There are just some things I am not cut out for.

Cleaning.

Cooking.

Organization.

Potty Training.

Guess what I have been doing this week??

If you guessed all of the above you get the cheesecake.  No seriously, I made cheesecake yesterday.  Like crushed up graham crackers for the crust, and used my spring foam pan, that was a wedding present, and had never even been opened.  Even though I did want it, and registered for it, and was so excited when I got it.  I just finally got around to using it.

This week I have been cooking.  Like real cooking from recipes.  With ingredients and pans.

What I have discovered?


No matter what I cook, my kids would rather go to bed hungry, than even eat one bite.

If I cook pork chops with cherry sauce because I know my kids like cherries and will certainly eat it, not only will they suddenly detest cherries, my husband will stare at dinner like I just served him a plate of gruel and say forlornly, "I don't like cherries."

Dinner - BTW he did eat it and discovered he does like cherries!

Brussels Sprouts are inedible.  Brussels Sprout gratin will smell heavenly and will be tolerable to eat but will leave you with the firm decision to never go within 10 feet of a Brussels Sprout again in your life.  I know I realized this as a child but this was a good reminder.  Also I can not be cruel enough to force my children to choke down a Brussels Sprout for anything.

If I bake a cheesecake to use as an incentive for my kids to eat their BBQ ribs and baked beans and green beans they will tell me that they don't really like cheesecake anyway.

This afternoon they suddenly discovered they DO like cheesecake.

I will somehow manage to mess up every recipe.  Like putting too much thyme on the ribs, or not making the foil under the cheesecake entirely waterproof.

If I clean the kitchen counter off and the stove off and vow to finish all the dishes and keep up with them during the week I am cooking, the garbage disposal will break, leaving the sink and dishwasher unusable.

It's the first time this has been clean . . . ever.

Probably also the first time this has ever been clean.

My brilliant husband will fix the disposal after a day and a half but the mess accrued during it's outage will seem insurmountable and reduce me to a little rocking ball of despair.

Ok, it doesn't look so bad here.  Really it's just the principle of the thing.

Also, the sink was overflowing with dishes.

The dining room table, that I vowed to clean off, so we could eat these meals at a table together as a family, rather than on TV trays, will remain untouched.

All the money we will "save" by not eating out will be used up for one weeks worth of ingredients.  I will in fact manage to use the entire two week grocery budget for one week.

My brilliant plan to really potty train my daughter during the same week as my cook everything week . . . might have been a bit unwise.

This was also probably not a good week to quit caffeine.