Wednesday, January 06, 2010

When it's you...

In a book, a little foreshadowing is all it takes. You can see when something is not meant to be.

My kids? My husband? When things aren't going their way, I remind them to step back and take a look--if it's this hard, perhaps it wasn't meant to be.

But me? I'll never learn...

Even when it is a simple pot of soup. I've had a taste for a bowl of homemade black bean soup. With the winter storm marching this way, what could be better than soup--and soup stored for the next couple of days? I'm thinking black bean, pea soup, cheddar sherry and if my husband is lucky--even chicken tortilla soup.

What could be easier than a pot of black bean soup? Not much. And yet, it has quite literally been on the back burner for the better part of the day. With one child home sick, one eternally uninspired and the third, well, TWO--it has taken me this long. If any one of them had been going at this for this long, I would tell them that God, the Universe or Someone had decided it was not in the cards for today. Me? I just overflowed the food processor trying to blend some and (you can probably tell) have poured another glass of wine in the process but am I going to quit now? Ha!

In my fantasies, my family smiles and enjoys the warm house full of the smells of homecooking. In reality, who really wants to smell cooked onions and spilled soup? And yet, I persist...

(I even had all of the ingredients for this one. Not for all of the soups but since the child who stayed home sick today ONLY wants jello--I ventured out to the store--to get that, plus ingredients for the other soups. With the "winter storm" approaching, I thought soups sounded good. However, with the "winter storm" approaching, I could not find a parking place at my normal store. Who has to go to 2 grocery stores with 2-4 inches of snow expected? Puh-leeese.)

Part of it took this long because once the kids were IN bed, I found a few songs/rhymes/raps and other tactics to help the 3rd grader remember each of his spelling words for tomorrow's quiz. We were working on these at exactly the same time that my daughter began to feel better (God Bless Motrin) and was working on the math assigment sent home. She had missed the class and had no idea how to do each section, so I was teaching math and singing spelling and running downstairs to stir soup. Again, if it had been any of them...

My husband is re-reading The Celestine Prophecy again. This time, he reminded me--"you know, if this were in the book, it'd be clear that you weren't meant to finish the soup..."
And yet...

So, my dear readers, the foreshadowing is clearly there. It is 10:30 and I am finally about to pour a bowl of soup for dinner. My kids are reasonably ready for tomorrow. So there should not be a shadow of a doubt that tomorrow will be a snow day. But we will have soup. So far, just black bean soup. Which no one eats but me.

2 comments:

LoryKC said...

Having said "how easy is black bean soup," it should be clear that yes, I even tried a new recipe.
The fact that my minor spill went INTO two drawers, as well as the floor, goes without saying.

Tomorrow, I promise to write about something writing-related!!!

jocelyn said...

I'm sorry your soup making was such an ordeal. I bought an immersion blender last Christmas, and it helps so much when it comes to soup!! You don't have to transfer it anywhere, just blend it right in the pot. Also, you do know that you can buy soup already made right?? Campbells, Progresso, etc. They're easy, just open the top and heat :)