Cooking Crisis - Yellow Squash!

It's Monday evening, almost 5:30PM. I have entrees already prepared - spaghetti, steak. But I have no side dish. Hubster bought an armload of yellow squash this weekend. I'm supposed to do something with it. However, I have no canned tomatoes and no bread crumbs, so that effectively kills my two best ideas. I do have a HUGE can of spaghetti sauce, but I don't want to crack that open just to cook the squash (it'd be too much sauce, and I'd have to store it and remember to use it later, only to end up forgetting about it until I find a tupperware container of fuzzy green spaghetti sauce several weeks from now). I thought I had an onion, but I sliced it and it smelled funny. Not like an onion, but more like an onion that died, rotted and came back as a zombie onion and now I have to blow off its stinky onion head with a shot gun.

What to do? I've already sliced the squash! Hmmm...

I know. I have a big unopened tub of salsa sitting in the fridge. Unlike the spaghetti sauce, there is no way I'll forget I have salsa in the fridge. And get this! It's labeled "Italian Rose" salsa. I think the cooking fates are trying to throw me a clue.

I've got the sliced squash simmering in a pan with a cup of the salsa. The only other ingredient I added was a little olive oil. We'll see how this works.

*****

Update: It's 7:30PM. The salsafied squash was a success, at least in my opinion, and that's the only opinion that counts. Nyah! It was spicy, but tasty. WIN!

I Can't Do It All...

Sunday is normally the day I cook dinner for the week. I do it early in the day so I have it ready to reheat by 6PM. This strategy assumes, of course, that I will be up around 5AM so I can get a jump on my daily to-do list.

Well, today I slept in. And that felt wonderful. And because I slept in, I got to have sex with the Hubster, because you know, I was actually in the bed when he woke up! And that felt wonderful too. And of course, there was more sleeping after that, and then a wonderful breakfast of eggs, potatoes, fruit, toast and hot tea. I managed to grab a quick workout before having to change so we could go out to an early movie. We saw Night At The Museum 2, which I really enjoyed, and then we came back home for a late lunch, and then I squeezed in a couple of hours of work that just had to get done, and as a result of all of this...

We had cereal, pizza, and hot pockets for dinner. Oh, and fresh fruit.

I was supposed to cook teriyaki chicken and sauted green beans, but I couldn't do the cooking and sleep late and have sex and see a movie with my family and get my work done. Something had to go. And that something today was dinner, because dammit, I deserve to get all that other stuff done every once in a while. Although to be honest, I always make time for work, and maybe I should concentrate harder on making more time for the other stuff.

Tomorrow is Monday. I will get up at 5AM, write, clean the house, cook, exercise, and chase after the kids. There will be no lazy morning sex, and no afternoon movie. Because I can't do it all. Thankfully, today I didn't even want to try.

Things I Suck At As A Mom

I really should be working right now, but the current free-for-all/play date going on upstairs has inspired me to write the following list of Things I Suck At As A Mom.

1. Mommies groups. Never joined one that I really fit into. Mostly because I am a Freak Mama, and mundane mamas scare/irritate me.


2. Chit-chat with non-Freak Mamas. Related to item #1. I have very little in common with most non-fandom or non-freak moms, so doing the whole polite talk thing is painfully awkward for me (as I'm sure it must be for them to talk to me).


3. Play dates with children of non-Freak Mamas. I do not relate well to other people's kids at the best of times. Dealing with kids whom I am afraid will contaminate my kids with such anti-Freak ick like "Hannah Montana" or "Bratz" just drives me up the wall.


4. Cooking dinner. Hubster used to do ALL the cooking, because I honestly never learned how. And since I get up at 5AM, my brain usually shuts down around 5PM, which is of course the magic hour at which dinner is expected to be prepared.


5. Packing school lunches. I don't know why I suck at this one. I had to pack my own school lunch for years when I was in school. Somehow, I can't pull it off for the Princess. It may be that many times we don't have what I need on hand to make said lunch (because I also suck at grocery shopping, yet another task the Hubster does). It may be part of the whole "brain shuts down at 5PM" thing. I just can't say.


6. Children's parties. I think kids' birthday parties should be small simple affairs. I don't like renting inflatable bouncy death traps, nor do I like hiring evil clowns/magicians/balloon animal artists. I prefer simple parties at home. However, right now my home has no downstairs bathroom, no patio furniture, no grill, and no linoleum in the foyer. Also no fence, so no way to coral screaming children. Makes it hard to host a simple barbeque in the backyard.


7. House cleaning. I'm too damn busy being Freak Mama and doing my writing/graphic arts thing to get around to this one. And don't even ask about decorating the house. I decorate with dust bunnies, okay? That way all the rooms in the house match!


8. Sleep-overs. I have not yet even attempted to have one at this house. I just can't stand other people's children long enough to force myself to suffer through one. I live in fear of the day I do have to do it.

This list probably doesn't even begin to cover the things I suck at as a mom, but right now I've got small screaming children in the house tearing things apart, so I have to go.

What do you suck at as a parent?