The Dinner Debate: What Are We Having?

I work from home as well as being a traditional "homemaker".  That just means I do all the cooking and cleaning, laundry, kids, mental tally of every item's location, pets, without pay, as well as getting my regular job done.  Those of us in this position like to refer to ourselves as Stay-At-Home-Slaves.

Every night I fall asleep somewhere around midnight, every morning I wake up at 5:30, and the first thing I think is:  What's for dinner?  You see, I have to defrost something, a pack of meat or chicken, doesn't matter, but if I don't do it right away, dinner is not happening.

That's hard to do.  When my alarm goes off one word enters my brain:  coffee.  Coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, it's a mantra in my brain.  Then I start going, "Oooh, cupcakes, yay, they didn't finish them all last night," (or cookies, cake, pie).  Breakfast needs making, then dishes need washing, better start the laundry, make beds, what am I going to write about today... Oh wait, dinner."

It's hard to know what I'll be in the mood for later that night when I'm eating chips and salsa for breakfast.  What will everyone else want?  We had chicken yesterday so probably not chicken again.  This debate consumes me.

Once I spent six months menu planning ahead of time and posting it inside the pantry door.  That eliminated the, "What's for dinner?" barrage, but after a while, maybe I didn't want lasagna so started mixing it up, then the menu idea went by the wayside.

Often I see friends talking about what they are having for dinner on Facebook, then I have to notify everyone that we're having that because that sounds yummier.

Sometimes my husband comes home and decides to take us out for dinner, then dinner becomes tomorrow's lunch and I have to scramble to get flour out of my hair. Yep, I'm one of the few people left on the planet that still makes everything from scratch.

Awesome for Thanksgiving, but stressful for every day life.  I once had a wife of my husband's friend stay on the phone with me for thirty minutes because she was so stunned I bake my pies from scratch because I told her I had to get off the phone, I was trying to roll dough.

I have to balance the health issue to a degree, if we are having heavy sauce with pasta and bread: no dessert. If healthier like baked chicken and veggies: dessert.  The reward for eating healthier is to be unhealthy.    I know, doesn't make sense, but it works in our house.

The debate with myself over dinner must be decided by eight o'clock in the morning or things don't defrost in time.  If dinner is late, the pantry will be empty of cereal before food is on the table and then nobody is hungry and I wasted my day in debate for nothing.

I have to say, the dinner debate is the hardest part of my day and I have a husband and four boys to contend with.  Today is Easy-Sunday, I'm making chili.  It goes in the crockpot, toppings in side bowls, cornbread on a platter, and everyone can help themselves whenever they like.  This frees up my day to tackle the million other things that have piled up when I was debating with myself over dinner all week.