rather interesting because after the full backpacks and the big breakfast and the cheery pictures of the kids, there was the earthquake. Because we live on the East Coast, and earthquakes are a fact of life out here.

Except they're NOT. Not ever. So my kids spent their first day of school diving under their desks and then sat outside for two hours getting sunburned for the sake of safety.

For which I am grateful.

My redhead's assessment of his first day of first grade? "The best part was when the earth started shaking! That was awesome! Can we do it again?"

Oh, please no.

But that wasn't enough. Because into the chaos of tracking down med forms and prescriptions and picking up last-minute supplies for the middle schooler, we also added a hurricane.

Yeah, that was fun. We spent hours stocking up on non-perishable food and water in case the power went out (oddly enough, ours didn't - I say oddly because pretty much the whole rest of the world around our one little block is still dark). And then I dragged all the deck furniture inside and stowed my trash cans and pulled my basketball hoop down so it wouldn't blow over.

My kids freaked out. My au pair freaked out. They asked me about flooding and thunder and wind. They stayed up late and panicked. And that's with me firmly NOT telling them there might be tornadoes. Aren't I a good mom?

Of course, I knew there might be tornadoes, so I didn't sleep a wink. My basement is uninhabitable, so I put my kids in a room that was safe from falling trees and spent the night listening to the radio for tornado warnings.

Brilliant recipe for a cranky weekend. Stressed out, sleep-deprived kids combined with physically exhausted, sleep-deprived mom. Fun fun.

And then they stayed home from school. Because although our area was spared the floods that hit farther north, so many trees are down, so many homes and businesses are without power, that school's been canceled for two days now. Likely with more to come.

After the chaos of a vacation that bumped headlong into the back-to-school weekend frenzy of shopping and haircuts and more shopping, school should have been a break. It should have gotten us back to the routine. And we love that routine. I love it. My kids love it. My aspie especially loves it. Even my new au pair loves it.

So far, no routine. Only natural disasters. And a $140 calculator.

Sister's Day

If I had my druthers, I'd spend my Mother's Day digging in the dirt while my beautifully behaved kids played in the grass around me. I'd have a marvelous meal cooked by someone who isn't me and who wants to wash all the dishes. And the whole world would chew with their mouths closed.

Oh, so not my life. I've got a little too much chaos for that.

I settled for bribing my kids to let me sleep in. I promised them as much TV, video game and computer time as they could manage. Which meant I had a great sleep, with only six interruptions between 6:30 and 10:30 a.m.: two Aspie tantrums, one set of fighting siblings, two beautiful handmade gifts, and one breakfast in bed comprising American cheese, a Nutella sandwich and a very, very tall cup of strawberry chocolate milk.

Yum!

I got up and made a big brunch. Then I broke my own cardinal rule of Mother's Day and washed the dishes.

I brokered 37 arguments, including some with other kids in the neighborhood. I put everyone in time out at least once. I shushed the very loud and annoying barking dog. I bandaged a scraped knee and kissed away some tears. I brokered 15 more arguments and shushed the barking dog again and finally gave up and hauled everyone outside just in time to join a neighborhood walk. Which was great fun, with two dogs and three grown-ups and a passel of kids racing around on various wheeled things, until they hit a particularly steep and curvy hill, where two of mine wiped out, the redhead dangerously so, scraping his left leg from his ankle to his backside, complete with ground-in dirt. I wound up piggybacking my screaming redhead all the way home, holding my dog by the leash, consoling Peabo (my other wipee) with words. Which really doesn't work so well.

My sister arrived as we rounded the corner home.

I have two sisters. This is the one nearest me in age, hair color and height. She hasn't got kids, and my kind of chaos stresses me out, so I can only imagine what it does to her.

And yet, she consoled and played with my diva while I put my redhead into a tub and cleaned off his scraped leg - and if you've ever inflicted that kind of pain on your child, knowing it was what you had to do and knowing you were hurting him badly, you know what that felt like. He wasn't crying alone.

