Why you should pack your lunch if you work at home

My cooking class continues.

I just packed our lunches for tomorrow, and the kids are having.... peanut butter and honey sandwiches.  

Sigh. 

But, it is the first time this week, so that's a significant improvement in the too-many-peanut-butter-sandwiches-department.  

Also, I don't know if it's because they're homeschooled or not, but the packed lunches have been a huge hit.  They love their lunchboxes (tupperware with separated compartments) with color-coded lids.  They love being able to get it out of the fridge all by themselves.  And they love being able to take it wherever they want to eat, be it at a table, in the lawnmower seat, or sitting in a cardboard box in the garage.  

Again, homeschooling is awesome.  

I'm also loving the packed lunches because I have a thoughtfully-prepared lunch all ready to go for me, which is a great treat.  Plus the past few days it has enticed Jason to emerge from his home office and eat lunch with me.  It allows me to be braindead at noon when I'm naturally braindead, and creative around dinnertime the night before, when I already have food out and I'm in the mental food-prep zone.

Furthermore, kids don't swarm me when I'm trying to make a decision about what to serve.  Full kids wander off after dinner so I can think and act, and hungry kids at noon can grab and go without mobbing me with requests.

Beautiful.

And let's not forget that that most insidious of questions is now easily answered:  "Did I earn dessert?"  No more "How much did you eat?  Did you eat a vegetable?  What was originally on your plate?"  Now a single glance tells me--and them--whether their box is empty or not.  

I've completed taste-testing lessons.  Here, exploring different combinations of salty, sweet, fat, sour, and bitter:

One of several learning/practice meals that have come out surprisingly good:

I'm a terrible food photographer.  I need about 3x more food or a much smaller plate, for one thing.  But the broccoli was seriously good.

Then, in a grand exhibition of my new cooking skills, we dined al fresco for last Saturday's date night.

The table and chairs were my birthday present to Jason. 

This setup is just oozing romance, isn't it?  

The weather was perfect too.

What didn't make it into the pictures was that this meal was a horrifying fail.  The beautifully-roasted chicken, seen above, looked great... until I carved into the breast and it squawked.  

Raw chicken is kind of a mood-killer.

I was really discouraged but Jason poured me more wine and we had yummy bread and butter, and after another round in the oven the chicken actually came out rather delicious.  

By that time we had already finished dessert.  But it did mean good lunches in the early part of the week.

We spent Sunday afternoon enjoying the empty ball field.

Formerly known as church clothes.
Also, we don't gel Caleb's hair before church, although that would look great.  The crustiness in his bangs is from Sunday school, when he struggled to squeeze a glue bottle while looking directly at it, and it finally exploded onto his face.  When I looked over and discovered him stunned, with gobs of glue on his head, he said meekly, "I need a napkin."

Caleb and Liz worked out a brilliant system whereby the puller of the wagon wore the one available helmet.  The rider just ducked.

Eventually they made themselves useful by patrolling the field for balls to collect and return.

I have about another week of cooking class, in which to answer all my pressing questions, such as how to make fish, how to not scare off my date with raw chicken, and how to permanently ban peanut butter and honey sandwiches.