On my Quest to Cook More at Home---

On my quest to cook more at home I made a pot of chilli today.  I can still remember the day, a long time ago, when my mom stood in my kitchen and showed me how to make chilli.  I was so impressed at how she just browned the ground beef, added onions, showed me how many cans of stuff to add.  She told me to get the one pot cooking while I was browning the beef and onions.  I don't know why.  I suppose that's the way she always made it, so who was I to question her? LOL  Then I add chilli powder to taste.  I usually serve chilli with saltine crackers, but I looked in my cabinet and I don't have any!  So I gotta come up with a plan b.  I don't know what it is yet.  Now that I think about it, I have Ritz crackers; that might have to do.  I thought about cornbread, but I don't have any of that either!  Stocking the pantry is gonna have to be another thing to keep up with in the new year. 

I went to the store last night to get all the Christmas dinner stuff.  We just have ham sandwiches, potato salad, chips, etc.  Nothing fancy.  Again, that's my mom's tradition.  I don't know how or when she started it; I don't remember my grandmother doing that.  I remember always big meals at grandmas, never sandwiches, so I guess maybe mom wanted to make things easy on herself.  That's okay. 

This will be the first year my kids won't be here sleeping on Christmas Eve.  Our son has lived in our basement and our daughter would usually come over Christmas Eve to spend the night, but this year she is sleeping at her brothers (he moved out in May) which is okay.  They will be coming Christmas morning.  Last New Year's Eve was the first time I didn't have my kids home.  Our son, who is a police officer had to go to work and he took his sister on a ride along with him.  Just as the new year was ringing in our daughter called to say they were on their way to the hospital to check out a dead body.  Crazy.  So that's how my kids rung in the new year.  And it was the first time husband and I had been alone for New Year's in over 30 years.  Awkward is a good word to describe how it felt.  A mother duck lost with her ducklings.

I don't care how old I get or my children get they are my children, my babies and I will always feel that way about them.  I will always see the little boy and little girl in them.  Some days I just want to squeeze them and pick them up like I did when they were small enough to do that and just show them how much I love them, but they really aren't into all that kind of love anymore.  They allow me to hug them and give them a kiss, but they have outgrown the playfulness of all that tickling and stuff.  *sigh*

The dog went to be spayed today and the cat is having female problems and she had to go to the vets.  She is scheduled to be spayed next Wednesday.  I wish I was rich. 

I keep putting off cleaning the house.  I don't know why.  I never used to be this way.  The husband used to have a saying, 'just do it' and we were good about getting our chores done, but honestly as we've gotten older we just don't commit to chores like we should.  I believe I totally understand older people now that I've become one myself!

Now I need to go stir my chilli.  Until next time..