My first laptop lunch

I've made a few laptop lunches for the kids this week but their lunches are rather boring and certainly not worth sharing! This one is for Ron. All he wants is for me to make him lunch every day and I refuse. It's that last thing that makes me feel like housewife (you're standing right next to me-- make your own lunch!). Now that I'm making Talia lunch everyday and Alex lunch three times a week I'm trying to be a little more prepared. Plus I often made lunches in the morning but obviously I have to do it at night now. With all of this going on, I decided to make Ron a lunch last night.

I bought these laptop lunchboxes online and they are super cute. Besides helping reduce waste by providing easy-to-clean reusable containers and real silverware, they also force you to rethink portion control and focus on healthy eating. I stumbled upon a laptop lunch flickr group and was stunned at the effort people put into their lunches. I could look at those pictures for hours!

So, as I said, I finally gave in and decided to make Ron's lunch for today. The conditions were right-- we had the right amount of leftovers, the house was all cleaned up and the kids were at the park. I have to say it took me way longer than it should have but it was kind of fun. There isn't, in my opinion, room enough in the laptop lunch for a real adult size main course so I added an extra tupperware. I filled that with leftover spinach mozzarella ravioli with herbs, parmesan and slightly cooked cherry tomatoes from my garden. Israeli salad with feta and zataar filled one big container and pita crisps and purple carrots filled the other. Hummus went into a small container and homemade zucchini bread went into the last one. Only one of the larger containers has a lid, which is kind of weird. I had to cover the hummus with tin foil. The outer plastic container of the laptop lunchbox fits snugly to the tops of the containers but I wouldn't trust it with wet ingredients. I threw a cloth napkin in with the silverware. A balanced, healthy meal with portion control and almost nothing to throw away.

When I have made Ron lunch in the past he complained that I gave him too much food. I used to work 12 hour nursing shifts where I really looked forward to my 20 minute lunch. I used to bring lots of little snacks to sneak in during the day for energy. I think that's why I would give Ron lots of different things. In this case, I gave him lots of things but the portions are soooo small (that's three small carrots!) that I think he'll eat it all. Now he'll complain that I don't make him lunch every day. He'll say, "You did it once so now I know you can do it again!"

B+

Ron worked on cleaning the kitchen after dinner last night. I had made a yummy meal of walnut-miso noodles from 101cookbooks.com. There was not a ton of clean up but I'm the first to admit I'm a messy cook. The fact that the kids are either trying to help me or bother me while I try to do it doesn't help either. Usually I'll make a three component meal-- soup, salad and bread or salad, main dish, side dish. Tonight I really just made the noodles and a small salad since it seemed like enough. What I'm trying to say is, it wasn't that much to clean up.

Ron had ample time to finish the job, as the kids were in bed. He also had just loaded up his ipod so boredom shouldn't have been a major deterrant. When he came upstairs after "finishing" I asked him to give himself a grade on the job he did. "B+" is what he said. I warned him-- "I don't care so much if it's not done, I just want you to be honest with me." He stood firm and again insisted it was a B+. When I was in high school an A grade started at a 92% therefore making a B+ an 89% instead of an 86. I will, however, use the standard curve by which to judge. And let's not forget that we've had this problem many many times before.

Let's start with the dining room table-- because that's where normal people start the clean up process. They bring the dishes to the sink. I also completely clean the table and the floor because I know I will not go back to it later. Now, I know better than to expect Ron to wipe the table off, clean up the noodles Alex threw all over the floor or the lentils that are scattered in a circle around Talia's seat. Behold, the dining room table was littered with unwiped placemats and a few random dishes. And all those chairs pushed out from the table just makes my skin crawl. That's a total pet peeve for me-- just push the chairs in!

