Yesterday I photographed our lunches, and then when I found myself wide awake at three this morning — because the chicks that my daughter bought yesterday and then put in the downstairs guestroom that’s directly below our room were cheep-eep-eeping so loudly that they woke me up and I had to get out of bed to fetch the noise machine from where it purrs in the hallway and plug it in next to my bed, right by my head, so I could drown out the shrill peeps, but then, of couse, all that activity only served to wake me up even more — I tried to write a post to go with those lunch photos. Because if I wasn’t going to sleep, I might as well do something useful.

But what, I thought to myself as I flopped about, tugging the covers up and then flinging them off, is there to say about lunch? Nothing really, except, I realized, I really like it. I like the eating, naturally, but I also like the word itself: lunch.

Say it: lunch. It’s a friendly word, don’t you think? Cozy and humble, and cheery. Satisfying, too, the way it ends with such firm unch-ness. And it rhymes with other agreeable words, like munch, bunch, and crunch, all which are related to lunch: I munch and crunch my way through a bunch of lunch. See?

But oh yes. The photos. Right.

My husband’s lunch….

He has never been one for packing a lunch. He does it, but he hates it. Lucky for him, the older he gets, the less he eats, so there’s less to pack.

Still, I don’t understand how he can pull off eight hours of hard physical labor on a couple eggs and an apple with peanut butter. I’d be flat on my face — doing his job, I’d be flat on my face even with a big lunch — but he says it’s enough, so whatever.

My younger son’s lunch….

I was going to heat up leftover brown rice and curry for our lunch, but then I just didn’t feel like dealing with the inevitable fussing (the kids aren’t curry fans), and we had plenty of other leftovers. Cobbled lunches are one of my favorite things about eating at home — I feel so virtuous, emptying container after container of leftovers.

My younger daughter’s lunch…

She couldn’t finish it, so my younger son ate the rest of it.

(My older daughter was at school, so I didn’t photograph what she ate. I think she took some chips, though, and a couple granola bars. And when I went to Costco yesterday, she sent along money so I’d buy her a large pepperoni pizza that she then divided up and stuck in the freezer for her future lunches.)

In my Sunday school class on the climate crisis, there’s a lot of talk about how reducing food waste is one of the biggest ways that we can fight climate change. (Of the dozens and dozens of ways that we can cut back on carbon emissions, guess what’s the number one way. Transportation? Netzero building? Recycling? Walkable cities? Nope — refrigerants!)

But I’m a little unclear about what “reducing food waste” means. Is it the waste from growing the food (fertilizers and fossil fuels)? Waste from shipping it? Waste from grocery stores buying too much and throwing it out? Waste from all our driving to and from the stores, restaurants, pick-your-own patches? Waste from driving to the gym to burn off the excess calories? Waste from processed food? The obesity epidemic and the ensuing medical costs? Excessive food packaging? Our crazy-high meat consumption?

How is the homecook supposed to respond? Does it boil down to The Pollan Mantra — Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants — or is there something more?

My lunch…

Like I said: Lunches are for munching and crunching. I have a hunch you agree.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (2.26.18), homecoming, roasted cauliflower soup, the quotidian (2.25.13), for my daughter, Molly’s marmalade cake.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (2.25.19), jelly toast, a love story, steer sitting, old-fashioned molasses cream sandwich cookies, the quotidian (2.23.15), peanut butter and jelly bars, the quotidian (2.24.14), birds and bugs, bandwagons.

Now that our house is no longer overflowing, I’ve pretty much stopped cooking all together. Instead, I’ve been living on pretzels and cheese, popcorn, apples and peanut butter, ginger tea, red wine, chips, and eggs. The fridge is bare and everyone’s fussing about there not being any food, and I’m like, Stop fussing, there’s cereal..

Yesterday, I threw together a stirfry with leftover rice, sausage, and spinach, and then, last minute, everyone made themselves eggs to go with. And tonight there will be mashed potatoes and steak and corn. And I baked one of my freezer coffee cakes this afternoon.

