Just call me Julia Child. And Molly Maid.

 

I woke up around 7:30, but stayed in bed until 8. I love that morning time when I can lay in bed and not have to get up right away. Only I knew that I had a lot of work ahead of me so that kind of ruined the mood. At 8, I got up and started cooking.

I cooked and cooked and cooked. I cleaned up and cooked some more. I cooked straight through until 1 p.m. I made five meals: chicken tetrazzini, beef stew, parmesan turkey meatloaf and mashed potatoes, Tex-Mex bean and chicken casserole, and chicken and broccoli casserole. I boiled and browned and steamed and sliced and chopped and rinsed and drained and minced and measured. I opened a lot of cans: beans, diced tomatoes, fire-roasted diced tomatoes, beef stock, chicken stock, cream of mushroom, chicken and celery, tomato soup.

I portioned everything out and wrapped it all up and wrote out final directions. Bake this at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Heat that and eat it. Bake this and then sprinkle cheddar cheese on top and then eat it.

Then, after that was all finished, M and I cleaned the house. I dusted while he swept. I dusted all the shelves in the great room. There are a lot of shelves. I cleaned the dining room table and dusted Zoe's piano. I put things away that have been lingering since Christmas. Then I dusted our bedroom.

By this point I was feeling pretty disgusting, so I got cleaned up before delivering the meals to my parents. Dad joked that I was like Meals on Wheels. My mother gave me a perfume bottle that was my great grandmother's, for whom I was given my middle name. Then, through a random conversation about my parish's sister parish in North St. Louis, we cleaned out their coat closets and bagged up about 10 coats for donation.

Mass at 6 p.m. was just what I needed. Even though my head was pounding, I was able to look around with so much gratitude. In a circle, all around me, were wonderful people that I have gotten to know through Zoe's school and through our ACTS retreat program. All of these people support me and care about me and my family. I could call any one of them if I needed help and they would not only rush to my side, they'd recruit 50 more people to help, too. This almost brought me to tears. I stopped feeling overwhelmed and started counting my blessings (of which there are many).

We ate dinner tonight at our newly cleaned dining room table. Beef stew. It was a new recipe, and it was delicious. Turns out that's what my parents ate, too, and Dad called to tell me how good it was. He sounded surprised, which made me laugh.

I have laundry going, and The West Wing in the DVD player, and I remembered to snap a photo in the middle of all the cooking chaos today (it's the steamer, full of broccoli). My house is clean and my meals are made for the week and I don't have to worry about what my folks are eating. M is on his computer yet again, but this time he's planning a summer Corvette trip out west for us and it's sounding pretty damn spectacular.

Yep, lots and lots of blessings.