Now that three of the children have moved out, all the household chores fall to me, my husband, and my son. It used to be that I divvied out the lion’s share of the tasks among the kids and then spent my days supervising, training, and correcting. (It was exhausting.) And then they grew up and I made them lists and they did all the stuff. (Like, seriously. For years, I almost never washed bathrooms, hung up laundry, or mowed.)

But now here we are. Just three people with a big old house to keep after.

Problem is, my husband works full time, and my son both studies and works (neither full time), and even though I’m at home much of the time and could shoulder many of the household responsibilities, I am also trying to work full-ish time on Milkslinger. So after some thinking, I came up with a plan.

Mornings, everyone is expected to complete some household chores.

• Husband: the milking, and other random piddlies that he just naturally does, like emptying the drainer and starting a load of laundry 
• Son: whatever is asked of him. (He’s supposed to plan his morning so he has an extra 20-30 minutes reserved for helping out. Does this always happen? No. But we persist.)
• Me: all the food stuff, like making breakfasts and lunches, prepping for supper, starting a batch of yogurt, wiping down counters. 

Throughout the day, I do some “running the household” tasks here and there, like baking bread, doing errands, making phone calls, keep the homefires burning (literally), but mostly I drill down on writing, video editing, and cheese work. 

And then — here’s the beautiful part — late afternoon, the guys come home, and while I cook supper and do the other maintenance kitchen work like cookie-baking, menu-making, smoothie big-batching, apple-schnitzing…

They attack the housework.

Sometimes I write out a list of tasks, but usually I just call things out as needed. 

“Collect all the dirty laundry and sort it.”
“Replace the flytape.” 
“Feed cows.”
“Drainer!”
“Vacuum!”
“Trashes!”

Towards the end of the week, I add in some heftier jobs so we don’t get bogged by too much deep cleaning over the weekend. For example, last night, Thursday, my husband washed the upstairs bathroom, I washed the stairs and the kitchen stove, and then I started putting away the Christmas decorations, which the guys helped with once they finished their jobs. 

Most evenings, we’re done with everything by about 7 pm, at which point we settle in for a cozy evening.

To be clear. We still fight about chores. We drag our feet. We bellow and snarl. We get tired. We fuss and whine. It’s not all roses over here, people. Do not be fooled. But saving the housework for the evening when we’re all around to work together has done wonders for my work schedule, my stress levels, and for the general wellbeing of the whole household.

For now, this works. 

This same time, years previous: caking a painting, she’s back!, the quotidian (1.3.22), my new kitchen: the computer corner, Lebanese dried lemon tea, high-stakes hiking, Christmas cheese, 5-grain porridge with apples, constant motion, cranberry sauce.

I have two questions:

1. What is your Frog and Toad Temptation?
2. Do you know what a Frog and Toad Temptation is?

Second question first. For those who don’t know, Frog and Toad are characters in a children’s book. They have all sorts of adventures. For example, Toad bakes cookies and shares them with Frog, but then the two of them can’t stop eating them, so they try to find ways to keep themselves from eating the cookies: putting them in a box, tying the box shut (because they can open the box), putting the box on a high shelf (because they can cut the string), and then eventually feeding them to the birds (because they can climb up on a stool and retrieve the box).

So to summarize: a Frog and Toad Temptation is the food you have to give away, or throw away or not buy or make in the first place, because you know you will be absolutely helpless against its pull.

First question second. There are lots of foods I find distressingly tempting and have to think twice about before purchasing — Twizzlers, salt and vinegar chips, peanut M&Ms, candied nuts — but I don’t have nearly as much trouble with homemade goodies except for this one thing: caramel popcorn. 

If I make a batch of popcorn, I am ruined. The sticky buttery caramel. The crunchy popcorn. The salty-sweet-chewy deliciousness. I just can’t even. 

A couple days before Christmas, I made a double batch to give to the kids as their Christmas Eve treat — one batch with candied peanuts for the boys and my daughter-in-law, and one without for the girls. I ate so much caramel I felt ill, but then I boxed it all up so it was off limits. 

I stashed the one remaining jar of caramel popcorn in the towel drawer in the guest room and then forgot about (!) for a couple days, but then my husband discovered it. It’s gone now.

Your turn!

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (1.1.18), 2017, Christmas, quite frankly, cranberry crumble bars.

