When I started this blog a few months back, I started scouring the internet to see what other Chefs’ wives or significant others were writing about their lives, with hopes of finding I was not alone. The first blog I came across (because she took the domain name I wanted (just kidding Kerilyn)) was MarriedToAChef.com. It’s been so much fun chatting back and forth across the country with another chef’s wife! Funny how we can live so far apart, never have met in person, but have so much in common immediately!
Today, I’m writing about raising a family with a chef over on MarriedToAChef.com. I’m so excited to have this chance to guest post on Kerilyn Russo’s blog! I hope you’ll take a chance to hop over there and read the post, comment on it, and then take a few minutes to look around her blog. (more…)
Today would have been my Mom’s 66th birthday. We lost her to cancer 12 years ago.
You would think after 12 birthdays, 12 of my parent’s wedding anniversaries, 12 Mother’s Days, etc., it would get a lot easier, but it really hasn’t.
There are so many things that come flooding into my mind on these types of days: memories of being told she had cancer, seeing her suffer, seeing the helplessness in my Dad’s eyes, pleading with God to heal her or take her home to be with Him so she would no longer be suffering, feeling so alone and sad while home alone at night after she died, etc.
There are of course happy memories as well: family vacations, playing the piano and singing together, doing puzzles, playing with play-dough in the kitchen while she cooked dinner, etc.
I don’t want to brag, but in the past few months I think I have really mastered the art of annoying my chef/husband in the kitchen. There’s a chance I always have done this, but lately, I seem to be getting better at it.
I am so good at this in fact, that last week I called him on the phone the day before his day off to ask what I could do to help make cooking in our home kitchen easier for him. His response was, “Oh I don’t know. It’s fine.”
Although he doesn’t complain, I know him well and can tell he gets frustrated easily when cooking at home. I expressed my concern and told him a couple things I was working on for his next day off. I’m not sure if those changes made a difference or not, so I’ll just make a joke about them while I continue to work on it.
While the kitchen at the restaurant is “his” kitchen and runs smoothly with everything in it’s place and properly labeled, I guess that means the kitchen at home is “mine” since I do the majority of the cooking, shopping and cleaning. It’s not easy cooking in someone else’s kitchen, especially when they don’t think the same way you do about food and don’t “live” food every second of the day like you do. I get that. I’m just not exactly sure how to solve this “problem.”
So over the past few months I’ve worked hard to compile 6 easy ways that you too can best annoy your chef/husband in the kitchen. I hope this is helpful to many of you! (more…)
For the last few months my husband has been not only the Executive Chef of the restaurant but the interim General Manager. For those of you in the industry, no words are needed to describe the challenges of that. With these added responsibilities his hours and days off have shifted a bit. While the hours have still been CRAZY, he’s been off on Fridays (unheard of!!) and occasionally home in time for dinner.
As I was making dinner the other night he called to say he was about 20 minutes away from home. Yeah! What a nice surprise!
So after a quick glance around the house to make sure there were no piles of laundry on the bed and no toys to trip on, I finished up dinner just in time for us all to sit down as a family and eat! (Fortunately this was an evening where I was not doing breakfast for dinner or random leftovers!)
The meal was not the best part of this surprise. It was what happened after. . . 45 minutes of piano playing and dancing around the playroom as a family. (And just to clarify, it was the kids dancing, not us.) (more…)
We all know that chefs have a very stressful job. Many times, the to-do list is far longer than anything that could actually be accomplished in a 24 hour day or the 168 hours in a week, even if he worked non-stop.
After being married for 18 ½ years, I can see this burden on my husband without him saying a word. I can see it toward the end of his day off as he starts thinking about all he needs to do the next day. I can hear it in his voice when I call him at 5:45 am as he’s already on his way into work. I have even seen the to-do list in Outlook. It’s not pretty.
As I sit here in the quiet house before the girls get up, it’s hard not to worry about him and wonder how he’s doing and how he’s going to get everything done.
I know he’ll be fine. Somehow he’ll find a way to get everything done and it will be done well. But it’s not going to be easy. It never is. (more…)
