Pat Myself on the Back

No one pats me on the back.  For good reason... I don't deserve it.  But this week I've tried hard so I'm patting myself on the back :)

Last Saturday I decided to grab some groceries and do a once-a-month cooking event.  Only I had to pair it down a bunch because I wouldn't have a helper in the kitchen and I would be spending the morning grocery shopping instead of cooking.  I planned a hand full of meals: Taco Soup, Wild Rice Soup, Chili, Bean & Ham Soup, Chile Verde, Traditional Chinese dish, Pulled Pork Sandwiches, Chicken Enchiladas, Crockpot Lasagna, Baked Jambalaya, Breakfast burritos, fried potato burritos, and who knows what else.  It was a lot to take on, especially since my burger and chicken was frozen.  Before I even had one meal completed, I ran outside to help Ryan move our cyclone-fence dog kennel.  Instead of taking it apart and moving it in pieces, we moved it as one big piece.  As we moved it, I stepped in a hole, twisted something in my foot funny, and fell to my knees.

Guess how much I got accomplished after that?

Quite a lot actually.  But not a ton of meals.  The kids also had a couple of friends over.  So between prepping foods and not getting very far, I assisted with a hide-n-seek with 5 kids, made several snacks and several meal for said kids, chased out kitties who snuck in the house, and stayed pretty busy.  While painful, I tried to ignore my foot because I had a ton to accomplish.

I'm all for being able to cross things off my "to-do" list.  But sometimes even I realize that accomplishing those tasks isn't near as rewarding as taking some time to play with my kids and their friends.  The picture shows the three boys.  The two that aren't mine are brothers.  One of them is in Scott's class and one is in Bethany's class.  The five of them did good all playing together most of the day although at the point the picture was taken, Bethany was feeling really left out because her classmate was playing with the other boys.

We had a great day.  Two of the best parts of my day were having some time with Ryan while the rest of the house was quiet.  Ryan works every other weekend.  The Saturdays that Ryan works, he quietly sneaks out of the house letting me sleep as long as the kids will sleep.  That usually isn't a ton longer but I'm so thankful for those 30 minutes.  Last Saturday I actually crawled out of bed and headed down stairs to make Ryan breakfast.  It was boring 'ol scrambled eggs.  I so enjoyed the quiet time with my husband that I didn't even notice the plain eggs.  Later that afternoon Ryan stopped for a few minutes and we sat on the porch together and we chatted.  We don't get that time very often.  We're always on the move it feels like, so this time was precious.

As the week continued, I attempted to get up early and get supper all prepped before I went to work.  That went pretty well except one day.  I unplugged the crock pot because I needed the plug-in to shred chicken in the kitchen-aid mixer.  But, I was in a hurry and running late so I forgot to plug the crock pot back in.  My chile verde was cold when I got home.  Doh!  Tonight I played catch up on dishes from my chile verde mishap.  I had a lot of dishes to wash.  You know you have a lot of dishes when you creatively place serving spoons and spatulas in your dish drainer to allow you to make the sides higher allowing me to stack more dishes.  It's that creativeness that has me patting myself on the back tonight.