Friday, July 10, 2020

I No Longer Make Dozens Of Cupcakes Or Gallons Of Spaghetti Sauce


Lisa was chatting with an old neighbor friend of ours the other day. He mentioned that he misses my cooking and baking. I'm not putting myself on a pedestal when I say this, but if you were to ask any of our old neighbor friends what they miss about us living there, one of the things they'd mention are the goodies we always shared especially during the Summer months.

It went beyond just goodies. 

We had our neighbor friends over a lot for dinner or Girl's Night. We hosted a lot of backyard fires that included food. We had cookouts and celebrated birthdays and anniversaries and other milestones.


When I baked, I always made extra to share with neighbor friends. When I made spaghetti sauce or pots of stews and soups, there was always extra to share. If I made quiche, we'd give half of it to one of our neighbor friends to enjoy for dinner or lunch the next day.

We had quite a few neighbor friends who were more than willing to accept what I made.

The big obstacle I faced after we moved into the house we purchased in February was realizing that we didn't have those dozen or so neighbor friends across the street or one or two houses down. I couldn't hand Lisa a plate or bowl or plastic container with food to "run over and deliver it to so and so..."

Don't get me wrong, we still share on occasion with our next-door neighbors or Lisa brings extra to work and shares with coworkers.

However...

It's not nearly as often as we did at our old home.

Not even close.

Since February, I've had to learn how to cook and bake for just us and our kids.

The only exception is when we have friends over for dinner, but that rarely happens now.


When I make homemade cupcakes or brownies, I make half a batch. If I make a quiche for dinner, Lisa takes leftovers for work lunches for the next couple of days. I now use the small crockpot when making homemade spaghetti and meatballs. I use the smaller pot for soups. I no longer make double batches of quick bread and cookies.

The list goes on.

Another thing I've had to get used to is not having to prep food for weekend plans. There were a few years amid the "almost 8" at our old home when we had company over or hosted gatherings every weekend whether it was a backyard fire or having neighbor friends over for dinner. It was rare for us not to have plans for the weekend.

It honestly got to be too much. Not only was it expensive, but I would spend an entire day prepping meals, appetizers, and desserts. It was a lot of work.

I'm fairly certain I published a blog column or several about that and how we made the decision one year to put a halt to the frequency.

There's a lot about it that we miss, but there's more about it that we don't miss.

For a while, I felt guilty about feeling that way, but I no longer do.

We are enjoying our solitude and peace and quiet.

We are enjoying a simple life.

We are living our best life.

We're not going to apologize for that.





No comments:

Post a Comment