We left the bathroom shaking and sobbing. While I dried him off and bandaged his leg, my sister blew up balloons and sent them whizzing through the air. She made my redhead laugh - actually laugh, after all that - by pointing out that it sounded like a fart. And doing it again. And again.

Then she went downstairs and found a leak in my pipes and a half inch of water in the back of my basement that I wouldn't have discovered until 2012.

She also cleaned it all up.

When I said, "I give up, let's go get pizza," she said, "Yes, let's!" even though she had pizza yesterday.

She let Peabo poke her all the way through dinner. She answered the eternal question, "Do you like waffles?" about 93 times. She listened to my diva's fabulous Mother's Day story that lasted through three car rides and an entire meal. She laughed at the redhead's jokes, and made him laugh right back.

And at the end of the day, she told me she had fun. Despite the screaming and the crying and the barking, and the stressed out, exhausted kids, and the stressed-out and moderately well-rested mom. She had fun.

I know it's Mother's Day. But I'd never have made it through this one without her. So I'm renaming it Sister's Day in her honor.

Because I'm glad she's my sister. And I don't tell her that nearly enough.

Positive Dog Training

March is running away from me.

Might be nicer if March were running away with me. To someplace green and relaxing and warm, with endless acres of quiet. Sleepy, restful quiet.

But no. March is simply running, very quickly, and headlong on into April.

And it's very very noisy.

Turns out that border collie - have you met Oswald, the border collie? Well, it turns out that border collie and full-on Aspie tantrum don't get along so well. We get amped up tweenage Peabo on an "I don't wanna do my homework" tear, and Oz goes "What the heck? That young sheep is misbehaving!" and starts barking the roof down. Which amps Peabo up further. Which amps Oz up further.

My loud house has gotten a whole lot louder.

I've combed through every dog training book I could find - which in my house means exactly one book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Positive Dog Training, because of course I haven't had time to go to the library and look for more. Did you know that barking is a sign of stress? Much like your typical Aspie tantrum, oddly enough.

I also learned that dogs don't understand English. So I can't tell Oz to be patient because tantrums don't last forever. In fact these days tantrums are generally quite short, unless there's a dog barking nearby feeding the madness. Oz doesn't seem to hear that. He thinks I'm barking too and just barks louder.

So I worked on the other side of the equation: Peabo and his junior cohorts. Every person in this house under the age of 20 now has instructions to lie down the instant the dog starts barking. It's hilarious. Aspie tantrum begins. Dog starts barking. All three children promptly lie down. Dog goes, "Huh?" All three kids giggle. Tantrums - both doggy and human - averted. Because it's really hard to be upset about your homework when you're laughing at the dog. And it's a routine. Routines are genius.

Probably I should have bought the Complete Idiot's Guide to Positive Child Training a few years back. I'm trying treats and clickers on them next.

Lice, the Universe and Everything

There is a certain, very specific brand of ooginess that washes over you when you're brushing your hair and notice that the little gray speck that just floated down to your shoulder, and which you thought might be a dandruff flake or bit of dust, is moving. All on its own. In fact, the damn thing has legs. Six teeny tiny oogy little legs.

We have lice. And that speck was a nymph.

I squished it. And I flushed it. And then I dragged my itchy, scratchy kids upstairs and bathed them in pyrethrum.

Did you know that stuff is made from chrysanthemums?

You learn a lot when you start a war on blood-sucking parasites. To wit:

• My diva has the patience of a saint. As long as I put the Wizards of Waverly Place on an endless loop, she will sit still for up to three hours at a pop while I comb and pick and pull individual hairs out of her head by the root. She's my hero.
• Redheads have less hair. Little known fact. (Ignore the picture on the link. It's really kinda gross.)
• ADHD really does mean you cannot sit still. Even with the aid of a Nintendo DS primed with relatively new birthday games. Given that my kids get only 30 minutes of screen time a day and that nitpicking screen time is a full-on freebie, that's saying something.
• My kids have waaaaay too many stuffed animals. All 8 million of them are now bagged, thanks to my au pair, and waiting for any little lice babies to die a sad and lonely death. Many of them will not be coming back. I mean the stuffed animals. And, of course, the dead lice babies, too.
• Reading glasses also make good nitpicking glasses and are a vital part of the home war arsenal.
• So is a flea comb. If you pick one up, buy one labeled for dogs. They're cheaper - and not a whit different - than the ones labeled for cats.
• Cats can't get lice. Maybe that's why they need pricey flea combs.
• Apparently, neither can au pairs.
• Moms can, though. Yay for that. And yay for my au pair. This would be another one of those times that I wonder what the hell I'd do without her. Because it's not like I can pick nits from my own head.

