Up All Night

Fruits of our labor, except for the sweet corn that I had already put in the freezer!

Before a road trip, I always have a list of to-dos longer than I have hours to get it done. This is the reason I never get to bed before midnight (and usually not before 2AM) for at least two nights before we hit the road. In the past, my to-do list included extraneous things like taking the car to the car wash, making sure the inside windshield in the car was clean, loading CDs into iTunes, and grooming the dog. Brian is worse than I am. He works until the last minute, then believes he can landscape the yard, remodel the bathroom, and pack his bags in two hours. Usually, we eat at restaurants for the few days before a trip, just to save time and keep from having to do dishes. But, no matter how many good home cooked meals we give up in the name of a quick getaway, it’s always the same story, we’re up late and have to take shifts sleeping in the car.

But, that was the past and this is now. I’m still up late. (C’mon, you can’t expect miracles!) However, I’m not wasting time on the small stuff. (My iPod has weeks worth of music on it anyway, and my windshield is clean enough). Instead, I’m looking back on the work of the day and smiling. Not only did I make yogurt dough (to be cut into cookies and crackers tomorrow), and then sourdough (which I divided and kneaded and rolled into two loaves, 10 buns, and a dozen cinnamon rolls and left to rise), but I also made three solid meals—including my near-famous pumpkin chili—entertained a friend with homemade hot chocolate, and cooked and prepared corn and pureed butternut squash to be frozen until Winter. Unbelievably, I managed to fit in my Pilates session, we did not skip our family walk around the neighborhood, and my kitchen is clean!

Homemade hot chocolate with real, raw whipped cream!

So, it’s eleven minutes after one (in the wee hours of the AM) on the day before we leave for vacation and I just snuck downstairs to turn the light off in my kitchen and grab my computer to finish this blog. I was greeted with the enticing aroma of butter, spices, and fresh ground wheat. It’s almost like getting a brand new, or remodeled home. Most people only dream their grandmother’s kitchen smelled as good as mine does right now.

Chili cooking.

I’m really starting to appreciate and count on the fact that no matter what we have going on, no matter how busy, our family eats three meals a day together (except when Daddy is at work and then it’s just me and Mia). And, provisioning ourselves for vacation isn’t turning out to be as hard as I thought it would be because we are simply in the habit of making and eating good homemade food.

Just before taking containers of veggies and chili to the freezer, I pointed to the clean counters and the fruits of our labor all lined up and ready to go (and, ready to be photographed) and said to Brian, “Things really have changed around here.”

It’s all worth it.