NEED A BREAK

I don't know exactly why but it's been one of those times that my kids are just wearing on me. I need a serious mommy break. I haven't really had one unless you count working (at a toy store with OTHER PEOPLE'S KIDS and OTHER KID'S PARENTS) and my few hours of skiing with a friend last week. Where we took her son up with us, I hung out with him for a bit while she got his ticket and found his dad then had him jumping on my toes during my apres ski beer.

We took the kids to see Coraline last night. LOVE Tim Burton. Loved the movie. I had people tell me it was too scary for my kids ages but they were fine. Went straight to bed when we got home, slept great all night and when asked this morning, said they did not have creepy dreams.

I'm working on 1. "Fancy" hair for DD. The blog on here - Little Girls Hair - gave me some great ideas. While mine has not been nearly as clean and smooth looking, it's been fun and easier than expected. Most things I have done have not taken that much extra time either. 2. I'm perfecting my face painting skills. I am not an artist but I'm having fun doing little fun things on my kids faces. I hope I can use my new skills at the store too.

The menu this week is well, weak. Things have changed with me working and FG playing in a pool league (with my DAD, poor guy). That means I'm gone on Tuesday(I have a story about last Tues I'll get to in a sec.) for dinner, we have to eat early on Wed before he heads out and Thursday he works. Friday is not a big cooking day for me. It's always always been a casual day for me. I grew up that way. Friday was the homemade Chef Boyardee pizza night with soda to drink instead of milk. Friday was the "let's go out for burgers or fish fry" night. It's part of my makeup to not cook a regular meat & potatoes dinner on a Friday. This week DS's 2nd grade music program is on Tuesday so I switched days and work on Wed. That means Tuesday we need to eat quick before heading to school and Wed. everyone is pretty much on their own.

• Sunday - Take out.
• Monday - Balsamic pork chops, mashed potatoes, asparagus, fruit
• Tuesday - Corn Dog Muffins (I am going to try them, I'll let you know how they are!), baked beans, salad
• Wednesday - everyone is on their own
• Thursday - Spaghetti & garlic bread, salad (FG works, I have some sauce frozen :) )
• Friday - ??
• Saturday - I work until 7:30 and then FG and I are going out for All You Can Eat Sushi and a much needed date night - ALL night.

Ok, really quick. LAST Tuesday I had to work until 7. I thought I was being a good wife & mom by putting a whole chicken in the crock pot for the day, making mashed potatoes and putting them into a buttered casserole dish for FG to bake(reheat) at dinner time, cleaning the cauliflower and getting it into the steaming pot and getting everything ready for FG to mix up a packet of gravy. I figured making real gravy like I would have was way too much to ask since he doesn't usually cook. I even baked a batch of snickerdoodles (DS's favorite cookie) that were warm when DS got off the bus. What does FG say when I walk in the door at 7:30 from work? "This was a really tough dinner for me!" um, hello???? He meant he didn't know what to do with the leftovers or how exactly to keep it warm for me when I got home because I had told him to NOT have dishes waiting for me to wash. But all I heard out of that was the complaining and I will be honest, it hurt. I tried to be helpful and make sure my family had a nice meal while I wasn't home. I told him that it hurt and he tried to explain why. I guess I should just let it go and understand what he meant but part of me wanted some big time praise from him on doing all the dinner work for him. Oh well. Now he gets to figure it out this week and we'll see what's harder - figuring out how to save the leftovers or figuring out ALL of dinner without a drive-thru.