What was I thinking??

Maybe it was the high from having such a productive day and a toddler who was on a rare cooperative streak. But really, when I sit back and reflect (possible only because said toddler went to bed early), I realize that the delusion really set in days ago.

Every Sunday, around 10:00 a.m., I sit down with my coffee, my cookbooks, and my handy menu planner, and I plan our dinners for the entire week. It is a glorious ritual for me, one that includes sending Bryan out for a Sunday paper so that I can clip coupons, creating a fantastically long grocery list, and generally starting the week out on a nice, organized path.

And then there are weeks like this one, where the menu goes completely to shit by Tuesday and by Thursday evening I'm starting to feel guilty for all the unused produce sitting in my fridge, so I think I'd better get in gear and prepare whatever it is I had planned for the night....

...And then I realize that I planned to make Butternut Squash with Cumin Couscous. Tonight. As in, Thursday, one of the days when Bryan doesn't make it home until after 7 p.m. and I am nearly always desperate to entertain Zoey while I struggle to make a box of mac and cheese and steam some broccoli.

So, in the span of an hour, I managed to:

a) nearly set my house on fire as I turned the stove on to heat up the olive oil, went to answer the door bell, and forgot about the pan of oil as I sat and visited with the neighbor,

b) frantically chop and cook butternut squash, onion, garlic and other goodies in a yummy soup mixture as Zoey tried to "help" by dumping random spices in the pot,

c) whip up my first batch of couscous (fantastic, by the way, and the one easy thing the recipe called for), and

d) serve myself and my TODDLER a freaking gourmet meal which she proceeded to take one bite of and pronounce "yucky", then asked for chicken nuggets with dipping sauce.

And this? Is why I drink.