Pile of thoughts running through my noggin....

I haven't been much of a cook lately - well, I don't mind cooking - it's just that it's so hard - the kids get home from school around 3:30-4:00 STARVING because they ate lunch at 10 a.m. - so they pig out - and since I start thinking about dinner around 4 - so it's ready by 5-6 ish - the kids are too full to eat - so I feel like I wasted my time in the kitchen...so when I don't cook, Ross comes home from work mad that the kids are going without dinner...which they're not...but that's a whole nother story.

SO - I was at the store with him last night - which is a rarity - and we decided on a menu for the following week.

He mentioned that he wanted me to make some manicotti. This goes back a few weeks - when I bought a frozen Costco lasagna. The kids love it - I can't STAND it - because - well, I actually know what good lasagna taste like. So I sat at the table & watched them eat as I picked on a piece of bread (probably too full from all the caramels!) and Ross started bragging to the kids of a time where their mother used to make homemade sauce and pasta and all kinds of wonderful Italian dishes.

But she hasn't done it in a LONG time. Lets talk her into it?!

So last night at the store he asked me what I needed in order to make some manicotti. I grabbed the Italian parsley, the ricotta cheese and some grated mozzarella. I have everything else here - I make the crepes, so I don't buy those pasta tubes that lazy people stuff w/ ricotta and call it good - no, I make my crepes and roll the cheese in it - like the Italians do.

Today I venture to make sauce & manicotti.

Why haven't I done it in so long? It's been YEARS since I made sauce. In fact, it's been a little over 5 years. I used to make it a lot - so when I talked to Grandpa I could have a fun conversation about how I can add different things to tweak it to make it perfect. Well, grandpa died 5 or so years ago. And I just haven't had the desire. Quite frankly - the nose and subsequently smell is the best form of memory I have.

I can't stand the smell. It reminds me of my grandpa. I loved my grandpa. I hate my grandpa. We were so close. I was on my way to Boise to visit and see him, he always made me gnocci's. We were leaving on Friday - I talked to him that Sunday before. He died on Tuesday. I haven't made sauce -- or anything Italian since. We make pizza, Ross does, I make the dough - but we have just resorted to purchasing sauce.

When grandpa made food, his whole house smelled, in fact, he smelled like sauce even if he wasn't cooking it! You could smell his meatballs from a block away.

So last night I'm in the grocery store. Pregnant. Grandpa was a jerk when I was pregnant. By jerk - I mean to say - he was always calling me asking me what kind of junk food he could mail me - what were my cravings? When I was pregnant and near him, he always took pictures of me. He'd make me take him to an ice cream place - Delsa's Ice cream, I think, on Maple Grove? I am not a big ice cream fan. But he made me eat it. And I enjoyed how much he enjoyed me being pregnant.

And now I'm pregnant. I am not particularly overly excited about it - smell is my biggest Nemesis right now - and I'm venturing to make some sauce. I can't make the meatballs --- or they'll be seasoned with puked (smell of cooking meat gets me going!!) but I'm pregnant - and he's not around to make me feel good about it...or mail me melted chocolate bars (it gets hot here, all packages melt!)

I miss my grandpa, I hate my grandpa. He was so good to me, and so hurtful to me & my family. It's hard to make sauce because it brings back such good memories - and I am not ready to have good memories about him. I loved him. I hate him.