Reason 1,257 not to make dinner

So, I rarely cook anymore. Today, I decided it would be the day that I cooked dinner...it had been a while and we have food in the freezer and pantry that we need to use up. I decided the main dish would be meatloaf. I was, of course SURE I had all the ingredients, I was SURE that I had bought the few ingredients I didn't have a few weeks ago.

Well, this day is going along, pretty rocky and frustrating at times, but I was determined I was not going to waste that pound of beef I set on the counter to defrost this morning.

I got a bit late start because I had an afternoon doctor's appointment and had to wait at CVS for my medicine to be ready.

I turned the oven on at 4:15 to start it's preheat. I got the beef out, put it in a bowl, grabbed a few more ingredients, only then realizing that I never bought bread crumbs. Sigh. So, I decided I would improvise...the only thing I had comparable was oatmeal...so I used that...only the mixture was too runny and I had to use the last of the oatmeal that I had. It was still a bit more runny than I would have liked when I put it in the oven, but I figured it would soak up the extra moisture.
While it was cooking Elijah said it smelled like chicken nuggets and he wanted chicken nuggets and tator tots for dinner. I have a rule in my house, if I have actually gone through the trouble of cooking a real meal, you are going to eat what I make. If you don't like it, you still have to try it and eat the stuff that you do like.

Well, dinner got done, the meatloaf looked great, tasted good (thankfully!), we had fruits, veggies, shells and cheese, rolls and meatloaf, and Elijah said he was overwhelmed with the food. Sigh. He didn't know what to eat because he didn't want his food to get cold. Just eat and it will all be warm...he never did try the meatloaf and half way through dinner he wanted yogurt. Um, no, eat what's on your plate. He did, but he didn't eat the meatloaf or try it, but by this point I was picking my battles and more than ready for them to finish eating so I could clean up the kitchen.

Kayla liked the meatloaf, ate her dinner without complaint and was fairly happy.

By the time dinner was actually ready, I was warm from cooking and not feeling especially hungry.

When I had finally finished cleaning up the kitchen it was 6:45.

Needless to say, it was a long process, not entirely well received and put everything else late this evening.

Tomorrow night we will be eating dinner out.