blech.

I have hit a serious case of the winter blahs. The kids have gotten crabby. I have gotten shrewish. I seem to yell more right now than whisper. Well, we all do. I am having to force myself to go out and socialize. A week ago, I whipped out the last of my steaks and I invited several friend families over for dinner just to get around people. The food was amazing including, Steaks with Kalamata-Olive Chimichurri, and these amazing biscuits (seriously, I could eat my weight in them.) A couple of good bottles of wine and we had a wonderful time. Just what we all needed. We stuck with tradition and the women drank wine and cooked and the men drank beer and watched football. And the kids...well frankly, I don't know what they did. We patched them up when they bled and occasionally told them to stop throwing something at somebody.

I am totally cocooning, which is good because it appears to be a snow day tomorrow. And starting next Sunday I will be doing a little experiment. For one whole week, I will not tell any of the kids, "not right now." Unless of course I really can't do it right now. But usually I am doing something that really could be dropped to take a moment and read a story to Ladybug or teach Jellybean to knit or let Porkchop help me in the kitchen. I will mark the difference it makes in our relationships and in the house. I will find another time to vacuum or blog or watch tv. I've fallen into a really ugly pattern with this and I am excited to force myself out of it. Want to join me?