What to do when it rains for 5 days straight

I recently told my friend that if the weather is bad outside, she should head over to my house. You see, I have this Pavlovian response to dark days, cold weather, and being cooped up inside and MUST cook.

It really isn't that bad of a vice. Cooking is good right? I got to make some carrot muffins for the kids for their lunches to compensate for the gummy "fruit" snacks they also get. I've also made meatballs, lasagna, french toast, steak stuffed with goat cheese and caramelized onions, and cookies.

The down side to all of this is that since the weather has been so nasty, I only worked out once last week. So if I am what I eat. I am fat! (but happy!) And I digress...

So yesterday we had one of our boy's friends over for an extended playdate. And while we usually take the kids outside for scootering, biking, hiking, and climbing...yesterday we were completely stranded in the house. And even 5 year olds have a limit for how much Wii they can play.

So we made Halloween cookies and decorated them.

It has been raining for so long, I think my brain was starting to melt, because I am the WORST cookie decorator. I was once uninvited to a Christmas cookie decorating party because I had to throw more cookies out than keep. But for some reason I thought I would try with the boys. And here is how they turned out:

I bet you can't even tell which ones I decorated. I told you I was bad. And you'll also be relieved to know that it is no longer raining, so I can stop the cooking madness.

Just another lazy Sunday

I don't know about you, but I am SO tired of making lunches already. Seriously, if I have to look at another sandwich ziploc, bag of pretzels, or cheesestick again, I might just start sending my boy in with money to buy "healthy lunches" of fried cheese sticks with marinara sauce (they have the nerve to count the sauce as a vegetable serving...really?). OK...it isn't getting that bad, but each day that passes I have more and more respect for my sister-in-law who makes lunch for her 5 kids...EVERY F-ING DAY...I have no idea how she does it.

So in an effort to make lunch a little more interesting, last weekend I tried to bake a spiced apple bread to put in with the turkey sandwich and the hard boiled egg. Well...spice it up is exactly what I did. Never one for understatement, I decided that not only would we enjoy this bread, but so would two friends who recently had babies. So I made 3 batches, threw them in the oven, and went to my computer to get started on my online grocery order for the week. 45 minutes later I checked on my bread and this is what I found:

Seriously, if I don't have the knack for making the turkey sandwich and egg look good, I don't who does. These were the most disgusting, gooey, burnt, and foul smelling breads I have ever cooked. And the added bonus was that they overflowed out of their pans onto the bottom of my oven.

So I did what any half-assed cook in the middle of a lazy Sunday afternoon would do. I closed the oven and hit the self-clean button. Why else did I pay a million dollars for my awesome oven if it can't clean itself?

So I returned to my computer to finish my shopping, peruse a little people.com, and return some emails when my husband comes running in. I immediately knew something was up since he rarely leaves his chair on football Sundays. He alerted me to the pouring of smoke coming from the ovens, into the kitchen, and throughout the house. Turns out that you are supposed to clean off the bottom of the oven before hitting self-clean. Ooops.

After a minute of smoke inhalation, a stop-drop-and roll exercise, and a quick trip to the garage for the fire extinguisher, we turned off the oven and started to believe that the house was not going to burn down. I then headed out open a few more windows and when I come back, this is what I found.

Turns out he did what any half-assed football fan on a lazy Sunday would do and got back to the task at hand.

We're nothing if we're not lazy and half-assed around here!