Baked Penne and my husband’s smiling face

GooeyCheese

Even though Chris is managing a super-stressful project at work, and often has hours more work to do on his computer when he gets home (which is an hour or more commute depending on traffic), he takes care of me and the kids without any sort of complaint. He often stops on the way home for dinner stuff, helps Nathan with homework, gives Kaitlyn a bath and gets her in bed, and did I mention the laundry?  Chris designated himself the Chief laundry-doer, and at least twice a week, stays up late after everyone else is in bed to fold baskets of laundry. He sorts it all out by family member and leaves it in neat piles for me to put away in the morning. I might be the stay at home Mom, but it's really him who keeps things running smoothly around here. Which is why it makes me so happy when something I do puts a smile on his face.  The other night for dinner, I made the Baked Penne recipe from The Stocked Kitchen, a cookbook/cooking system I picked up at the Home & Housewares Show in … [Read more...]

Sunny outside, cloudy inside

It's a beautiful sunny day today. Blue sky, no wind, even at 27 degrees the sun feels warm. Ryan got Kaitlyn up this morning and kept her entertained so I could sleep in, which I did, until 11:50 am. Then we went to Quality Dairy and got Paczkis for lunch because why not. I'm in no mood to deprive myself of fried balls of jam-filled dough today. It was a bad weekend. I can't say a lot about it because I didn't get the other person's permission, but suffice it to say, my feelings about pretty much everything I do and have done over the last 20+ years are not as good as I would like. You know that saying "you can't un-ring a bell"? Well, I can't un-hear things that were said this weekend, and I'm having trouble figuring out how to proceed. How do you do it? How is anyone supposed to have personal fulfillment plus have a successful marriage plus be a good parent plus keep up with bills and cleaning and everything else that goes into running a household, without going completely … [Read more...]

I Love You, Drive Carefully

That's what I said to my husband this morning as he was walking out the door for work. I've been saying that to him every time he leaves the house for as long as I can remember. Not because he's a bad driver or because I need to worry, but as a way of, I don't know, sending the words out into the Universe as sort of a protective blanket around him. If I say I Love You, Drive Carefully, then the Universe knows that my husband has someone who cares and will keep him extra safe on his commute. Does that make sense to anybody else? Share with me in a comment, do you have a ritual like that with your spouse or loved one? Something that you always say or do that makes you feel better about sending them out into the world? I can't be the only one :) … [Read more...]