2010

So, January 2, 2010. The year begins today for me as Neomom's back to work and the boys and I must figure out ways to make these four walls interesting.

It's -29 outside this morning, with a windchill of -37. So we won't be going tobogganing.

The Christmas decorations are all gone, the new calendar's on the wall. Time to dig into the new year.

Yesterday, I watched a marathon on the Food Network. It was called something like The Next Food Network Star. I like marathons. You don't have to wait a week for the next episode . . . it's all solved in a day.

Anyway, I was inspired, as often happens when watching the Food Network. I found myself wanting to buy new and wonderful ingredients and try new and wonderful cooking techniques. I wanted to pull out my Jamie Oliver cookbooks and pick a couple of weird items and cook 'em up. I want to know what celeriac tastes like. I want to create a perfect risotto, from scratch. The possibilities were swimming around in my head. I LOVE to cook!

But yesterday at supper, I was reminded why my love of all things food had been severely curtailed.

I'd pulled out a pound of ground beef in the morning and had planned a simple taco salad for supper: taco meat, cheese, lettuce, Catalina dressing and salsa all mixed up and served over corn chips. Yum! (If I was alone, chopped tomato, onion and olives would have been added to the mix, but the boys hate tomato and onion and Neomom is not a fan of olives.)

Sonwun took one look at my creation and proclaimed it "yucky." He didn't even try it. He likes taco meat. He likes lettuce. He likes cheese and he loves Catalina dressing. But put 'em all together: "Yucky!"

Sontoo didn't exactly cheer either. Both boys left the table hungry.

My new year's inspiration took a hit. But not a fatal one.

I still plan to step up my culinary training and serve whatever's produced to my young charges. They must learn to try new things. Every night can't be chicken fingers with plum sauce— the only thing that's a guaranteed hit for both of them.

But let's be clear. This is not a resolution. I don't do those. This is just something I want to do. Okay?

Sooo . . . the next step is locating my Jamie Oliver cookbooks. I thought they were in the kitchen in the cookbook cupboard, but I just discovered I am wrong. I've got a few other cookbooks, but the recipes are kinda over the top and I'm not ready for that just yet. Baby steps.

Anyhoo, that's the news for now. Oh, one other thing. We finally combined all of our Sears gift cards from the last few years and picked up a new clothes dryer, to match the washer we got a few months back. Nice not to have to go through three drying cycles to get one load done.

Welcome to 2010 folks. Hope it's a great one for all of us. I wish you good health, good friends and some level of sanity you can live with.