What's for dinner?

Generally speaking, I like to cook. I do. Hand to god. What I don’t like is that I have become solely responsible for all manner of meal planning. It has become the singular most stressful thing in my life.


Imagine this conversation occurring pretty much on daily basis

Me: "What does everyone want for dinner?"

Everyone: "I dunno. What are the options?"


Me: Internal head slap.

Or this slight variation...
Everyone: "What’s for dinner?"

Me: (Fully exhausted after working a quality 9+ hour day): Blank look, followed by the internal head slap.
There must be some unwritten rule that because I have a vagina and reasonably decent planning skills that I spend all my free time thinking about, shopping or cooking meals.

I don’t.

And when I do just plan and cooking something I am often met with a pulled up nose (mostly from my son because my husband is the equivalent of a human garbage disposal) because he would rather have mashed potatoes instead of baked, or he doesn’t like shredded pork. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Part of the meal planning fiasco is the chore of grocery shopping. There is no one store that meets all my needs, so I end up running all over the place. As a result, my least favorite chore on the planet is grocery shopping.

I abhor it.

Detest.

Hate.

Loathe.

I can generally tolerate it if I shop at Copps, but shopping at Woodmans is pure torture. Yeah, the canned goods are cheaper but the produce sucks and the meat is like monkey chow. Hence the need to run to Brennans for fruits and Copps for meat. It’s exhausting.

The whole feeding the family a balanced meal is a lesson in high blood pressure.

I’m fine to just eat a salad or a bowl of cereal and call it good. But you know, I’m raising a kid so there is this mom guilt about a well-balanced diet; although I swear the kid would prefer to live on 100% carbs. Well, I would to but that’s another topic all together.

I have tried menu planning and engaging said family members in planning discussions with little success.

I’m sadly confident the internal head slap will continue to be an ongoing part of my meal planning routine ad nauseaum.