Title: (insert name of blog here)

Today has been a day that reminded me, more than once, why I chose the name  “My Household DISorder.” Note the emphasis on the “dis.” Scratch that. This week has reminded me why.

I don’t know if my kids have become messier or if I’ve been lazier, but for whatever reason, I just can’t keep up this week. My house is a disaster. For every one thing I pick up, three more materialize on the floor. I know what you’re thinking parents. “That’s just having kids. Nothing special.” My response? I know it always seems that way, but I swear to god it’s ACTUALLY happening in my house this week.

I’ve also been experiencing a little “case of the melancholies” as I like to call it. This means that instead of the mess spurring me into a cleaning frenzy, it has beaten me down. I’ve been stomped into a catatonic state of “I don’t give a damn.” This week has stolen all my mom magic that allows me to be a human punching bag. I am defeated. Knocked out. Life is the champion this round.

Given this information you have probably figured out that there hasn’t been a lot of kitchen action this week. I’ll spare you the details, but just know this: Ham sandwiches and bananas. For dinner. Last night. Yeah… Because of this new low, I decided I should get back in the ring tonight and actually feed my family. I should have just stayed down for the count.

Since it’s Cinco de Mayo, I decided to make quesadillas. (The fact that they require almost no work and are done in like, 2 seconds, had nothing to do with it. Promise.) I was about to get started in the kitchen when I got a phone call. Since the kids were happily playing in J’s bedroom, I switched the burner right back off and stepped into the living room to take the call. Having lulled me into a false sense of security, my darling children chose this moment to act.

I came back into the kitchen to discover the loaf of bread COVERED in mustard. My kids somehow (don’t you wish we could ever know how?!) managed to silently sneak into the kitchen, silently open the child locked refrigerator, silently retrieve the bread from the counter, and silently squeeze half the bottle of yellow mustard onto it. My hearing is admittedly pretty terrible, but this seems impossible. I mean, I live in a double wide for crying out loud! My living room is literally right next to the kitchen! And yet, they made it happen.

My small silver lining was that at least the bread wasn’t ruined. The mustard was only covering the plastic. Except that it wasn’t. My brilliant (read:devious)  little angels had poked little angel finger sized holes in the plastic first. And then had squeezed the not so little amount of mustard onto the bag. Where it proceeded to seep perfectly into the entire loaf of bread.

I surprisingly still made the quesadillas. Which J promptly turned into quesadilla soup all over the dining room table when he poured out his cup. Apparently, my small Cinco de Mayo celebration of quesadillas for dinner wasn’t enough for my kids. They have decided to throw their own party. One in which they release all their inner demons. Is it Cinco de Seis yet?????

P.S.

Did I mention I started this day by accidently calling my boss? At 2:32 this morning? Oh yeah, it happened. It’s a good thing that I’ve known him practically forever. And that we are good friends. And that my whole store team is like one big family. I mean, could you imagine if it wasn’t??? But still, what a way to kick off my day.

Poptarts for dinner

So, last night I finally made the orzo pasta. It was an ordeal and not even worth the effort. I got a late start, which meant I was rushing. This is never a good thing. Speed is my friend in every other aspect of life, but in the kitchen? It only ever leads to pain and suffering.

During this speed round, I managed to burn everything. The garlic. The carrots. My hand. TWICE. I also:

-decorated the kitchen floor with carrot peels

-topped that with about a cups worth of olive oil

-turned vegetables into missiles while chopping

AND

-cut myself pretty damn deep with the child safe peeler

Needless to say, I was not remotely in the mood to eat by the time the dust had settled and dinner was done. Here’s the end result.

At this point an old adage comes to mind. “Looks can be deceiving.” TRUE. Very, very true. I did not like this one bit. I’m really weird about texture, and this was just mushy and gross. Luckily, my family is not as discerning, and the kids and husband were able to eat it just fine. Me on the other hand? I feasted on gourmet pastries in the twilight of the evening. Which is to say, I grabbed some Poptarts around 9:00 when the anger finally subsided enough for me to feel hungry.

P.S.

I think S is trying to become the next IPhone photo phenom. She is constantly taking pictures, and gets bent out of shape if her “subject” isn’t cooperating. For example, last night she was having a photo session and decided to get a little artsy. She carefully placed a water bottle just so on an end table and began snapping pictures. J kept knocking the bottle off. S had an all out artistic fit, frustrated tears, yelling, and desperate attempts to make J understand the importance of said bottle included. Did I mention she’s just barely three?

Her final product.

One should not take rice for granted

Well, it finally happened. I have suffered a defeat in the kitchen. Although if I’m honest, it took much longer than expected. I fully believed I would fail from day one, so to have made it this far before this happened is a victory in itself. And thank God for that! I know myself, and if I hadn’t bolstered my confidence with all my previous success, I would be an angry hot mess right now. I would send the family away to find dinner, slam around cleaning while shouting some explicit phrases at EVERY SINGLE (insert choice word) PAN, and go to bed seething and starving. Luckily, that didn’t have to happen this time. I mean, I have spent years learning not to be a sore loser, but when it comes to the kitchen, all bets are off.

So let me break it down for you. I decided to attempt sweet potato and black bean taquitos with a side of mexican seasoned rice.  The recipe in itself didn’t seem too complicated, and I thought I could just cook up some rice and season it myself to pair with the taquitos. That should have been my first indication that things were amiss, me thinking I could fly solo on something. I missed the sign though, and so started in on prepping the taquitos. It was a battle from the get go. You see, sweet potatoes are kind of hard to peel and dice. At least, the two monster size ones I had picked out were. I wasn’t prepared for it, and it set the tone for the rest of the evening.

I finally got them all cubed up and the beans rinsed and drained, only to realize that I didn’t have the corn the recipe called for. “Small hiccup,” I thought. “I’m sure they will be fine without it.” I continued on with the cheese and seasonings, got the filling all mixed, and lay out my pan to start rolling. By this point, the prep has taken me twice as long as expected (why can’t I learn that those little numbers on recipes lie?!), the kids are screaming, and I don’t even want to eat dinner. But I soldiered on, hastily rolling the taquitos and popping them in the oven. I then got to work on the rice.

It’s well known that rice can be finicky. I have cooked real rice, meaning not pre-seasoned instant rice, only one time before today. For this reason I should not have been as confident as I was. Instead, I chose to make not one but two cups of rice, thinking it would be so good we would all want seconds. I was wrong. I messed up the cooking, did not add anywhere near enough seasoning, and then tried to fix the disaster by adding cheese to make it “cheesy mexican rice.” I didn’t even want to try a bite, but I forced myself to. It wasn’t edible. AT ALL. It was a mushy disgusting mess. The two toddlers would not even touch this stuff.

So our dinner consisted of slightly bland taquitos and nothing else. I managed to mess those up too by not following the recipe closely enough. I thought I could just season them myself instead of taking the time to measure everything out. Again, I was wrong. They were at least edible though, and I think the recipe is a keeper if I were to follow it to the letter. Although after my defeat today, I’m sure it will be a while before I can bring myself to try them again.

P.S.

Today marked the official end of my winning-at-life streak. I’m hoping things simply go back to normal. That I just return to being unlucky and carry on my merry way. That the universe does not exact karmic revenge for my winning times to balance things out. I’ll keep you posted.