At the end of last week’s blog, I said that I went to bed before more things could happen. That wasn’t entirely true. I was supposed to prep some chili for the high school band’s chili cook-off the next day. My thought was that I would brown the meat, chop the veggies, and leave the spices out so that I could dump it all in the crock pot in the morning before work and let the chili magically create itself while I was away. I had noticed that morning though, that I didn’t have any meat to brown. And the roads that night weren’t great. Travis and I had talked earlier in the evening and he said he would stop at Strack (the local grocery store) and get some ground turkey (my chili meat of choice), since the store was on his way home and was not on my way home. After the “Bert sliding down the drive” fiasco, I collapsed on the couch, not bed. In the back of my mind, I still thought I might prep chili when Travis got home. But when Travis got home to a nicely cleared driveway, I was already dancing in slumberland on the couch. When I got up to move to bed, I decided I would get up an hour early and do all the chili prep in the morning, and I tripped along in half-sleep to bed. Travis had already gone to bed. He knows better than to make me move from the couch to bed. 

So, in the morning, I got up an hour early and slowly moved to the kitchen to make the chili. What did I find? The ground turkey on the counter, warm, left out all night. NO, NO, NO, NO! Poor Travis thought I was still going to brown the meat the night before, so he left it out. Before you go thinking, “Right! She was asleep on the couch. No way she is browning meat.” I frequently do things in half sleep when moving between the couch and bed, including, but not limited to: let the dogs out, clean the kitchen, finish laundry, write a blog. So, in Travis’ mind, browning meat didn’t seem out of range. Now I have meat on the counter. I grabbed the meat and thought, “I’m sure it’s fine,” while I googled the evils of meat left out overnight. I actually started browning the meat. It smelled fine. It looked fine. But, I couldn’t do it. After browning it, I tossed it out. UGH!!! If it had been for my family and not a chili cook-off, I would have kept it. But it is one thing to risk my own family’s health and well being, and entirely another to get a whole school district sick. 

I started trying to figure out if I had time to go to Strack, get NEW meat, make the chili, and still get to work on time. You know, skip the shower and race through the morning…but I may have skipped a shower the day before. I didn’t have time. But, Travis had gone in to work overnight…maybe…maybe…I’ll give him a call. So I called him and said, “Hey Honey, might you be coming back home this morning?” He replied, “I was thinking about coming home to shower.” I had no idea what time he went in to work because I slept through his departure, since I no longer sleep with “Mom hearing” turned on. So I tell him the whole story in a rapid verbal vomit, complete with a few tears. He asked, “What time does Strack open?” I quickly looked it up and replied, “6 am.” He said he would do it!!!!! So, I mentally rearranged my morning schedule and jumped in the shower. 

And that is how Travis wins Husband of the Year. Well, let’s not get carried away, maybe Husband of the Week. He was probably the last and the first customer at Strack that night and morning. He was definitely my hero! I got third out of eleven in the Chili cook-off. And I didn’t poison an entire school district. Travis didn’t vote for me. He liked someone else’s better. 

As a side note, we were lucky to have the Helderle family stop in this past weekend. Sharon contacted me and asked what I was doing in an hour. We had a great 2 ½ hour visit in what was supposed to be 20 minutes. She and I can talk. I think Sharon was disappointed my house wasn’t more chaotic. I mean, she could see sections of chaos, but it wasn’t a dump. I told her that she and Dan needed to pop in, and not give an hours notice. You have no idea what Travis, Tayden and I can accomplish in a motivated hour. A special thanks to Dan, Sharon and their beautiful girls for the impromptu stop. It brought us back to Lisle for a couple hours. And Lisle is always someplace I want to be. 

Enjoy your week everyone!