Dinner & tooth = fail. Overall week = win!
J's second week of school has been great. He's happy, adjusting quickly, and making friends. I'm trying to adjust too. I suddenly have "free" time, only not really. Somehow having to deal with only one kid feels like a vacation, but one with lots of baggage. Now that I have one less child for 6 hours a day, I suddenly feel like I should be twice as productive. I'm trying to remind myself to take some one-on-one time with Buttercup. For her whole life, she's had to share my time with her big brother. Now that it's just the two of us, I have to remember that it's ok to do nothing but be with her. I can't help but feel that the void of Rocketboy needs to be filled with productive time.
I'm trying to be realistic about my time and I've decided that I can only do one extra 2 hr thing each day in addition to the childcare and the usual cooking/cleaning/childcare. Any goal bigger than that will just frustrate me. So Monday I painted a primer coat in the bedroom. Tuesday I cooked enough to get us by half the week. Wed, Steve and I had a nice long coffee with a friend who just moved to town. Thurs, I can't remember (ugh!) and today I had a root canal.
Did I mention I hate my teeth. The root canal was easy, as far as these things go, but I hate that my teeth are so lousy. I feel like each time the dentist finds something wrong, it's ultimately because I'm a failure at something. Luckily the swelling went down right away and I haven't had much pain at all. Good thing because I had defrosted some bone-in chicken breasts to make for dinner. We roasted the chicken with garlic, onions, and oranges, and threw some kale in the the pan for good measure. We also gave the skin a cornstarch & salt rub. The chicken was moist, tender, perfectly done, with a bit of the orange infusing the meat. Sadly, the rub was just a bit too salty for me, though the cornstarch did add a wonderful crispness - we're definitely doing that again. As for the oranges, they added a bitter note to the dish - not a bad one, in fact a very sophisticated one, but juts like the salt it was a bit much. Even the kale, which I usually love this way, ended up a bit bitter. Next time I'll keep the orange, but lose the peels.
Now I finally remember Thursday - Steve and I went (with Buttercup) to the bookstore, where I did some gardening research and picked up a couple of new gardening books. I'm psyched about having a garden again. I need to flex those design muscles. Any week when I can spend time thinking about gardens is a good one, even if some of the thinking was done in a dentist's chair.
With that I'm off to bed. No wonder I couldn't remember Thursday: I'm nodding off as I type. Too many 6:30 wake ups will do that to a person.
I'm trying to be realistic about my time and I've decided that I can only do one extra 2 hr thing each day in addition to the childcare and the usual cooking/cleaning/childcare. Any goal bigger than that will just frustrate me. So Monday I painted a primer coat in the bedroom. Tuesday I cooked enough to get us by half the week. Wed, Steve and I had a nice long coffee with a friend who just moved to town. Thurs, I can't remember (ugh!) and today I had a root canal.
Did I mention I hate my teeth. The root canal was easy, as far as these things go, but I hate that my teeth are so lousy. I feel like each time the dentist finds something wrong, it's ultimately because I'm a failure at something. Luckily the swelling went down right away and I haven't had much pain at all. Good thing because I had defrosted some bone-in chicken breasts to make for dinner. We roasted the chicken with garlic, onions, and oranges, and threw some kale in the the pan for good measure. We also gave the skin a cornstarch & salt rub. The chicken was moist, tender, perfectly done, with a bit of the orange infusing the meat. Sadly, the rub was just a bit too salty for me, though the cornstarch did add a wonderful crispness - we're definitely doing that again. As for the oranges, they added a bitter note to the dish - not a bad one, in fact a very sophisticated one, but juts like the salt it was a bit much. Even the kale, which I usually love this way, ended up a bit bitter. Next time I'll keep the orange, but lose the peels.
Now I finally remember Thursday - Steve and I went (with Buttercup) to the bookstore, where I did some gardening research and picked up a couple of new gardening books. I'm psyched about having a garden again. I need to flex those design muscles. Any week when I can spend time thinking about gardens is a good one, even if some of the thinking was done in a dentist's chair.
With that I'm off to bed. No wonder I couldn't remember Thursday: I'm nodding off as I type. Too many 6:30 wake ups will do that to a person.