By Lisa

Part of last week went like this:  party, school, party, no school, faculty meeting, teacher conference, mother/daughter date,  soccer, soccer, soccer, birthday party. We barely had time to breath much less cook something new for dinner. In between all this? Final edits of the page proofs were due for my book. We’ve been eating a lot of leftovers. And tacos.

I know that we’re not the only ones being bombarded with a mad rush of events right now because a friend (who’s son is a just few days younger than Finn)  had exactly the same schedule of family/kid birthday parties and tag team round of soccer games.  We all go through periods like this, where the events of our lives crowd around us like dementors, threatening to suck all the happiness out of the things we’ve actually chosen to do.  And here’s the thing:  all of the things we were doing, they weren’t chores. I love my job. I love going to my kids games & they love playing. What’s more fun than a birthday party? Or seeing your grandparents? Or a day off from school where you can mix purple potions and see how they react to various household baking supplies (and them dump them on the only good carpet in the house…? The steam cleaning I could have done without, but everything else….? Times like this I have to remind myself that most of what we do makes us happy, and we have to make time just to breathe and sleep and come together.

Last weekend we did it this way: On Saturday night, we got home from soccer in the dark & sent the kids directly to showers to wash the grime of sweat and the soccer field off them (& before the any-minute-now meltdown could get worse). They emerged clean and calm in pajamas, and we sat down to quiche (made earlier in the day & ready to go), green beans (cooked while they were showering), fresh bread, and white beans heated gently with garlic and olive oil (a perennial favorite).  I lit candles.

And  they got a kidtini for the first time in a long time.  The only thing new about this recipe was the presentation.

Bubbly water, raspberry Torani syrup, clementine slice in a sugar rimmed glass


Kory and I had prosecco cocktails, my first drink in 3 weeks, a celebration of turning in the final final version of my book. (Sugar cube + Bitters+Prosecco + lemon twist). Things actually slowed down and for forty-five minutes or so, we just relaxed, ate, enjoyed doing nothing.  Outside, it was very dark, but those life sucking dementors? They were nowhere to be found.