It was a day like any other. I had to be in the office early for a staff meeting so Chris was putting Abby on the bus, which meant I had to drop Jack off at mom's. I also needed to pick up breakfast for the office, which I managed to do pretty quickly at the Wegman's by my mom's house. Task #1, check.
Work went well enough, despite the guys bickering over my choice of pumpkin walnut scones and sparkling cranberry lime juice. (No sense of the season whatsoever!)
My usual hectic afternoon travels leave me wiped out before the real at home "work" begins. I leave the office between 2:00-2:30 PM, stop at a store to pick up the last ingredients needed for dinner, pick up Jack at mom's, drive through afternoon-school bus traffic home (while Jack says "Mommy, bus" every 30 seconds, or just often enough to make me want to scream), and get home by 3:30. I unload Jack, my laptop bag, my lunch bag, purse, groceries and any other miscellany I may have procured into the house, survive the spaz attack by the dog and let her outside while Jack is demanding that I remove his coat and shoes, followed by demands for snack fare. Daisy (dog), inside. Jack, fed. Groceries, stowed. (If time permits) mommy, change clothes. Abby, off bus, followed by more demands for snack fare, backpack-checking, lunch bag-emptying, homework-doing, video-starting. Somewhere between 4:15 & 4:30 I sit down to check work email, put out any office related fires, then move into preparing dinner.
I had planned a really nice dinner of pan-seared breast of chicken with a creamy tomato garlic pasta. Mmmmm....New Jersey Plum tomatoes that I had plucked from the farm-stand and canned myself. Fresh basil from just outside my kitchen window, just begging to be harvested before autumn's first frost. A brandy-new tightly wrapped wedge of parmesan reggiano to kiss it all in the end. There were a few emails flying back and forth as I stood at the stove. The "ding" of several incoming messages prompted me to stop sauteeing and read a few of them. I set up the stovetop with a pyrex casserole dish of already sauteed chicken, started reducing the broth & tomatoes for my sauce, reduced the heat on the remaining chicken, set a pot of water on a burner to heat for pasta, and sat down to read my email.
As I read and replied and troubleshot my work related issues, I would peer up to check on the range every few minutes. I was in mid-reply when SMASHHHHHHHH.....I hear glass shattering. The corner of my pyrex casserole had ever-so-slightly been leaning on the burner with the heating-water, overheated, and shattered. All over the range and the countertop. Onto the floor. Into my dinner.
No dustpan to be found, anywhere.
Me, a dog and two kids, glass everywhere, and now, at nearly 6:00 PM, no dinner.
I might not ever be elected as mom of the year. I will never, ever claim to have all the answers. But at that moment I decided that the kids were having dinner right then and there. And I took them the bowl of leftover halloween candy and let them have at it.
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