OJ Okay

I've been working hard to finally get a grip around this thing called 'meal planning'. Until recently it was my nemesis. It turns out that we actually have to plan the meals, plan the grocery list (according to sales as best we can), do the shopping, and actually have the energy to execute the plan. Sometimes I get exhausted just thinking about all those things. Blah. Before I mostly just grocery shopped. Nutella! Beans! Cilantro! The ingredients I loved most were so easy to pick up and place in my cart. Then I would dream of what I would do with the ingredients but I sadly learned that dreams rarely come true. That is my previous history as far as meal planning is concerned.

These past few months, after the initial holy-sh*t-I-can't-get-anything-done-because-my-baby-won't-sleep wore off I started getting used to life again. A new life, with a new schedule, and lots of other new things. Meal planning was one of those things. We section a piece of paper into the different departments of the grocery store, we talk about what we want to eat next week- we plan, we shop. We shop at the butt crack of dawn every Saturday as Jude is wont to wake up then. It's become a little tradition of ours that we really enjoy.

Last week we had breakfast for dinner on the menu early on in the week. Easy peezy and it always tastes good. For various reasons that probably involved laziness we ended up switching this menu to later on in the week. Which is no big deal except that Dan really likes beverages. We both like to have a little orange juice with our breakfast whether we are eating that meal in the morning or in the evening. So on Monday when Dan nearly finished off all the OJ I had to stop him dead in his tracks by saying 'no way honey!' we were saving that for breakfast for dinner.

Finally the breakfast for dinner day came. We scrambled the eggs, toasted the bread, cut up the fruit and I added a dab of ketchup to my plate, because, after all, I am my mothers child. What are eggs if ketchup is not involved? We sit down to eat, almost forgetting the piece de resistance. The orange juice. That blessed nectar. It is finally poured, an open eyed prayer of thanks is offered because we can hardly stand to take our eyes off our googly baby boy and Dan reaches for his orange juice, drinking the short glass in one gulp and admits that 'this week was such a trial!'. His confession made me laugh so hard. He wanted that juice so bad, ever since Monday.

My week wasn't much of a trial. Not until later on that night when a bomb, almost a literal bomb, was dropped in my lap and made a situation that I thought could get no worse absolutely horrible. I wish I could go back to having a 'juice embargo'.