Lessons learned

I've been away a while, haven't I? It's been ages since I was last here ... a week and a half in human time feels like an eternity in blog time.

It's been crazier than usual around here these past few days, and we were out of town for part of it. I'm exhausted, but I've learned a lot.

For instance, on our way to New York/New Jersey for my cousin's bat mitzvah, I learned that I have a very high tolerance for plane cretins. But really, parents of 9 month old children, please realize that you can't expect your child to sit quietly on your lap, doing absolutely nothing else, for 3 hours. Your child needs entertainment on the plane - a stuffed toy, a chewable/squishy book, something, anything - and that neither your poor child nor your unfortunate fellow passengers enjoy hearing you growl "NO!" and "STOP IT!" every two minutes on a three hour flight. Oh, and also, your 9 month old may not know that constantly pounding on the seat in front of him is unacceptable, but you should. Worst. Plane ride. Ever.

On a happier note, during our trip I learned that although Porchetta NYC's porchetta sandwich doesn't quite taste like one you would get in Rome, it is nevertheless a ticket to hog heaven.

I also learned that Brussels sprouts can be beautiful. Mind you, I haven't yet learned that they can be delicious, although I do have a couple of recipes in my "to try" pile that promise to change my mind.

Upon our return, I learned that after a full day of work, it's not possible to cook, keep the kitchen clean, conquer mountains of laundry, fold, iron, catch up on chores, exercise, have family time, respond to emails, do any Facebook-ing, and get to bed at a decent time, all in one evening. Not even if your husband does his darnedest to help. To be completely honest, I have to re-learn this lesson almost every day.

The other day I learned that when a six-year-old says that he wants to be a ghost for Halloween, he is most definitely not giving you permission to throw a white sheet over him and call it done. This brings us to the next thing I learned, which is that you must choose your battles, and no matter what people say, thank goodness for Wal-Mart, a.k.a. Your Source for Cheap Halloween Costumes. In an ideal world I would have made his costume (which I actually did do when he was younger - but I wasn't working outside of home then).

I also learned to let go of my crazy idea that last week was the time to recreate last year's Halloween cookies. However, I'm still learning to accept that last year's Halloween's cookies might possibly not have a chance to make an encore appearance at all this year. Boo. There just isn't enough time to do everything I want to do! I've been meaning to try a new sugar cookie recipe, because I'm not completely happy with the ones I've used so far. When I get around to doing that - hopefully before Christmas comes along - I'll let you know. And in the meantime, if you have a favourite sugar cookie recipe you'd like to share, please send it to me!

I haven't yet learned how to stretch the number of hours in a day, but I don't think anyone else has, either. The good news is that I think we're almost back to normal here at home again, and I got some sort-of-blog-worthy cooking done this weekend, so this coming week's posts will have some recipes for you.