Living Life Imperfectly

Do you ever just have one of those days?  Today was a doozie for me and my family.  So, no recipes today – just some funny crazy stories about a day in the life of me.

I am incredibly thankful for the ability to laugh at my mistakes and failures and just life in general sometimes.  Yesterday,  I spent the day busting my buns making my house look…. moderately semi-clean.  There were still muddy puppy prints in the entry way, crumbs on the table and those pesky piles of clutter in the corners of the rooms that I just know I will be able to get to, some day.  I bathed dogs, taxied kids to and from our house to play with friends, made what seems like an unending supply of snacks and when the day was wrapping up, I decided to make a nice baked salmon and asparagus dinner with a beautiful Quinoa salad.  I hadn’t heard from my hubby yet as to his estimated time of arrival (since he had a crazy busy day of meetings and always has to deal with rush hour traffic) but went ahead thawing the salmon and preparing for a lovely dinner.  I placed my four beautiful bright pink salmon fillets on the sheet pan and surrounded them with crisp asparagus spears.

[Enter cute puppy]  At this point, our adorable 10 month old little Chug (Chihuahua Pug mix) puppy, Bentley, scratched at the door.  I walked away from dinner and let him outside.  He started barking as he darted off.  I growled in frustration and ran downstairs to the mudroom to fetch my shoes then went outside to wrangle the pup.  Of course, he decided it was a great time to play “Catch Me If You Can!” FINALLY I was victorious and carried the little runt inside.  As I turned the corner into my kitchen, my heart sunk.  Where there used to be 4 beautiful pink salmon fillets, now lay 3.  It was no mystery where the fourth one went [enter our bull-in-a-china-closet, eat everything in sight, adorable, loving, chocolate lab Drake (and of course his best buddy Bentley)].

Immediately, I remembered a conversation I had long ago about raw salmon being possibly toxic to dogs and the search for the Hydrogen Peroxide commenced (a little shout out to the vet who once gave me the tip to give your dog peroxide to make them throw up if they have eaten anything possibly harmful – this little trick has saved us literally thousands upon thousands of dollars in vet bills for our sweet Drake.)

I closed him in the downstairs bathroom and gave him his first dose of peroxide, then went upstairs to try and salvage my motivation to continue with this dinner.  I made the delicious lemon, garlic, parmesan sauce and basted it on the salmon, seasoned the asparagus and popped it in the oven then went down to check on the salmon thief.  No progress.  More peroxide down the gullet and back upstairs to start the Quinoa.  I measured and rinsed it, then put my pan on the stove with some olive oil.

I hear my 10 year old yell “Mom, Drake puked.”  Back downstairs I went, loaded with paper towels, gloves and disinfectant.  I opened the door noticing that there really wasn’t much umm… salmon-ish substance there.  That’s when it hit me! He had ralphed right by the other bathroom door that leads out to our office.  There is a good size gap under that door so everything flowed under the door and into the office where our adorable previously mentioned 10 month old puppy was happily “helping me clean up the mess.”

Meanwhile, I can hear the timer going off on the salmon but seriously, am so frustrated at this point and am not wanting to even deal with food while I am dealing with this disaster. As I am juggling the puppy and cleaning the mess, giving him some peroxide and cleaning up his secondary mess, the smoke alarm goes off.  I ran upstairs to find that my pan that was heating the olive oil on the stove was now black on the bottom and sending plooms of smoke into our house.  I threw it in the sink, reset the smoke detectors, set the table and dinner was served.  My salmon dry like sawdust and my asparagus slimy and overcooked

My husband called to tell me that he had just left the office.  I advised him to stop off and grab a beer and some food elsewhere.  He happily obliged.  My sweet, loving boys ate every bite of their salmon and asparagus while we giggled about the happenings of the last hour.  I,  decided to cap off my meal with a big piece of chocolate cake my loving friend had gifted me earlier in the day. Happy ending, right? WAIT! That’s not allll!!!!

Fast forward to 4AM.  My youngest son Henry softly touches my shoulder and says “Mom, I just threw up.”  I said “I’m sorry honey.  Are you okay? Did you throw up in your bed?” He said, “No, in the hallway.  I tried to make it  to the bathroom.”

After cleaning him up and tucking him back in, back downstairs I went to the gloves, plastic bags, paper towels and disinfectant.  The poor boy was so close to getting to the solid surface flooring – just one more step would have gotten him off the carpet and into the bathroom but that was just not the way our day was working out. So… there I sat in the dimly lit hallway scrubbing away while my family slept.

Once I got it cleaned to my satisfaction, I tied up the bag and started for the stairs.  I took the first step then as my second foot contacted stair #2, the slow motion fall began.  I landed hard on my right hip then gracefully (of course) thudded down each and every step after.  My little sick boy, Henry, appears at the top of the stairs and says in his sweet, quiet little voice, “Mom, what just happened?”  “Ummm… Mommy just fell down the stairs buddy, but I’m gonna be okay, you can go back to bed.”  I chuckled as I limped to the garbage can to deposit the bag of yuck.

So, as I sit here today with my entire right “buttock” completely black and blue, a sore shoulder, elbow, back and neck, amidst a home that went from being moderately clean-ish yesterday to a complete disaster (somehow, haven’t quite figured out how) today, I just have to laugh.  I think if I didn’t laugh at myself, I would curl up in a ball and cry – because of course those are the only two options, right?

So cheers to all of you moms (and dads) out there who get the joy of living life imperfectly.