Oh, and now I'm feeling all oogy again just talking about it.

Hey, the good news? At least we don't have the swine flu.

Oh, What a Night

Okay, I give. It's after 1:00 a.m. and it's just been a freaky, surreal kind of evening. And it's Monday. Just Monday.

This morning, my au pair was sick. So I told her to sleep in, and I took the kids to school. Which meant I worked late. Which meant dinner was late. Which is kinda where this started.

I came down from work to find my amazing and, mind you, still sick au pair playing Monopoly with my younger kids, and my Aspie waiting on a phone call from his girlfriend. (Yes, he has a girlfriend. Which is really his business until he says otherwise, so no, I'm not blogging about it. And no, we haven't gotten to the surreal bit.)

So I made dinner. I made a simple, easy dinner of hamburgers (with lots of yummies mixed into the meat) and steamed green beans and Wacky Mac. This is a favorite meal of all the kids generally, and my Aspie in particular, because he loves protein and he loves bread and isn't that the very definition of a burger?

Except that when we all went to sit down at the table, he started screaming. And it wasn't a tantrum. He was in pain. His tummy hurt. His head hurt. His everything hurt. And it must have hurt a lot. Because this kid is hyposensitive to pain, and while he may over-react a bit when he knows he's been injured - as in "Hey I can't feel that but it's bleeding so it must hurt like hell and, by the way, OW!!!" - that internal pain stuff? The stuff he can't see? It's got to be pretty bad for him to notice.

Plus all the color had suddenly drained from his face. 

So I spent dinner in the bathroom holding my poor guy's head over the toilet. And hey, y'all, this is my first post about vomit since last November. Ten months without vomit? That's a blog record, you know.

I got my Aspie up to bed, came back to the table and found my au pair falling asleep in her food. So I sent her to bed, too. The poor thing. Because she's been sick since last Thursday and just isn't getting better.

That's not the surreal part, either. I'm used to the sick and yuckies. It's fall, school's in. This is par for the course.

The surreal part came at midnight, when I was decompressing and avoiding the dishes, because that's what I do at midnight. And I was cleaning the bathroom, because, well, you know. Vomit.

And that's when somebody knocked at my door.

After midnight.

There was knocking after midnight.

I am a single mom alone in a house with a sick 19-year-old au pair and three young children. I did what any normal woman would do in the circumstances. I freaked the heck out. I jumped up like a crazy woman, heart pounding, and looked for a weapon (because, you know those criminals, they always knock so politely). I turned on about 87 lights. That's in addition to the 13 lights I already had on.

And that, as it turns out, is why the fella knocked in the first place. He was a police officer, trying to find the owner of a Jeep parked in the middle of the street with its lights on, and figuring the owner would be in the only house on the block where people were actually awake.

Apparently not.

From now on I'm going to enjoy my post-vomit insomnia in the dark.

P.S. On the vomiting ... I'm kinda worried it's my kid's meds. He didn't eat all day today, and that might just be an upset tummy. But he's on risperdal and ritalin, and while he's been on that combo for more than a year now, the risperdal sometimes causes heat stroke with vomiting. It's not hot right now ... but the ritalin means sometimes he doesn't eat, and today he skipped his lunch and his after-school snack, and dinner was delayed, and that poor kid got sick anyway with nothing in his tummy. For the second time in two weeks. Given that he just went back on the ritalin with the start of school, it's got me wondering about the meds. So if anyone reading has any thoughts, well, I'd love to hear.

My Car's Going on Vacation

It could happen only on Facebook.