Christmas felt extra peopley this year. I’m not sure why, especially since we only have one kid at home now. Maybe because Christmas fell mid-week? Maybe because “getting together” involved adult kids, and adult kids feel more like “real” people? Maybe because some of the gatherings happened in the morning which meant it felt like they took up the whole day? Maybe because there was so freaking much food? In any case, here’s what went down in the last week, give or take. 

The day before Christmas, my parents hosted a wood cutting party and pancake breakfast. For those unfamiliar with this practice, a wood cutting party means that we all go out in the woods to split and stack wood according to my dad’s specifications/methods.

This time around, he’d already felled the trees and we just split wood and then threw it into piles where they’ll be left to cure before getting hauled over to our respective houses. (My dad sees to it that all of our houses — mine, my brother’s, and my parents’ — are cozy and warm all winter long.) 

For the breakfast, my dad made multiple batches of pancake mix from scratch.

segmented bag of premeasured pancake mix
^{photo credit: my younger daughter}

And then we cooked everything outside: bacon, sausages (I’d pre-fried them), eggs, pancakes, fruit toppings, coffee etc, etc.

Everyone stuffed their faces, froze their butts off, and then sat around by the fire visiting before rolling ourselves on home.

That evening, all our kids came over for our traditional Christmas eve cheese supper.

I’d felt like I hadn’t properly prepped for the meal — the only “special” thing I’d bought was some assorted charcuterie meats from Costco — but after a bit of pantry rummaging, an actual festive meal of sorts began to emerge: we’d scored some leftover shrimp from a birthday party, and I had a respectable stash of pickles, crackers, and dried fruit, and then last minute I made a cheeseball to fulfill the spreadable soft cheese requirements. 

The next morning, my younger son surprised us with gifts. He’d gotten my husband a toaster that claimed to toast 50% faster, so they ran a test. (The claim was accurate.) Bonus: the new toaster is smaller so it takes up less room on the counter.

I set out Christmas cookies for breakfast, and then all the kids met up at our place.

I’d texted them earlier in the week that my husband and I would be going for a hike on Christmas Day and anyone who wanted was welcome to join. All of them wanted, it turned out, plus three dogs, so all of us hiked the 8-mile Bird Knob Trail. 

Normally, when we hike with people, we have all sorts of conversations, but this hike was almost completely devoid of any conversation (minus all the dealing-with-dogs chatter). Just, the seven of us silently trudging along for hours. It felt kinda weird, but also kinda nice. 

By this point, I was getting fed up with all the fancy food so supper was a plate of plain old (delicious) salad.

(Actually, I remained tired of food for the next five days. I mean, I liked it and I ate it, but I was also tired of food, food, food. Only now am I beginning to regain my normal levels of food enthusiasm.)

The day after Christmas, we met up with a bunch of friends for brunch. 

The next day my family had our gathering, a progressive meal.

Part One, at my parents’ house for mochi, a traditional Japanese New Years dish. My sister-in-law steamed the sticky rice and then the kids all took turns pounding it in a wooden “bowl” that my brother made.

The rice “dough” got shaped into balls, dipped in soy sauce, and then wrapped in nori. Some of the mochi got topped with bean paste.

Every year people die from choking on the gelatinous mochi, my sister-in-law said, so all the while we were eating, we were yelling, “small bites!” and “don’t die!” at each other. Very festive.

Part Two, my house for pizzas, my mom’s coleslaw, and my sister-in-law’s deep fried pork sandwiches (which were freakishly amazing). 

paper plates: this is how you can tell I was getting sick of food and cooking

Part Three, at my brother’s house for a cookie potluck. We sang our Christmas song, and then did a white elephant exchange with things my mother had collected from the thrift store over the last year. I scored a head lamp.

And there you go! That was the bulk of the socialization, though there was also an afternoon hang with some girlfriends, a game of Ultimate, work at the bakery, etc. In between the feasting and people-ing, my husband did some attic dunging out and spiffing up of our younger daughter’s bedroom and upstairs hallway: patching walls, painting, window washing, installing new blinds. 

His exact words: “If you hear a loud noise, call J. Don’t even bother to look.”
(J is an ER nurse.)

And now it’s the week after Christmas and we’re back to our low-key schedule and scrappy meals. It’s glorious. 

This same time, years previous: fun to watch, cheese tasting: round three, the quotidian (12.30.19), 2017 book list, family magnified, our apocalypse, tamalada!.