Perfectly Paleo

~Disclaimer~

I'm kind of grumpy today. So if this is more acrid than normal, I apologize.

So I thought this move to California would be a good time to turn over a new leaf. I decided I would give organization and forethought and planning ahead a try-on for size and see how I like the way they fit.

So far, they look great on the rack and on other people. On me...not so much.

I did things like pre-emptively get athletic clearances filled out on my kids in Kansas with our doctors. Somewhere between having it in the apartment and getting it to the ASB (I have no idea what in the world ASB is or what it stands for, but that's where it has to go) office at N's school, the form has disappeared. This form has to be in a coach's hot little hands Saturday morning for baseball tryouts. Baseball is what this kid is putting all of his hope on for a successful life here.

This brings us to this thing called Urgent Care. Where I pay $40, wait over 2 hours, and sign my name, give my address, and my date of birth on no less than 8 pieces of paper. Including the paper that I had to sign to say that I had paid my balance in full. Seriously??? Because the signed credit card statement wasn't enough?? So that my son can spend five minutes back in a room with heaven knows who walking in a straight line, touching his toes, getting asked if he has headaches or heart problems, and then gets told to "have a good season and don't get hurt." Oh. And they won't bill insurance.

And then there was the other evening. :o)

I attempted a lovely, Paleo dinner of meatloaf and bacon-n-brussels sprouts.

Cooking is something that I am also trying to do on a regular basis. I've found that the smell of dinner decreases the chance of Better Half glancing pointedly around the apartment and saying casually, "So...what did you do all day today?" And really. It's only fair. I'm not working. You'd think I could at least handle dinner.

So dinner is nicely cooking. There are about 15 minutes left on the timer, and I have to go pick J up from dance.

So I tell Better Half:

"Dinner will be ready in 15. I know that you guys have to leave. Just stick it back in the oven after you eat. J and I will be right home and we'll eat then." We have no microwave to reheat food.

I pick up J. And as I'm pulling up to the apartment, I get that feeling in the pit of my stomach. The one you get when you realize things are gonna go terribly wrong. I had given C my apartment key earlier in the afternoon and forgot to get it back.

Better half is with the boys on his way to C's baseball practice--20 minutes away. I'm locked out of my apartment and dinner is still in the oven. Which is still set at 350 degress.

See why organization doesn't look so hot on me?? If I hadn't come up with a dinner plan, we could've just had In-N-Out Burger. Better Half wouldn't have had to race home. J and I wouldn't have been shaking the living room window screens to see if we could remove them when the neighbors walked by. They wouldn't have had to say, "I sure hope you guys live in that place." And we wouldn't have worried that every beep we heard was the smoke detector in our apartment.

Oh, and it was 100 different kinds of hot and humid outside.

So better half finally gets home. He lets us into the apartment and I pull out dinner. The meatloaf is just a little bit crispy on the outside. Not bad.

But the bacon and Brussels sprouts, well...

J took one look at it and said, "Ugh! It looks like dead roaches!! Is THAT what you've been doing with all of the roaches, Mom??"

I really don't see the problem. I'm gonna guess roaches are Paleo.

Maybe we'll try "eating local" on for size as well.:o)

In other news--My friend Jaime (who, incidentally, I met on my VERY FIRST DAY of KINDERGARTEN) is a GENIUS!!!  It's not exactly Princess Kate, but it certainly isn't Peg Bundy, either:

And my friend, Jennifer, is also a genius.  Because the first kid to open a fresh, sassy mouth or who says something hateful to a sibling on a school morning is getting me...walking the offender up to the school building with my head full of these: