It's Too Mushy

When I embarked on the challenge of making a good dinner for my family every day, I decided that crockpot cooking was one of the best solutions for me as a working mom. One of my dear friends, Holly (who also happens to totally be a Proverbs 31 wife...she even is out there everyday in the pasture working the cows with her husband!) let me borrow her crockpot cookbook.

 I wrote the other day about the creamy spaghetti I made. I thought it was good, but after my second crockpot dinner, which was chicken and rice, Seth turned up his nose. "It's too mushy! I know you are trying to save time, but this crockpot stuff just isn't very good."


I gritted my teeth to keep from snapping back with a sarcastic comment. "Ok, I will try something different," I said instead. But literally, my heart was broken. I was trying so hard and it still wasn't good enough for him.

Like I have said before, I am not a chef. But I can follow directions...truly, it is not that I mess up what I make (well, most of the time) but that I don't know what to make in the first place!

One of my major problems is that in order not to have to cook two dinners, I have to make something that my kids will eat, too. So, last night I sat down and made a list of kid-friendly, Seth-friendly meals and then I made a grocery list of the items we needed.

This morning, I told Seth that I had made a grocery list.

Seth: "That's nice, but we can't buy groceries until the 14th." (Today is the 7th.)

Me: "What are we going to eat this week?" (as calmly as possible)
Seth: "There's lots of stuff in there. I just spent $200 last week."

I found myself gritting my teeth again to keep my mouth shut. I want to say, "Sure, we can live on powdered donuts, poptarts and hot dogs for a week." Seth does our grocery shopping, so in addition to the list of weekly groceries he gets from me, he buys "snacks" (aka junk) for the kids.

About 30 minutes later, Seth showed me the new chainsaw he bought. Hmm...by the end of this experiment, I may not have any teeth left for all of this gritting I am doing....