Call Me Martha, maybe

If there is one questions which can rankle me more than any other, it is the age old question,"What's for dinner?". While some deluded youth in this town say I resemble the domestic diva, Martha Stewart, I beg to differ. Martha and I are, in no way, shape or form, twins separated at birth. We are truly worlds apart.

Take today for instance. The meal plan? Roast and carrots in the crock pot. The reality? Well, we will get to that but let's just say the plan was thrown out the window.

It all started last night when I received a text from a fellow Pump instructor asking if I could cover her 5:30 am Pump class. After checking with our other instructors, I came to the conclusion that I had no other choice than to teach the class. So my morning started at 4:50 am with the alarm buzzing at me trying to get be out of bed. Most mornings I have a hard time forming sentences let alone directing body parts and their correlating movements, but in this morning I rose to the challenge and so did my class participants.

Track 7 is the lunge track with my favorite song of the release, "Turn The Tide". The track concludes with a set of pulsing jump squats followed by 8 single jump squats. Since I was feeling the need to push my class participants, I challenged them to reach for the ceiling during the single jump squats. My class stepped up to the challenge trying to out jump me as we tapped the ceiling with each jump squat.

Following Pump, I returned home to get the girls off to school and get some breakfast before returning to the fitness center to teach Body Flow. My favorite track for this release is the balance track which is to the song, "Somebody that I used to know". The track is quirky and fun and concludes with a standing split stretching the hamstrings before walking hands out to a three-legged dog.

Straight from Flow I had to take Abby to a plastic surgeon in Peoria to have a cyst on her chest looked at for possible removal. On the way home, she complained about her stomach hurting. Unfortunately, this issue has been going on since her birthday earlier in the month. When we arrived at the school, I went in to talk to the nurse because when I was in the 5th grade I didn't like science and whenever Mr. Chapman would walk in the classroom I would suddenly feel ill and go to the nurse. Abby is my mini-me. Maybe she's having the same type of issue. When I spoke with the nurse, I discovered she wasn't leaving during one particular time period. I  am still confused on whether it is a physical issue or maybe some tween anxiety.

I called her pediatrician when I got home and spoke to the nurse for a while and then it was time to go teach Zumba. It was after Zumba that I suddenly thought, "Guess who forgot to start the crock pot." Yes, this is exactly when the menu plan went out the window.

I looked deep into the refrigerator trying to use all of my super powers to conjure up some wonderful and dynamic for dinner. We could go with my usual sweet and sour meatballs, but we were out of pineapple. We could go with tacos, but we are out of shredded cheese and who can have tacos without shredded cheese? Not my kids. This was going to take some creative Martha ingenuity.

You see it's not that I mind the cooking. It's the planning, shopping, preparing, cooking and THEN the whining which makes me dislike the entire process so much. My husband and oldest daughter will try just about anything I put in front of them from quinoa recipes to my most famous disaster, purple chicken. However, my two youngest children are difficult to please and seem to like the exact opposite foods.

As I perused the Ziploc containers on the shelves, I discovered we had enough food leftover from previous meals to create a smorgasbord. Well, guess what! It's time to clean out the fridge. Leftover smorgasbord it is.

Menu planning continues to be the biggest stressor in my every day life. It's not that I wouldn't love to be a Martha wannabe. It's the constant negative feedback which drives me to the looney bin but have no fear. I will persevere. I am an Ironman and as my friend, Kent said I need to become Ironchefman.

Now, it's time to step up to the challenge.