My honey and I were having a discussion over the phone, while I as on my lunch break today. Working another 12 hour shift. I was on call last weekend. This means I stay either in a sleep room at the hospital, or I get to bunk at the house of a friend, near the hospital, while being available to attend to any emergency/urgent c-sections that happen to land in our little northern campus hospital. Doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, we’re on the ready. Anyhow, I was gone all weekend, then drove straight to the mother ship for a 12 hour shift in my second department, then home for 12 hours, then back for another 12 hour work shift, home again, and then off to the little hospital in the north of our area for a couple of shifts, before my week is done. I haven’t spent much time at home this week, or any week where I’m on call over the weekend, and then go straight to the other campus, an hour away. My main point is that I haven’t always had this crazy of a schedule. I used to go to our other little hospital, and work all my shifts there. They closed our OR’s, in order to shift the $$ to the mother ship, and thus began my life of traveling all over hell’s half acre to earn my paychecks. Some weeks I spend more time at home than others. When I’m home, I don’t feel very domestic. In fact, I’d like to just sit on the sofa and put my feet up for a minute or 20. Preparing a meal never enters my mind.

In the aftermath of losing my mom, it wasn’t not noticed that she had been doing the bulk of the meal preparations in our little family for the better part of 4.5 years. We really appreciated her efforts because it kept us out of the kitchen, while earning our paychecks. I knew the day would come when she wasn’t going to be here to be the head chef any longer, but I didn’t expect it to come so soon.

Enter my Honey, and my son too. My son spends a lot of time at our place. Sometimes too much time, and most of the time, he spends just enough time. He’s a great cook. Could be his second calling. We’re all happy when my son comes to cook, because we know it’ll always be flavorful, while taking him a good aprt of the afternoon/evening to prepare. Then there’s my Honey. Now my Honey is not what you’d describe as the domestic type. He’s an old logger, and firewood baron. Cooking meals is not his forte’. When we got together, he offered to make a meal one night after I got home from a long call shift…his meal? Hamburger and onions. When I tried to explain to him that hamburger and onions are ingredients to a real meal, he scoffed at me. Evidently, he and his logger pals survived on many such “meals” back in the day.

When my job changed, and I wasn’t coming home in time to feel like preparing a meal for us, my Honey has attempted to step up to the culinary plate. He’s pretty good with the Traegar, so we can look forward to grilled chicken, or pork, or beef. Not tofu. A piece of grilled protein and a salad is what we both consider a great meal. He’ll text me in the back half of my day and ask, “Are you eating tonight?” Fair question! Sometimes I don’t eat an evening meal!

Tonight he really went out of his comfort zone. He made stir fry! I had to talk him step by step through preparing rice to go with the stir fry (!) he planned to make.

Me: “You take 2 cups of water, there are lines on the inside of the saucepan, so you can see when you are at 2 cups. Then, you boil the water, add a little sesame’ oil to make the rice have some flavor, then add the 1 cup of rice, cover the pan and turn it down to simmer for 20 minutes.”

Him: “The saucepan has a lid? Where do we store the rice? Sesame’ oil? Can’t I use olive oil? I’ve never made rice, I don’t know what I’m doing here.” Eyeroll emoji

I was impressed he even thought he wanted to make stirfry! When it was all said and done, we did the meal together, since he had done most of the sous chef duties. He did a great job, and we both enjoyed the meal.

This part of my healing process, not sweating the small stuff, and showing appreciation for my best friend trying to make things easier on both of us, by assuming some of the domestic duties while I’m working long shifts has had a cathartic effect on both of us. He’s feeling accomplished because he’s taking on some cooking duties, some laundry duties (even if he does fold all the things wro…I mean, not like I do) as well as taking care of the critter chores, all before I get home from work. I feel appreciative that I’m not having to work a long shift, then come home and work another few hours on domestic duties. It’s something that’s going right for us. Who knew?

Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?

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