Please, Pass the Ketchup!

         Today is the third Thursday blog hop for Hearts at Home. The topic is "No More Perfect Meals."
I don't know that I even want to talk about this topic. It's embarrassing. I'm a pretty good cook, but I have been greatly demoralized by A) having a new baby B) feeling overwhelmed by all the illness and C) having the creative side of my brain sucked dry by teaching our girls their school lessons for the day (homeschooling has at least one downside).
          The last couple of months have consisted mainly of me getting a main course on the table, and maybe one side...if you're lucky! The main course isn't too bad, but I've pretty much stuck with things I can make without a recipe in front of me...like pizza (at least it's from scratch), spaghetti, or chicken and rice soup (every once in a while it'll be chicken and noodle soup just to keep them guessing). No one has really complained; but when one of the kids doesn't like the meal, I've noticed that they really get into their bedtime snack. My five year old will eat anything if you give her ketchup as a side. My three year old will eat anything my five year old eats because she is at that lovely copycat age. If I keep a large supply of ketchup in the house, I can easily assure two people will eat any meal. My two eldest girls don't say much other than "yum" or "yuck" if they don't like it. They are wary of getting too verbose these days about food...maybe this is because they know I'm likely to blow my fuse if they complain about the meal I made while nursing the baby and teaching math to them. My hubby happily eats what I serve, and I'm very thankful for that.
          Then, there are days like today. Our driveway started flooding yesterday; and by this morning, it was covered. My hubby left a Suburban in case I wanted to try getting out. I made the call to go out for groceries at 9:30am and I'm so glad I did. By 11:30am, parts of our road were covered on our return trip; and by 4pm, our barn was flooded. The girls moved our chickens successfully; and with the help of other neighborhood kids, we moved the lawn mowers to higher ground. It was crazy how quickly the water rushed into our yard after making it over our neighbors road. My hubby left work when I called about it coming over the road, but took him a while to find a road not flooded in order to reach us. So what was our meal tonight? It was meatloaf made by a dear friend a month ago and frozen for us to use on just such an occassion (with a side of canned peaches...see, I told you there is usually one side). So many people have blessed us with meals after the birth of our new son (to read his story click here), which has given our family such a break from my imperfect meals. A couple of weeks ago during an outbreak of strep, another dear friend took my non-germy kids to the library and provided a delicious thanksgiving casserole along with an Easter Candy Dump cake. God knows that we aren't meant to do life alone, and I'm so thankful that this imperfect mama doesn't have to do meals alone either.

What have your meals been like lately? What is your favorite go to meal?  How have you been blessed?
I'd love to hear your comments.

To read more blogs on the blog hop, click here.