Why didn't I think of this earlier?!

My least favorite chore is figuring out what to make for dinners. I don't mind making the grocery list, doing the grocery shopping, putting the food away, and I mostly don't even mind doing the cooking five days a week. But I absolutely HATE deciding what we'll eat. I get into ruts with the same 6-8 recipes, adding a new one or deleting one I'm tired of, over the weeks and months. It's also hard to make everyone happy, when Amy is a vegetarian and Reed doesn't like beans. 

Another parent mentioned to me that their three kids each had to cook dinner one night a week and I was blown away. Why hadn't I thought of this?! For a stretch of time, Reed often made dinner (mainly because that meant he wouldn't have to do dishes, if he cooked on his dishes day). But mostly it's me doing all the meals.

That stopped two weeks ago. So far, Reed did a bratwurst and cole slaw night and a pork stir fry night. Amy made fettuccine Alfredo and black bean burgers (you can guess how Reed felt about those). This coming week we're having fajitas in the air fryer (Reed) and vegetarian chili mac (Amy). They have to do everything involved with the meal – finding the recipe, seeing which ingredients we need to buy and which we have on hand, and then cook the meal. I have no idea why I never thought to do this earlier!

The kids are learning a lot about cooking, and I think it's awesome that they're both looking up and trying new recipes. I'm sure they're going to get pretty bored of it, but right now it's going great. Maybe they'll each develop a "specialty" recipe that can be their go-to. 

Life skills! I love to see it!

This whole thing might be getting to me

So it's now been more than five months of very limited in-person human interaction with anyone outside of our immediate family. I think it may be starting to show.

Yesterday while I was working at home, I hit the button on my (awesome, motorized) stand-up desk to raise it up to a standing position, and at the same time, I slightly leaned on the table...which caused it to start going back down again. I immediately responded with "Sorry!"

I apologized. To the desk. 

Get Cubed

Well you know how it goes with Big Steve – why buy one of something when you can buy two or three? A couple years ago when his friend Tim McGrath sold his real estate business, Steve bought the three Nissan Cubes the business had. He's sold two of them over time, but still had one more. Amy's had her eye on it for a while, she thinks it looks cool (she is wrong. LOL). Well Steve decided he wanted to finally get rid of the last Cube, and Tod thought it'd be a good buy and a good car for the kids. 

So we didn't really need the car because Reed still didn't seem interested in driving (it'd been a year and a half since he last practiced) and Amy can't get her learner's permit until September 25. And heck, with me working at home full time, we hardly need two cars, much less three! But Steve was anxious to sell it, so off we went. We picked it up on August 1.

I've been telling Tod for a while now that I thought if we just bought the kids a car, that might spark Reed to want to drive. Well, that has turned out to be true...or it's just a big coincidence, I suppose. And since Tod is busy with school, and I'm home all the time, for the last two weeks I have become the driving instructor.

This is NOT a role I wanted, at all. It is terrifying. But he's getting better all the time, and I feel a little less like throwing up as the days go by. Why do they let parents teach kids to drive, what do I know about teaching someone to drive, just because I can drive myself?! He and I are both doing our best. I think he's come a long way already, but still needs lots and lots of practice. Glad he's taking the plunge.

Ice cream experiments

I saw someone on Twitter recommend this book, and figured it was right up our alley for our ice cream machine. 

Amy has decided to experiment with various recipes, which is great for all of us! So far she's made cheesecake ice cream, caramel "crack" ice cream (SO good!), and peach frozen yogurt.

[P.S. This one was SO good, it MUST be made again!]

But the great thing about it is that she's rating each recipe on a scale of 1-10, making notes about the prep, and then saying whether she would, might or wouldn't make it again. 

This sounds a bit familiar. 

The Larson women apparently like to keep track of things. Tod's mom Eileen had a huge wall of VCR tapes of movies she'd recorded. And with that was a corresponding notebook where she kept track of the movies as she watched them - with ratings and everything. And I have a spreadsheet where I keep track of the concerts and theater shows I go to, along with where they were held and who I went with. 

So I guess I'm saying that Amy comes by it naturally.