I’ll admit, I do a lot of things in any given day. But, I’ll be the first to confess I can’t do everything. Well, let’s modify that a bit. I can do anything I put my mind to but I choose not to do everything.
Here’s an example of something I have chosen not to do much of anymore. Every so often I get a call from an old friend to touch base and many times the first question out of her mouth is, “What are you making for supper tonight?” or “Do you have any good recipes for ________ (fill in the blank).” My answers are always “Nothing” and “No.” After having raised four children and cooking meals every night for more years than I can recall, when the last one went off to college I pretty much hung up the ol’ apron.
Can I cook? Absolutely! I’m pretty good at it actually. I do enjoy baking once in a while but have found fresh baked goods aren’t a great thing to have around when there are only two people living in the house. I could easily put away a dozen homemade cookies in a day if I put my mind to it. They call my name from the kitchen with their fresh, sweet goodness. But as far as the day-in and day-out cooking goes, I’ve lost any interest in it. I still cut out recipes here and there but they generally go into the recipe box, never to see the light of day again.
When the kids come into town, I dutifully go shopping and line up a couple of menus but other than that, you’d be hard pressed to find me hanging out in my kitchen. Knowing this, my friend wonders what exactly we eat every day or do we do take out every night. We seldom do take out, maybe a pizza once a month or so, and because my husband eats out a lot for work, he’s not inclined to get back into the car once he gets home at night and drive 15 minutes to hit up one of the many restaurant chains on the other side of town.
So, what do we eat? We keep it pretty simple actually. Lots of salads, steamed veggies, eggs every so often, sandwiches, pretty much things that don’t require more than 10-15 minutes to go from the fridge to the kitchen island. I’ll never forget watching Johnny Carson when he mentioned on his show one night that there are two kinds of people — those people that live to eat and those people who eat to live. Like Johnny, I would definitely say we fit into the latter category.
When we travel it’s fun to indulge in gourmet meals and spice things up a bit. But in my daily life, I’m grazing during the day and eating quick and easy things at night, lovingly whipped together by my better half. We’ve got the deal going now that he takes charge of meal prep and I take charge of cleaning. That totally works for me.
Speaking of cleaning, I do actually enjoy cleaning, there’s nothing more enjoyable than living in a clean and orderly house, but I’ve turned those chores over to someone else too. I’ve got one of the world’s nicest moms — she not only cleans my house every other week but does my ironing, my mending and takes care of my plants both inside and outside. Again, I have the ability to do those things and like doing them in general, but at this point in my life I’d much rather be working on my business than working on my house.
Even the things I really love to do, like reading for pleasure, are on the back burner for a while. It’s all good though, I’m living the life I designed. Who could ask for more?