Life in the Fast Lane

Our family has entered a completely new version of reality, and that is football season.  The preseason started a couple of weeks ago, and it has been a nearly seven-day-a-week adventure ever since.

Suddenly we're dealing with serious laundry - blood and grass stains and a stench that requires the car windows to be rolled down on the way home from practice.  And the laundry has to be done RIGHT NOW.  When we get home from one practice there are barely more than twenty hours until the next one, and somewhere in there we also need to shower, sleep, and eat three square meals, in addition to going to work, church, and keeping up with everything else on the calendar.  (For example, Grimm is having a very nice second season.)

The football equipment has taken over.  Shoulder pads, knee pads, hip pads, butt pads, helmet, game jersey, undershirt, game socks, game pants, practice pants, practice jersey, cleats, spare undershirt and spare jersey needed to survive practices in hundred-degree heat before the jerseys are ready, and not one but two mouth guards.  The undershirt must be black for games, but white for pictures.  And he needs a short-sleeved undershirt for summer and a long-sleeved for fall.

Today he said he wants white cleats because the black ones are hot.  I drew a line at spare cleats.

But he's happy.  He loves football.  He looks great in his uniform.  He's learning a new sport and exercising without being bribed.  Okay, I admit there's ice cream after practice, but that's as much for me as for him.

The truth is that I am really enjoying football season.  I just hope no one is expecting much from us.  We should be back to normal in November.  Just in time for basketball season.

Setting the bar too high

Doing something well is dangerous.  Why?  Because people then expect that level of excellence out of you.  For example, over the last couple of years I worked part time and took several leaves from work for various and sundry surgeries.  Being stuck at home may get other people addicted to soap operas (do those still exist?), but it gets me addicted to cooking.

I make dinner pretty much every night.  I also make lunch when I'm home.  I really, really like to eat good food.  I don't want to eat lousy food.  Consequently, unless I am away from home or trapped under something heavy, I will arrange to have a yummy home-cooked meal, usually with some produce from our farm share or from our backyard.

But then people start to expect that.  We got busy a couple of weekends ago and our house was full of teenagers and so meals consisted of pizza and donuts.  My family thought I was trying to kill them.  Seriously!  When I was a kid I would have thought I'd died and gone to heaven, but my kids were begging for more vegetables.

I've done this to myself.  

It's not just the kids, either.  At a potluck at church someone spotted me walking in with store-bought cookies and was disappointed I hadn't made my usual double batch of chocolate chip.

If I started a food blog I'd have to get way better
at photographing food.

Apparently I am doomed to be a disappointment to those around me.

Even this blog, that I was so good at maintaining while recovering from surgery, is lucky to see one post per week lately.

Which is why I'm considering starting a food blog.  I know that I said I wasn't going to make this a food blog, but this would be a separate blog.  It may sound absurd to start another blog because I'm having trouble keeping up with the first.  However, the truth is that I'm meal planning, trying out recipes, and cooking all the time anyway.  Might as well blog about it, right?

So, would you be interested in a food blog from me? Do you have any idea what I should name it?  I'm terrible at thinking up names.

On a completely separate note, the new Grimm season starts Monday.  I'm jazzed, are you?