So it’s not like we’re not starving or anything.

I still feel like I’m recuperating from all the activity, though. I was sick last week (just a cold) and haven’t been sleeping well. And then one of the kickboxing instructors alerted/invited me to the studio’s Valentine special — bring buddies for free — so I’ve been going to classes all week, some of which take place at 5:30 in the morning. So now, on top of the cold and lack of sleep, my entire body hurts.

I keep telling myself to take it easy. It’s okay to rest. Napping’s good. Netflix are fun. Read.

Anyway, for those of you who think I’m go-go-go all the time: I’m not. Just fyi.

Speaking of kickboxing: I need to find a better deodorant. Preferably, one that works. The kind I’m using — some cheap, unscented Dove stuff — just doesn’t cut it.

Suggestions, please and thank you.

My husband and I watched Joker the other night. I loved it — I thought it was real and creative, nuanced and honest, beautiful — but my husband, not so much.

It was actually pretty funny: the whole first half, I was like, Lah-de-dah-de-dah, isn’t this story fascinating? Isn’t the acting great? And my husband was literally writhing in agony from the social awkwardness of it. I had to hold his hand so he wouldn’t walk out, and even so he managed to flee the room on a couple times.

Then the violence picked up and he calmed down and I started covering my face with the pillow. 

We’re such a team.

Do any of you own a tortilla press?

For awhile now, I’ve been contemplating buying one, but I’m worried it’d just clutter up the shelf. On the other hand, if it made tortilla-making that much easier (I hate the rolling-out part) then I’d presumably make tortillas more often and it’d be worth it, right?

Ugh. I hate it when I can’t make up my mind.

The other day I came across this post about spring cleaning.

Pretend you’re going to be selling your house, Sarah writes. Go into each room and make a list of everything that needs to be done to ready it for showing to potential customers: painting, a new chair, patching holes, decluttering, etc. Then, one room at a time, do it. Get it nice — not for the customer, but for yourself.

It’s an intriguing idea, but I don’t think it’d work for us, since most of the work would fall to my husband and, well: if you’ll recall, that kitchen island took three years (or thirteen years, depending on how you look at it) to finish, and I’m still waiting for him to install a couple easy-peasy latches on the cupboard doors.

I’m not fussing, mind you (not too much anyway) — just, keeping it real.

I’ve been writing, often five mornings a week. People ask me how it’s going. The answer: I’m doing it, so … good?

It’s weird how I have so little to say about something that I spend so much time doing.

My new experiment: bamboo toothbrushes!

I haven’t tried them yet, but the kids love them. Since they’re all identical, we just write our names on the handles.

My younger son is into plants. Or growing things? Whatever.

I’m not sure where he gets the interest — neither my husband nor I are particularly good at growing things — but he’s forever sticking plants in dirt, or water, and trying to get them going. Just this afternoon, he came back from a friend’s house with a start for a houseplant that he’d begged.

For awhile, he cluttered up my kitchen sill with his starts, and then, once he moved into his older sister’s tiny room, I ordered him to take them all upstairs to his new room. He kept the plants clustered on an old end table in front of the window, but then, for his birthday, my husband built him a special plant shelf that runs across the upper half of the window so he could get rid of the table and save space.

It wasn’t completely finished when my son’s birthday rolled around (see above about spring cleaning), so my son sealed it with tung oil and then installed it himself.

And now he has lots of room for his plant collection!

And the arrangement of the room — with a cut-to-size bed above the dresser — is the best we’ve come up with to date.

He’s got tons of storage and work space, good lighting, and a cozy reading nook.

It’s tight, but it’s all his. He loves it.

This same time, years previous: homemade pasta, the quotidian (2.20.17), doppelganger, Jonathan’s jerky, in my kitchen: 11:50 a.m., almond cake, pan-fried tilapia, toasted steel-cut oatmeal, cream scones.