On Sundays and a most sad Vegetable Curry

Today is one of those days when I feel as though everything is going in fast motion, and I am just a sad little jumble of atoms and molecules, hanging on for dear life, and screaming, "WHOA, THERE!!! HANG ON A SECOND, PEOPLE!!!" Why I feel this way; I really can't say. I'm going to chalk it up to the fact that it's Sunday, and Sunday has this magical way of flying away from me at an incredibly high rate of speed. Sundays used to be a most wonderful day for me. Wake up, get ready for church, have a leisurely breakfast with my Steve-O, which almost always consisted of scrambled eggs with the teensiest amount of cheddar cheese snuck in (Steve hates cheese in his eggs, but I can't eat scrambled eggs without it- THANKS, DAD.), brew myself a cup of tea, most likely Plantation Mint or Constant Comment (Hey- I get adventurous with my tea in the afternoon, so no rude comments about my uninspired choices for my morning fix. I need stability in the morning, not some fly-by-night troubadour who's going to leave me barefoot and pregnant- hypothetically speaking, of course), toast (dry for Steve, cream cheese and raspberry jam for me), and just enjoy some major quality time in our sweet little haven of an apartment, and later on, our lovely home. Ahhh. Yes. Those were the days. We'd stroll out to the car, never in a hurry or rushed in the slightest. We'd drive to church and arrive with at least ten minutes to spare. We'd sit in the pew and look the through the bulletin together, and comment to each other on various things we thought were worth commenting on. Hymns, sermon, then BOOM, off to our weekly Sunday lunch of Chipotle. Let me just stop here for a moment. I miss those weekly Sunday lunches at Chipotle more than I could even begin to express. We were so very spoiled back then. Then we'd drive home, all full of chatter. AND THEN...The Weekly Sunday Afternoon Nap. Hmm. Wait a minute. I'm not so sure now whether I miss the weekly Chipotle more or the Nap. Oh, well. So, yes; my Sundays used to be the highlight of my week. AND THEN...*fully diminished seventh chord ensues* something happened. Something miraculous. Something wonderful. Something terrifying. Something glorious. Something stressful. Something life-changing. Yep. You guessed it. We became PARENTS!! Yes. We have the great privilege of being parents to three marvelous and delightful boys, and it has been a learning experience, to say the VERY least. Although I loved being a new mommy, and I was (and still am) madly in love with my first-born son, the shift in the Sunday Dynamic was almost more than I could bear for a while. First, there was no sleeping in. EVER. I now have completely embraced this fact of my life as a mother; this cold, hard, fact that I will not sleep in for the next 25 years, and the world will somehow magically not end because Mary Johnson didn't catch a few extra zzzz's. 'I'll sleep when I'm dead' has become my motto, but it hasn't always been this way for me. Besides the sleep factor, there was the whole "packing for baby" issue. How on earth could one tiny being encompass such a extraordinary need for such a ridiculous amount of...of...STUFF????? Even if I packed the diaper bag the night before, I still seemed to have to throw in about 34 extra things before we could leave for church. Or anywhere, for that matter. And another thing...why is a diaper bag called a "diaper bag" when diapers take up the smallest percentage of space in said diaper bag?? This is something I will most likely never understand. SO...by the time I nursed David at 6:00 am, played with him for a little while, laid him down for his early morning nap at 7:00, made a sad attempt at beautifying myself for the day, made ANOTHER sad attempt at making something in the crockpot that wouldn't taste like a giant orb of nothingness, nursed David at 9:00, left for church at 10:00 (if we were lucky), got ourselves situated in our usual pew, left the service halfway through to nurse again, stumble back into the service in time to sing the final hymn, gather all of our artillery and head back to the van, drove home with scant conversation, stumbled into the house for a stodgy glob of what were hoping was sustenance of some sort *pant pant pant* , I was exhausted. Beyond exhausted. SO exhausted. I would sometimes lay on the couch and marvel at how exhausted I was- I didn't know it was possible to be so exhausted and not die from it!! So naturally, my Sunday experience began to sour, and pretty quickly, I might add. I began...to loathe Sundays. Yes. I know. How horrible is that? Nevertheless, Sundays were no longer the idyllic island of relaxation that they used to be, and I had some massive adjusting to do. So adjust I did. The days of weekly visits to Chipotle were over, for financial and practical reasons. Okay. Fine. So what?? That's what a crockpot is for, right? And while we're talking about crockpots, let me just say this: I am quite sure Crockpots were invented for Sundays. For lunch after church, to be precise. Okay, now that I've got that off my chest, back to Sundays. Thus began a long couple of years of experimenting with my crockpot to make a lunch that didn't taste like a giant orb of nothingness. It was NOT easy, my friends. But eventually, after much trial and error (mostly error), I garnered a small handful of what we now refer to as "Regulars"; crockpot dishes that my crew and myself have deemed worthy to be consumed on a once-a-month basis. And our top favorite "Regular" is a little something called "Lean Cowboy Beans", or, as I tell the boys, "Sweet Beans". "Sweet Beans" are a triumph each and every time. Super-comfort food, whether you need to be comforted or not!! And even if you don't think you need comforting, once you taste these yummy little beanies, you will realize how desperately you are in need of comfort, and you'll tuck those bad boys in like there's no tomorrow. Perhaps I exaggerate slightly. Perhaps not! At any rate, here's the recipe and my usual useless comments to go along with it:

Lean Cowboy Beans adapted from "Fix it And Forget It Lightly"

1 lb. ground turkey
16 oz. can baked beans, undrained
16 oz. can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 c. ketchup
2 tblsp. dry mustard
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cider vinegar

1) Brown meat.
2) Combine all ingredients in a crockpot sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.
3) Cover; cook on high for 1-2 hours.

AND THAT'S IT!!!!!!

Now isn't that easy?? I'm usually not much of a "can of this, can of that" gal, but this is indispensible to our Sunday survival, and it certainly couldn't hurt to give this a try. I have made a few changes from the original recipe, which I found to be a bit too sweet. SO I simply added a bit less sugar and cider vinegar (shhhhh...don't tell Steve!!!). So there you have it. A tried-and-true crockpot recipe that's actually healthy and doesn't taste like a giant orb of nothingness. If this won't save your Sundays, well, then nothing will. And now...

SPEAKING OF GIANT ORBS OF NOTHINGNESS...

I shall now commence with a tale of a Most Sad Curry. As I mentioned on my previous post, I was going to attempt a Vegetable and Chickpea curry in my crockpot. So I did. I will cut to the chase. IT WAS AWFUL. I won't bother devoting a great deal of space to this sad tale, since it really was terrible, but yes. It was the epitome of a giant orb of nothingness, and after a few bites, we told the boys to stop eating, and then Steve went out and got a pizza. It was quite strange taking a bite of food, and yet not really tasting anything except a starchy aftertaste. YUCK. The only positive thing I can say about it is that is was a delightful little jumble of colorful veggies BEFORE it started cooking down. And then it crashed. And burned. And that's all I have to say about that.

What is the point of this massive rambling of Sundays, crockpots, exhaustion, and Sad Currys?? I'm actually not quite sure, other than this: Life is full of massive adjustments. Embrace them as you would an adventure, and don't be afraid to acquire new skills. Like making some WICKED good beans in your most-likely-majorly-underused-and-darkhorse-of-a crockpot!! Go forth... and give the darkhorse a try. :)