dinner

i have probably used my oven a total of 3 times (and that's generous) since we moved into our house here. i mean a lot of that is because you know like i just had a baby. but honestly i see moms who are back to cooking and stuff like 2 weeks after they have the baby and lemmetellyou...that's just not me. half (ok more than half) of our meals right now are either cooked by bradley, spaghetti, or preprepared meals from trader joes, costco, or ikea. #meatballsforthewin
oliver just doesn't allow for a lot of you know, any other activities besides holding him. i could wear him, but babywearing while cooking sounds kind of disastrous.
i'm not comparing myself to other moms necessarily. i mean i don't think i'm a bad mom because it's taking me a while to get back into cooking. my family doesn't seem to care too much. but today was a good day in the food department! i think i've found the solution to the problem! i think it was an amalgam of plenty of things. namely:

1. i started with a spotless kitchen.  i cleaned my kitchen earlier today, and it looked pretty amazing. you guys, i even cleaned the stove. for some reason i always want to cook more when i don't start with a mess. part of the reason i never bake (or cook lately) is because my hatred of dishes/kitchen cleaning outweighs my like of cooking. i don't hate cooking. i REALLY hate dishes. regardless of how much help i have (bradley is a great dish do-er).

2. i cooked by myself. while lately i've been enlisting bradley's help cooking to take some of my weight off, tonight i did something different. i sent him to the playroom with both kids and had the quiet kitchen all to myself. i could even listen to some quiet relaxing music while cooking! score! having a quiet time and space all to myself really lifted my mood.

3. i cleaned up as i went. every single dish i used (strainer etc.) i rinsed and put in the dishwasher IMMEDIATELY. this totally helped my dishaphobia. totally eases up the after dinner workload for me. (ok let's be honest, for bradley. he really does do most of, no lie).

i may actually, like, start cooking for real now if i can do this on a regular basis! now let me just see how long i can keep my kitchen clean on a regular basis..... *side-eye emoji*

also on another note, i know i've been blowing up everyone's feeds with a new project a friend of mine started, so if you don't already get enough of me here, you can check out more blogginess over there at justpoppytalk.blogspot.com. 2 other ladies and myself write about things that make us happy and when to be positive when things aren't so happy. so if that's your jam, definitely check it out.