Comfort Me

Don't act like you didn't suspect that this might happen. By "this," I mean a week without posting. Given the nature of this blog and how it came into being, it's a wonder anything ever gets posted at all. Huge thanks to Sheryl for taking up my slack, there.

Status of my house: Well, we're not LOSING ground. And honestly, that is something. I had good meals going for over a week at a time, there, and that hasn't happened in ages. Also not having happened in ages, a whole week with no dining out or bringing takeout home. That, my friends, is HUGE. I also have to give Alex credit for keeping up with the dishes while I was cooking. Sometimes there would be some left, but he kept the pile from becoming unmanageable, and I appreciated that immensely.

We also actually managed to get about 1/3 of our bedroom clean, working together, which is no small feat. I may not have mentioned it before, but I surely will again, so...our house is weird. It's laid out weird, it's priorities are weird, and...it's just weird. It's over 3,000 square feet, but with tiny bathrooms and closets, and the smallest kitchen you could imagine. Seriously--it's an apartment kitchen, and here we sit in the middle of 5 acres, not in midtown. TEENY. But the master bedroom? It's enormous. There is no reason for a bedroom to be this large. None. It's the size of most people's living rooms. And since we came here from a wee little house, in the way of bedroom furniture, we have...well, a bed. Which itself was a maternal gift. And after several months of us using a Coleman cooler as a night-table (think I'm kidding?) and an empty ceiling-fan box with a couple of barstools as an entertainment center (again, think I'm not serious?), our mothers got together and bought us some more furniture, in the form of a couple of night tables and an actual television cabinet. This leaves about a half an acre of empty space in this bedroom, which for US, is just More Places To Pile Crap. I may take a picture of this...or I may not. I might have reached my internet humiliation threshold.

Honestly--I can already see that a huge challenge for us in keeping a livable home is going to be resisting the temptation to fill every horizontal surface with whatever random detritus happens to be in our hands at the time. From where I sit right now, I can see the Leaning Tower of Weirdness that is our dining table, and it's not pretty. Especially considering that it wasn't that long ago that it was clean. This piling on, it happens FAST. I am bad about piling, and Alex is bad about putting things off until "later." Combined, we are a deadly duo of disarray. I'd like to save Bella from this fate while she's still young enough to mold. She told me a few days ago that she wanted to do something or other at her grandmother's house instead of at home, because "our house is too trashy." Trashy. Yep, that's the word she used. And you know, when you get right down to it and start sorting and cleaning, a lot of it DOES wind up in the trash. Just think how much time and labor we'd save if we took a minute to decide that something (junk mail, newspapers, whatever) was trash, and threw it away BEFORE ever putting it down! Hey, at least I'm thinking, right? Anyway, 1/3 of the bedroom clean is like a whole normal room, and a very good start. I appreciate Alex helping, too, because when he gets going, that man can clean. And fast.

I got sick last week, and meal-planning and preparation went straight out the window. This meant that we spent a lot of money we don't have on takeout, which is really, really stupid. It's unhealthy and expensive compared to home cooking. I always feel like a failure when the takeout bags come in. But I just didn't have it in me, and Alex definitely doesn't feel like cooking a meal when he gets home from work (with our normal work schedules, I get off a couple of hours before him, so it'll be much easier for me to get dinner going by the time he gets home). We're old, tired, and out of shape. And yes, there's an additional area in which we must GET IT TOGETHER, the being out of shape.

So, now it's back to planning and cooking. Honestly, it's the planning that fells me, if I'm going to fall off the wagon. I hate the planning, and coming up with something to cook, and trying to magically divine what the people I'm cooking for will enjoy or even accept. I'm particularly unimaginative when it comes to vegetables. I tend to get some frozen veggies, steam them, and be done. Which while healthy is somewhat boring. No complaints so far, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time. I gotta say, though, I am LOVING the new frozen veggies that come in a microwavable steam-pack. GENIUS.

So, there we are, all caught up. At least right here. I'm going to post my favorite comfort food next, and would love it if you'd share yours. Don't we all need some comforting right about now? Me, I have pneumonia and it hasn't stopped raining in forever and my baby girl is growing up faster than the speed of light. COMFORT ME.

Please post your favorite comfort food, and the recipe (or a link to the recipe, if you have it posted elsewhere) here in the comments to this post. I'll figure out some way to compile them and make links for reference. My favorite comfort food is homemade chicken and dumplings, made with fat, fluffy "dropped" dumplings, and I'll be posting the recipe here tomorrow. Alex's favorite comfort food has got to be his mother's chicken tetrazinni. WOW, does he love that stuff, and what little of it I usually get to eat IS darned good. I'll get the recipe from her and post that, as well. Now it's your turn: COMFORT ME.