Cooking is my nemesis

I sure love good food and it seems that there might be a natural correlation between a desire for good food and the love of making said food. However, in my realm, no such thing exists. I hate cooking. It isn't so much the actual cooking part, though if there are too many ingredients (more than about 7) or too many steps on the instructions (I have culinary associated attention deficit disorder CAADD) or if it requires the use of too many dishes (usually more than one bowl or pan), I seem to form a very negative association.

More debilitating, however, is the task of selection. I know my family needs to eat. I know that which we consume should be promote a healthy lifestyle. I know that in an ever failing economy we should be budget-minded. All of this inhibits my decisions. Each night as I go to bed, one of my last thoughts as I drift off is, "Tomorrow, very first thing after I open my eyes and step out of bed, I'm going to have to make something for breakfast." Then the other factors come into play. I could make pancakes most every day, but are that many carbs actually good for a young individual? Cold cereal is fortified, but what kind of mother opens a box of cereal every morning? Waffles are a lot like pancakes. Yogurt is nutritious and desirable, but doesn't stay with you and if that is breakfast, there is a guarantee that I'll be back in that kitchen before lunch time.

Though I don't care to admit it freely, there is a strong likelihood that I have, on more than one occasion, said to one of my children, "Stop Eating!" Sometimes I feel like the kitchen is a prison and that each time I make my escape I am soon caught and summoned back to the same locale. Like many others, I find meals or foods on pinterest and think, that looks good. So I pin it and it sits on the board, taunting me to attempt it. But I'm like the woman who has only been in bad relationships. Even if she meets a nice guy, she's reluctant to enter into anything too serious because she knows how it will end. I believe the therapeutic term is self-sabotaging.

So tonight I sit here at 11:30. I should go to bed. But I sit and wait it out because I know in a few short hours, hungry bodies will be in my bedroom asking for a morsel and once again I will trudge to the kitchen, open the cupboard or fridge, and find that the elves I had anticipated arriving in the night to do the cooking for me did not come. So I'll flip through a cook book, look online, maybe phone a friend and finally pull out a box of cold cereal. By the time the kitchen is put in order, it will be about time to start lunch, a whole new saga of what to make, a saga that must be evaluated and is dependent on what was served for breakfast.

Wanting to actually get something done, I'll leave the kitchen immediately after cleaning up lunch only to realize about 6:30 that the family is hungry and I've done nothing toward dinner. Some day when I am independently wealthy I will, without guilt and/or remorse, hire someone to come in and do the cooking. I have a lot of other great skills and fine attributes, but oh how I loathe cooking!