These are Days...: What's for dinner

Showing posts with label What's for dinner. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

I Had One Job

I had one job.

Well, technically I was working all day plus taking care of my one year old all day. So I already had two jobs so that makes three jobs but who's counting?!

The first day in a long time my husband got up and left for work; an hour commute there and back. He's been working from home alongside me for the longest time. But now that all changes. He's gone. Twelve hours. Bye bye. I've been talking about how he needs a job, bad. And now he has one. And it's been one day. And it SUCKS already.

From 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. I'm a full time working mom, alone. Alone to get both kids dressed. Both kids fed. School stuff and lunch to get organized. Both kids have to get in the car for school drop off. I need to work all day (with the little one home) until I have to take the little for school pickup. Get both of them home and fed a snack. Both of them have to got to all of Lyla's activities... gymnastics 2x a week, piano. Both have to get fed dinner. Both have to be bathed. The little one to bed before Jared even comes home from work.

No one to help me.

Over the weekend, Jared did a big grocery shop. He even got a crockpot full up and ready for me. My one job was to bring it out of the fridge, pop it in, turn it on, and let it cook for or dinner. Easy. He said, start it at 2. He even made me practice turning on the crockpot and getting it set. He doesn't trust me, can you tell? I don't blame him...

I opened up my work calendar and set up a reminder so I wouldn't forget my one job. My 1pm meeting ran late. At 2pm, I was still on it. My calendar pinged to start the crockpot but alas I couldn't get up. Then the baby started crying as he had pooped. As soon as my call was done, I ran up to get him and change him.

I brought him downstairs and gave him a snack. Then I sat at the counter and started working again. At least 20 minutes went by and my head popped up. OMG! The crockpot! It was 2:30, no big deal, I thought. I ran downstairs to the basement to grab it out of the fridge. The thing was heavy. I made it to the top step and then stopped to turn off the light. That is when my life flashed before my eyes as my foot slipped.

Being an unfinished basement, there is no back to our stairs. My foot slipped into the opening and I thought I broke my ankle. The crock pot firm in my hands didn't even wobble. I figured if I go down, the crockpot and dinner will survive. I was able to catch myself, somehow. I'm still not sure because there is no way I didn't fall all the way down the stairs with raw chicken and tomatoes falling all over me and everything in its wake. I stood still for a minute on that stair and pulled my foot back. I think I even peed a little.

A huge wave of relief flooded through my body and I marched on to set up the crockpot to cook. I had almost failed my one job. But I prevailed. I managed to get dinner down without killing myself and almost on time.

Day one without my work from home husband, survived, but barely...

Thursday, February 13, 2014

I Am No Housewife

I am not a house wife. I am the furthest thing from being one.

When I got married, I was lucky enough to meet a husband who loved to cook, and was good at it, and loved the clean. Score for me!

At first, I wanted to pitch in so I did dabble a bit in the kitchen. After all, I come from an Italian family and my grandmother blessed me with personal cooking lessons. If you could only see the notes I took from those lessons, you'd have told me not to bother. I didn't want to fail. But I did fail. I still can't live it down. I'm reminded every time I'm even near the kitchen about the time I served stuffed pork chops raw. Or made accidentally watered down chicken marsala. So I suck at cooking. But it's okay because my husband can cook. And he loves it. We are a match made in heaven!

I don't suck at cleaning and I'm kind of a neat freak just like Jared. But he's much more so. So between the two of us, we keep the house pretty clean if I do say so myself. Being a full time working mom at home, it's hard work having all your ducks in a row. For example right now while I'm writing... it's 9:30 p.m. and I just forced myself to finish doing things around the house and sit down to.. wait for it... work. I ignored the laundry tonight so I'll regret that tomorrow.

In any event, my main mission in life is not housewifery but to spend as much time with my family with 100% focus on them. Sometimes I take for granted all the things Jared does for our family because I'm just not that housewife.

Jared: cooks, grocery shops, takes care of cats, house plants, cleaning bathrooms, cleaning kitchen, all yard work, fixing things, deep cleaning everything often, and may other things.

So imagine my surprise when my darling husband goes up to New Hampshire for a weekend ice fishing trip with some work friends to come home with 3 broken ribs. I'm not kidding.

Darling husband is in so much pain that it's just me to deal with everything. I have the child, a full time job, and every household chore not to mention 3 meals a day! Lordy, lordy, give me booze.

The first few days were kind of a blur. We ate leftovers and I just got by. I helped Jared do everything because he was in so much pain. I took care of Lyla and tried my best to get my work hours in. I stopped at the store a couple days ago to get "bare essentials": milk, chips, cheese, grapes, gold fish, and precooked chicken. I was doing my best.

I went to the store again last night for more supplies due to the snow. I also had to get food as we could only handle our leftovers so many times. I got it into my head that I would buy fish sticks and tater tots. Perfect. Easy. I roamed the grocery store aisles. I must have gone up and down the frozen food sections a hundred times. I could not for the life of me find those damn fish sticks. Seriously. No where to be found. How fucking hard is it to find fish sticks in a grocery store. There are only SO many frozen food aisles. I stopped in front of the frozen chicken nuggets and almost started crying. I whispered to myself: I am the worse house wife ever. I couldn't even find fish sticks! How can I possibly take care of a sick husband, a child, and myself. The worst part of this is that millions of women everywhere do this every day!

I don't have to cook! I don't have to shop! It's done FOR me. My husband is a gem! We don't have frozen meat and tater tots for dinner. EVER! We have home made curries, stir frys, stews, and home made Chinese food that is better than take out! He's out for the count and I find myself eating crackers for dinner because I can't cook a damn thing. I am useless. I am no house wife.

And to end, here is Lyla and Daisy the snow girl we made today. Yeah, we had a massive blizzard today. It was awesome. My snow blower was out of commission so I had to bribe the neighbors to help. Fun stuff...