Three days ago, a long-time, well-loved friend from college posted something along the lines of, "Hey! Anyone got a minivan I can borrow?"

Today, she borrowed mine.

A little crazy, right? I mean, who lends out their car. Their only car. To someone they haven't seen in three, maybe four years. For a multi-state joy ride.

Yeah, that would be me.

Bear with me for a minute. There's a point, but it'll take us a few paragraphs to get there.

See, I learned a ton of things from my marriage. You spend a lot of time, in the after, thinking about how you got where you were, the choices you made, the things about you that contributed to the demise of all that hope and bliss. Because it takes two. Just as a marriage takes two, so does a divorce. So does any part of any relationship, really.

Then you look at your other relationships, too, so you can fit those choices into patterns. Because if there's a part of you running around killing your relationships, you want to know what it is, right? So you can make it stop, find fulfillment, a lifetime of joy, blah blah blah.

I remember one fellow, many years ago (well it would have to be, wouldn't it? I mean, I was married, like, forEVer). We broke up. I mean, he broke up with me. Not politic, but true.

I was pushing him for the why's, and he said, "Well, you're too happy. And you give too much."

Why, yes. Yes, those do sound like reasons to end a relationship.

That wasn't all he said, of course. And, in truth, they are perfectly good reasons. I mean, seriously, do you want to live with Rachael Ray? Love her to pieces - I know a kindred spirit when I see one - but perpetual pep can be a bit challenging in a life partner. You need someone who sees the ups and downs, who sails them right alongside you. And the giving thing ... well. If you're the right kind of person, it creates an obligation that's hard to live up to. If you're the wrong kind of person, it's an advantage, an invitation to just keep taking. And either way, you're both kind of screwed.

The thing is, these flaws are fundamental to who I am. It's really hard to take the happy out of yourself. To make yourself stop giving. I've never figured out quite how to do it. And I've learned that I don't want to.

So I lent my friend my car. For a week. She's driving it to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. She invited me to go, too, long before she invited my car. But my kids started school last week, and we can't take the time off. I'm sending my car in my place. It'll spend a week enjoying the sand, the sun and the sound of the surf, and the entertaining company of my friend. And I will get to drive her little hybrid, with its built-in navigation system - a nav system that I believe, in my heart of hearts, will magically make me on time to things.

Hah.

Have fun, little car. Bring my friend and her family back safely.

Water Woes

Remember the bit about my house falling down around my ears?

Yeah. Still falling.

I bought a new microwave. And then it snowed. And it snowed and snowed and snowed. And then my plumbing exploded.

No, it's not burst pipes. Well, maybe it is, but they didn't burst from the cold. For one thing, it's not cold anymore. And this just happened yesterday.

See, yesterday my au pair came to show me the shower in the bathroom she shares with the kids. This is the same shower we've been turning on and off with a screwdriver for the past few months. And yes, that should have been a great big giant red flag. What can I say.

So, she showed me the shower. Water was streaming down the back wall, coming from behind the fixtures. This was way worse than a stripped and leaky faucet. This was massive water damage, and likely inside the walls. Nascent, I hope, but we don't know that yet.

I found a plumber. He came within the hour. He's my new best friend.

He explained to me that I have a heckuva situation on my hands. My tub? The fixtures are on the wrong side. On an internal wall. With an air vent alongside the plumbing. Fella spent an hour trying to figure out an access point. In the end, he figured out that he could rip out the sink and cabinet from my master bath, break through the drywall, fix the plumbing, then put everything back.

Guess how much that's gonna cost. Just guess. I dare you.

'Cause that kind of work? Takes hours. And more than one guy.

So my friend the plumber shut off all the water to my second floor. He's supposed to come back with friends on Monday. That's how long we'll get to live without showers. Good weekend for it - kids are with their dad, I'm out of town with friends, and my patient au pair is being well cared for by some very kind neighbors.

I still don't have lights in my living room. Or a railing on my back deck. There's a great big hole in the roof of my shed. And, oh yeah, an infestation of odorous house ants in my basement. And yes, that totally grosses me out because I am, after all, a girl. And, um, human.

