I'm Off

I spent quite a bit of time in the kitchen today ensuring our health, wealth, and happiness for the year, as well as making stock from the rooster A. finally dispatched a couple of days ago. This all produced many dishes, thus adding to my kitchen work for the day.

But tomorrow, I'm not planning on cooking anything but breakfast. I'm not cleaning up anything, either.

And how am I doing that? By leaving.

See, I told A. about a month ago that all I wanted for my birthday was to go stay a night in a hotel. By myself. What A. called, "An introvert's perfect 40th birthday."

Yup.

I'm going to a small city 90 miles away and staying just the one night at a hotel there. I'll only be gone about 36 hours, but none of those hours will involve cooking, cleaning, or caring for anyone but myself.

I asked the boys what they would do with Daddy while I was gone.

Jack said: "Mommy, it's going to be totally out of control."

Cubby said: "Lots of snacks, lots of videos, and candy."

Charlie said: "It's going to be chaos. I have big plans. The remnants will be obvious."*

Cubby wondered what Poppy thought about my being gone. I said that she doesn't have much of a sense of time yet, so until I was actually gone, she wouldn't have any opinions. "Yeah," said Charlie, "And you're not wearing your earrings yet, so she isn't suspicious."

Indeed.

I must admit that I'm going to miss these four whackos:

But I also must admit that I'm very much looking forward to not being on call for them for even a short period of time.

* I swear that's EXACTLY what he said. Ominous, to say the least.