Checking the waters

Everyone has them.  Those days where everything seems to be starting out well, and before you know it, your finger gets slammed in the car door.  Or, you're in the middle of something at work and you get a call from school saying one of the kids is sick and you need to come and pick them up (please, before they infect the entire population!)  You think you paid a bill on time and find it under the computer table, a day or more late.

Welcome to the stress pool.

This blog is solely intended to be a fun place to air all the crazy things that happen daily - the shark fins in the water, so to speak. 

Today, the youngest child got sick at school.  It's nearly the end of the school day.  I know this because my last class had just walked in.  No, he can't go home on the bus.  I end up not having class and getting to our middle school just as the high school buses are arriving.  Normally, this is a bad thing, especially when you drive a small car!  Miraculously, he's able to walk to the car, and after alerting his sister that we're on the premises (should she rather have a ride home instead of taking the bus), the three of us arrive home safe and sound. Now, I can start dinner.
Dinner at our house runs hot or cold, and I don't mean temperature.  Either I have the energy and genius of Giada or I don't.  After working all day it's generally an "I don't."  Today I was feeling it, yet a simple fare was planned.  Yes, planned.  We make a monthly menu of what we're going to have for dinner.  It's helpful when grocery shopping (as long as Hubby has pulled out the recipes - he makes the menu) and there is usually no question as to what's for dinner.  Now that the kids are older it helps them decide what night they should plan on eating out!  Tonight was keilbassa and pierogie.
I love keilbassa (which we buy fresh at the butcher) baked with sauerkraut.  Adding ginger ale and brown sugar sweetens the deal, and if you bake it for at least an hour at 350 degrees, it comes out all swelled up and full of flavor. 
Frozen peirogie fit our lifestyle the best, although there is a nice little local church that makes them fresh every friday.  I tried it once - took me all day to make them and took them five minutes to eat!  Anyway, I boiled them, fried them in butter and onions, and put them into a covered casserole dish to finish them up in the oven alongside the keilbassa.  Then, I sat down in the chair of death.
The chair of death is a recliner also referred to as "The Queen's Chair."  In this house, I am the queen, yet for some reason I don't always get to sit in that seat!  Guaranteed, when I do, you can believe I'm going to fall asleep.  Which is what I did.  Two hours later, the keilbassa was steamy and hot, done perfectly.  The pierogie - well, they tasted good but were a little crisp.
One of the children said, "I don't care what snide remarks dad made, I enjoyed the peirogie chips!"

Minnesota Chicken and Wild Rice Soup is on the menu tomorrow - I don't know what makes it Minnesotan.  Hubby is in charge of dinner for tomorrow.  See, there's a story about the time I lured them into a false sense of security before unleashing upon them the idea that I wasn't going to cook every night, but I've said enough for today and will save that one for another time.