My Relaxing Evening

Today my dad came down and we spent the afternoon building garden boxes. We got a lot of work done, but there is even more still left to do. After working all day, I was happy to change out of my saw-dusty clothes into yoga pants and a comfy T-shirt. I was ready to just rest and relax a bit. Too bad I forgot that I'm a mom!

I went downstairs and started making dinner: tacos, guacamole, Spanish rice. The kids were constantly coming in needing tools or more layers of clothing to be able to work at planting some bulbs they had found while cool weather was moving in. I would slice an avocado, put on #5's shoe, slice another avocado, and then run to close the sliding door that had been left wide open again. The hungry cats, whom I am trying to re-train to be strictly outdoor cats (no more pampering in the garage), kept wandering in too. At one point after I had fried the taco shells and turned off the burner for the oil (I thought) I was literally chasing a cat around the couch, hissing at it to scare it back outside. I lunged for it and only felt the tip of its tail brush through my fingers. I finally caught the cat and took it out, then jogged back to the kitchen to cut cilantro. Seconds later I smelled smoke and turned around to discover that I had not quite turned the stove dial to "off". It was on "high" and the oil was smoking pretty badly. I was sure I would see flames in a few seconds, so I very carefully and quickly carried the pan outside, with the smoke alarm blaring in the background, leaving a cloud of smoke through the kitchen, dining room, and front room. Outside the oil began popping, so I placed the pan in my wet flowerbed and went back to dismantle the smoke alarm and open all the windows and, reluctantly, the sliding door. When I got to the door, I poked my head outside to discover #5 playing in the water spigot with the water turned on full blast. I ran into the puddle in my grass to turn off the water, and ran back inside to chase the cats out again!

Fortunately, the evening calmed down after dinner and I did get to lay around with the kids watching a movie. Sadly, though, I missed talking to Kent. He is on a work project and called to check in on us. I was so busy giving cooking directions to #1, sending #3's friend off with her dad, and telling #5 where to find dry underpants that all I could do was explain that I was in the middle of dinner prep and he would have to talk to #4 instead. Maybe I'll get a minute with him tomorrow.

Now I'm left wondering why I feel the need to wake up early for exercise. I seem to get plenty of it just doing my job as mommy!