But yay, I'm getting the plumbing fixed. One home repair down. About 37 to go ...

Alas, Poor Microwave

At 11:13 p.m. last night, my microwave died.

It's been on life support since the day after Thanksgiving. You'd punch in the time, push start and wait. It might turn on. It might not. You couldn't know until you pushed the button and it either worked or it didn't.

Now, you know. No question. It's completely non-responsive. Dead as a doornail.

And I can't replace it.

I can't replace it because my dryer broke. And then my dryer broke again.

I can't replace it because the $500 I'd budgeted for the 60,000 mile service on my crappy minivan became $1200 when they got in there and saw how neglected the poor thing had been.

I can't replace it because the overhead lights in my living room buzz and spark when you turn them on and I am unwilling to set the house on fire so now I sit here in the dark.

The faucet in the kids' shower is stripped and can be turned on only with a screwdriver. And now the darn thing is starting to drip. Hot water, no less. It's dripping hot water.

The fancy pop-up tub stopper broke, and now I can give my little guy a bath only by inverting a cup over the drain.

Two of my toilets need new flaps, I need to replace the door handle on my half bath, and I've shut off the hot water to the sink in there for want of a new washer. It's going to take an exterminator to get rid of the ant colonies in the basement. There's a hole in the roof of my shed, and I'm missing a good chunk of deck railing from where a tree fell three years ago.

My house is falling down around my ears.

So now I have to reheat my leftovers on the stove. Bake potatoes in the oven. Serve chicken nuggets cold.

Um, not sure what to do with the microwave popcorn, though.

But hey, I raked the yard. All by myself. I've got the blisters to prove it.

And the good news? Now the kids get to learn that "it's the thought that counts" applies to Santa, too. And, believe it or not, I think that's a pretty valuable thing to learn.

Lawnmower Men

Yesterday, my friends mowed my lawn.

Now, granted, these are my friends in Limbo, the folks with whom I and my kids now frequently share wine and pie and cupcakes. On Labor Day Sunday, those of us who could came together for a meal and a little beach time on the river. The gathering was at my house, and I'd had grand plans about getting up early (yeah, right) and depooping and mowing the lawn.

Lots of kids in attendance means a need for a clean and navigable yard. Right?

But I woke up late. And I woke up to a disaster. Two of 'em, actually.

My redhead, who has an unquenchable thirst for what he calls "cow milk" (note the cow on the label), had helped himself to a carton from out of the pantry. He left the pantry door open. This is never smart with a Black Lab in the house. This dog, who is now so old she cannot manage stairs unassisted, somehow made her way to the pantry, pulled out six cans of cat food, chewed her way into each and every one of them, and left bits of crushed can and puddles of chicken and liver dinner all over the house.

It took me an hour to clean it all up. Longer for the stench of cat food to dissipate.

Then, my dryer broke. So I spent lots of time carting wet clothes upstairs and laying them all out in the sun in the vain hope that they'd dry before company came.

Upshot? Lots of poop, very long grass, and an explosion of laundry on my deck.

My friends, who get that Limbo is a challenge of time as much as anything else, took one look at my shambles of a backyard and just stepped in. They grabbed plastic bags. They pulled the mower out of the shed. And in no time - well, it would have been no time except that crabgrass is a bitch to cut - they had my yard in playable shape.

And in doing so, they taught me another one of those Lessons Learned in Limbo.

Lesson 2: Ask for help.

Most of us, we just keep on swimming, despite the tsunami doing its best to drown us. But if you ask for help, shockingly, you might just get a life preserver, a helicopter, and someone trained to use both.

Pretty incredible, that.

Of course, asking for help is easiest when you don't actually have to ask. My friends made it very easy.

Once the lawn was mowed, we had a fun dinner - potluck as usual - of faked barbecue chicken, nearly browned potatoes, curried wheatberries and a signature salad of savoy cabbage and home-roasted crunchies. Oh, and brownies so fabulous that the children managed to devour every one of them before the grown-ups even noticed they were gone.

The food vanished. The lesson, though - that will stick.