Moving on to the back counter. I don't expect Ron to take the compost out to the bin or even use the special granite cleaner that I love so much. I was even surprised and delighted to see he took some initiative and tried to seal the wine bottle up using a vacuum pump. Of course, he left said vacuum pump and wine out on the counter. Along with an empty dirty bowl, a green plastic bag and empty bag of salad greens, a measuring cup, the salt and pepper grinder, the wine bottle opener, a rag (unused by him of course), a bag of walnuts, a bowl full of sliced scallions, the food processor, and he even left the utensil holder sitting in the middle of the counter instead of pushed out of the way like it normally is.

On to the front counter. Rubber bands and asparagus left sitting right out, not to mention the cups of water. How hard is it to clean a few cups that have held only water? And then the mound of dishes. I should be thankful that he cleaned them at all. Look at that huge pile! There are a lot of reasons why we clean so many of our dishes by hand. Mostly it's a space issue in the dishwasher. It's poorly designed to hold anything but the flattest of plates. Plus, we don't run it that often so we don't put things in that we might need the next day, like a vegetable peeler or something. And Alex always has his hands in there so we never put sharp things in. We also have nice pots and pans and knives and serving dishes that just don't belong in a dishwasher. Despite all those many reasons that would lead you to believe that we simply have a lot of dishes that need to be hand washed, the truth is that Ron didn't unload the dish drying rack from the coutner before he started the dishes. And if I had done that many dishes AND the kids were asleep AND I had just loaded up my ipod you damn better believe I would have stood there and dried them off and put them away.

I'm just saying.

Book Abuser

This is so totally me! It's an essay about abusing books by writing in them, folding down the corners, cutting them in half, etc. I believe in all of it. I also believe in NOT keeping my books. At this point in my life I have kept only a VERY few (fiction) books, maybe 2 or 3 from my adult life and a dozen or so from childhood. I like to pass them on or get rid of them. I absolutely don't keep them. Perhaps when we move to Madison and have a home in which we hope to stay for years and years I will create a library but at this point I feel no need to keep them.

I also don't really buy books. I definitely use my public library (so easy now with online reservations!) and borrow books from family and friends. Of course, the family and friends have to buy the books for me to borrow them but I would be almost as happy to get them from the library. I actually read them faster since they have to be returned. I am terrified of accumulating fines at the library and use an email reminder service to help me remember to return them!

I would say I have read more in the last 3 years than ever before. Perhaps it's because I'm not in school, or not working (much), or getting in bed earlier because I'm tired from parenting all day. I think the main reason however is.... TIVO. I rarely watch TV at night anymore (we have no TV in the bedroom) and just Tivo my shows to watch while I'm cleaning etc. Also, Ron wants to watch the Jim Lehrer news hour every night and frankly it bores me. He has this moral superiority about how it's the NEWS and it's on PBS so it's infinitely more important than say, America's Next Top Model or Project Runway. So he will watch the news and I'll go upstairs and read. I guess that's good for me!

I'm attaching the link to an essay in the NY Times Book Review last weekend. I would just copy and paste the article here but somehow I don't think that's right...? http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html

I know the NYT links to articles only work for a week or so...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/books/review/Schott.t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=review&pagewanted=print

More cleaning issues

I asked my husband to clean his side of our bedroom because the cleaning people were coming today. He said it was 90% cleaner than what it had been before so I shouldn't complain.

8 out of 10

My husband works really hard and often works long hours. Fine. I completely agree. I still think he should help out around the house. It's a big job and it's never ending. I mostly want him to just pick up after himself. I will capture some evidence about how he leaves everything out and lying around in another post. This post is about a particular incident from last month.

My daughter was sick (coxsackie). It had been a long day for me. I think he had to actually cook dinner, which happens about once a month. The kitchen was a disaster. I asked him to clean it. He is notoriously "bad" at cleaning the kitchen, so he says and has proven through great effort for at least two years. I was exhausted from being up all night with my daughter and spending all day holding her and trying to get her to eat or drink. When my husband said the kitchen was finished I asked him to give himself a grade before I went to see it. He gave himself an "8 out of 10"

This is what I found...