I did not have a "soup"-er day today

I am not a patient or particularly mature person. And I HATE peeling potatoes. So when I spend a large quantity of time, laboriously chopping five pounds of potatoes along with celery, scallions, and carrots in order to construct a sub-par, bland, translucently-thin potato soup, by golly, my family should be performing backflips before lifting me up above their heads and parading me around the house. But instead of erecting a soup-making monument in my honor, certain members of my family attacked my efforts.

In a sadly pro-active maneuver to adjust my current weekly meal plan (Monday-cereal, Tuesday-cereal, Wednesday-left-overs, Thursday-toast because we ran out of milk, Friday-mooch off friends) by brainstorming a list of recipes that could be stretched over a series of days. Hence, today I found myself (actually I'm still searching for myself...who am I? What am I all about?) frantically multi-tasking in the most-despised room (after the creepy basement) in my house:  the kitchen. By the end of a grueling two and a half hour stretch, I had put together a lackluster potato soup, chocolate pudding, and the mildly-controversial  hot dog soup in recognition of Savannah's birthday week. What was Mr. Brainstorm doing during my culinary campaign, you ask? Well, while I was selflessly slaving away over the stove, Brad was lazily repairing a light switch (how hard could THAT be?) and putting additional insulation in the attic so that he would be warm this winter.

Savannah conveniently arrived home after all the work was done. She squinted into the steaming pot of soup and said, "We're having that for dinner?"  I stared at her in disbelief before looking around the kitchen for the source of her confusion. Nope. I didn't see a platter of prime rib on the counter. Sydney came skipping in as I was about to stir some cheddar cheese into my concoction while Savannah grumbled about how much she hates cheese. Sydney, fresh from a shift at Charcoal Corral, eyed the watery brew and then asked if I had any cream. "What do you want cream for, " I asked. "At the Corral, they use it to thicken their soup base," she replied haughtily. This...coming from the girl who pours chocolate syrup on microwave popcorn. As we settled in for supper, Sydney bravely took a bite of my soup before returning to the kitchen. Fascinated, her father followed her, providing me with a running commentary of the action. "How many spoonfuls of flour are you going to put in there," he asked while I sat, steaming in my chair. Upon her return, I glared at my daughter before snarling, "I am going to watch you eat every bite of that bowl." To her credit, she pretended to enjoy each flour-filled spoonful. See? This is why I keep my menu-planning unpretentiously simple. Cereal...here we come.