One Crazy Summer

A friend reminded me today that I need to get back to the meat and potatoes of this blog ... Get it? Meat and potatoes? Since this blog is meant to be, at least a little bit, about food.

I do love food. Thing is, though, I'm really not a foodie. So mostly this is about family and the ever-changing nature of life in limbo, viewed through the window of a few happy meals (not Happy Meals, but actual happy meals) - hence, the rosemary-colored glasses.

Problem is, I'm not cooking. Or even consuming much beyond coffee, Cheerios and the occasional nectarine. I'm far too busy managing the insanity of my first summer in a single-parent household.

The most obvious problem is the logistical nightmare that is getting everyone from Point A to Point B. See, I signed the kids up for track and field, sponsored by the local rec league. It's cheap, it's something to do, and it gets the kids out of the house and moving. It's also three evenings a week. Combine that with Boy Scouts and swimming, free movies and play dates, mom's busy job and our one-and-only car ... well, let's just say that an iPhone with a nice scheduling app might come in handy. (Mostly because I'm drooling over the new iPhones. I buy the hype and believe an iPhone will change my life. But that's beside the point.)

The bigger issue? Summer means far, far less time for me.

It sounds horribly selfish, doesn't it? But here's the thing. Remember lesson number one? You've got to make time for you. I've made a commitment here.

Well, I looked at my schedule today and realized that, outside of a solo weekend trip to Connecticut ('cause that one really is - almost - all about me), every single weekend between now and mid-August has been spoken for by someone else. And September is starting to fill up, too.

A lot of this is incredibly good stuff that I'm truly and deeply excited about: a first-ever family reunion to celebrate my dad's 70th birthday, visits from our adored former au pairs, and a whole two weeks in the Pacific Northwest with the kids. And in September not one but two reunions - one for high school (25 years - egad!) and one for a group of close friends from college.

That's all good, and I'm over the moon about it. I really am. It's my kids and my family, and it's old friends, and these are far and away the most important things in my universe.

But part of me still thinks summer is a time for easy evenings in the backyard with good friends, a glass of wine, and something grilled & yummy to nibble on. Laughter and crickets and conversation, sprinkled with a little time on your own, a good book and a knitting bag full of yarn. Unscheduled. Unhurried. Peaceful.

That part of me is a little cranky right now.

I know the peace is in there, in this overplanned summer. And I'll find it, in the friends, in the family, and even in my loud, crazy, beautiful kids. And I will find some time for me.

Right now, though, I'll spend some time wallowing in the cranky. I'm glad it's there. Because this bit of crank? It means I've finally learned my lesson.

Where's the Beef?

Yesterday, I threw out an entire pound of organically fed ground beef.

I was saving it for a lovely picadillo (and someday I'll share the recipe) - full of pineapple and raisins and tomatoes and rich, yummy Cuban spices that make my tummy and my tastebuds sing. It's one of my favorite dishes. Ever.

Not gonna get cooked this week.

I love planning meals. It's a luxury these days - life is still crazy, and the little bits of down time I have don't leave much room for it. But I love it. I love sitting down with my cookbooks and my recipe cards and my little food brain and figuring out how and when I'm going to play in my kitchen.

Planning doesn't make as much sense these days. I use a rotating menu for the kids - chicken tenders with rotini and broccoli, mac & dogs & peas, spaghetti with meat sauce, fish and rice and corn, ham with home fries and apples, chicken quesadillas with veggie sticks.

But for me - well, I don't have time to cook for grown-ups anymore, not when it's just me eating.

I still get inspired, though. I still buy fresh herbs and pretty produce, and the occasional cut of meat. And half the time I wind up tossing it all. Because, as inspired as I may be, at the end of a day of working and playing and mowing the lawn, chauffering kids and kissing owies, picking up dog doo, folding the laundry, tickling tummies and wearing stickers on my forehead, and cuddling up at bedtime - well, cooking isn't high on my list.

I miss it.

Tomorrow, I will have to toss the tilapia.

Of course, this could all be resolved if I would just clean out my freezer.