I always have a lot of trouble with the time changes. I can’t get to sleep until what was, last week, the normal time, and I’m getting up early, and the resultant sleep deprivation is catching up with me.
Yesterday morning, I went out for a dawn walk in order to wake up properly (and of course dawn was late), and saw these handsome birds.
Then I went on up to the store. I rearranged books, a soothing activity, and worked with customers, and found (in the course of intermittent SEO) a local $2.75 million grant, and spent some time strategizing about how we might help that school meet their needs. I read about a guy in our industry in Chicago who decided to “go where the money is” and now focuses almost exclusively on helping people spend their grant money. Having worked on a number of grants in the past, I know that it truly can be burdensome to get all those funds spent, and I think we could be useful and profitable in that area. I also found a cool new SEO idea I’m looking forward to trying out.
Then came the rehearsal of the choirlet. We worked on our music for Holy Week and then tried out some Pentecost hymns written by women. If for some odd reason (say, the confluence this year of Mother’s Day and Pentecost; that did it for us) you are looking for such things, I am happy to say that there is some beautiful stuff ou
t there.
We also drank tea and chatted, and that was fun.
We’re having trouble with our domestic arrangements chez fibermom. With my extreme schedule (have you noticed that I am having an extreme schedule here?), I am out every night this week and many other weeks, too. The boys work shifts like 2:30-7:00 or 4:00 to 11:00, so they often aren’t home for dinner. Then, at 9:30 or 10:00, when we all are in the same place, we are all hungry. It seems pointless to have dinner at that time. Not to mention the poor straggler coming in after the late shift.
I thought the slow cooker would be the perfect solution, since people could just eat whenever they happened to get home, but all my menfolks are opposed to the slow cooker. My sister, last time we talked about this, didn’t cook at all, but just let her kids find some cheese and crackers or something. It has been a long time since we talked about this, I must say, but that approach hasn’t been popular here either.
It’s a quandary. We are also sinking down on the housekeeping front. I’m also getting no needlework done. And the mail yesterday brought this stack of tempting novels from Booksfree.
When you are having an extreme schedule and the browsing and sluicing are a bit sketchy and there is a rising tide of clutter and detritus throughout the house, it is more difficult to face temptations and continue reading about the end of the world, or at least the species, instead of curling up with a good murder mystery.
I’m not complaining. I am as happy as a somewhat sleep-deprived clam. But I need to readjust my schedule a bit.
Suggestion: Cook up a very large batch of chicken breasts and put them in the freezer, wrapped individually. They can be taken out to thaw a couple of hours before that ten o’clock everybody-is-hungry hour, or thawed in the microwave if people forget to do that. Have some ready-to-eat raw vegetables in the fridge, have some fruit on hand, and have some decent bread — or, in a pinch, have English muffins. [The brand that doesn’t have sugar in it until the very tail end of the ingredients list.] Anybody who’s hungry can then manage nicely on their own — with a chicken sandwich and veggies and fruit. If you also have a pot of cooked rice in the fridge, you’ll find that it heats up very nicely in the microwave, which means people could have a chicken breast and rice instead of a chicken sandwich. And that will keep everybody fed, even if it’s not perfect. It takes no longer to bake a dozen chicken breasts in the oven than it does to bake two or three.
what do they have against the slow cooker? we wouldn’t eat a meal if mine wasn’t used on a daily basis. thanks for the info, it was exactly waht I am looking for.
I also have to ask. What do they have against the slow cooker?
@illgrindmyownthankyou – I’m glad that was useful. They claim, with apparent sincerity, that things put in the slowcooker do not taste good. And the texture is messed up. They also believe that food put in the freezer is no good. You might get that last part twice, since I am still not sure exactly how this “reply” feature works.
@sighkey – They claim, with apparent sincerity, that things put in the slowcooker do not taste good. And the texture is messed up. They also believe that food put in the freezer is no good.
Is the word “spoiled” coming to mind? I may just cook for the crockpot so I’ll have a hot meal when I get in at 9:00 or 10:00. Either that or live on Cheerios (that is a breakfast cereal in the U.S. I think it might be a sausage in your hemisphere, which wouldn’t make any sense).
@fibermom – If I were you I’d cook up something in the crockpot for yourself as per your suggestion and let them eat cake – aah, I mean eat cheerios. And yep, in my hemisphere cheerios are baby saveloys – big favourite at kids’ parties.