Some days…

Some days, you just can’t face the idea of cooking another dinner. I mean really, who needs to eat every single day?

Oh, right.

Me. I get positively ogre-ish when I don’t eat regularly.

As well as the short-ish people who live here with me.

And The Man We Call Dad.

And the birds. And the fish.

Okay, fine, I suppose I’ll have to admit it: Feeding the hoardes of hungry creatures around here is a never-ending task that absolutely must happen every single day. But there aren’t any rules about how that has to happen, or who has to do the cooking, or how often we’re allowed to do takeout.

In all fairness, I usually enjoy the process of feeding my family. From choosing menus and playing with ingredients to pushing back from the table with a satisfied sigh… it makes my heart happy.

Usually.

But not lately.

I’ve just been so tired of late. The dragons on the beach have been throwing lots of pebbles my way and it has been taking more energy than I have to cope with the daily drudgery of housecleaning and cooking after a full day’s work.

And when I’m tired and not in the mood to cook, and hungry teenagers come whining about how there’s nothing to eat in the fridge because it’s full of vegetables and fruit from the CSA box and nothing else (except the baked pasta with a deliciously browned mozarella top, or the leftover ham, or cheese in three varieties, or salad fixings, or carrots from our garden with 19 different sauces to dip them in, or leftover pancakes, or bacon and eggs, or any of 100 things in the pantry… because of course none of that counts for much when you’re truly starving), well, I get a little grumpy.

So this weekend, instead of caring for others, I chose to practice some self-care and delegate at least one daily chore to others.

Friday, Wild Wings took care of dinner, bringing us pounds of wings in a wide variety of flavours along with french fries, chippers, and one special order of fries with bacon, cheese, and sour cream on them.

But that wasn’t the fun part. This:

This was the fun part. A couple of hands of gin followed by a laughter-filled round of Cheat (also known as Bullshit in settings where fewer manners are required) had us all laughing within minutes. So much so, in fact, that I didn’t mind at all that the kitchen forgot our appetizer and got not one but two of our meals wrong. It was annoying, sure, but we were all too busy laughing and cheating and laughing some more to care much. Besides, our server was fantastic and they comped the appetizer to boot.

There’s nothing like a truly great bout of laughter shared with loved ones to take the grump right out of a mother at dinner time.

And because my pebble is still heavier than I can easily cope with right now, Saturday night (also known as Halloween) was takeout pizza and Sunday The Man We Call Dad fired up the BBQ and made the most delicious steak and chicken dinner with roasted cheesy-bacon potatoes and green beans with crumbled bacon and bread fresh from the bakery down the road.

It sure is yummy when someone else does the cooking.