Seeing Double

I’m so sorry about the laundry pics yesterday. We shouldn’t be airing our dirty laundry in front of you…

I also felt like it was a bit misleading, but it worked, my kids and I folded socks for about three hours this afternoon! Of course I did most of the folding while they watched a movie. That’s a typical sock party at our house. I had to run a couple of errands and when I came back, the Drama Queen had put in a new movie…with SUBTITLES! I just don’t see how you can fold socks and read the words on the screen at the same time although each and every one of them agreed that it was possible.

We have a rule at our house that once you get to middle school, you have your laundry banished to the basement laundry room. In theory, I don’t have to wash any of their things anymore. Sadly, life doesn’t always work out the way it’s supposed to. Teach is really stealthy about sneaking in her work clothes and an outfit here or there. She knows the perfect amount to toss in without getting in trouble. The Dog Walker and I have an arrangement. He carries all my baskets and I still wash quite a few of his things. I think I get the best end of that deal.

So besides two laundry rooms in our house, we have several other things doubled. We have two pianos, two microwaves in our kitchen,

double ovens,

two completely separate kitchen sinks,

two cooking surfaces (the second one having a built in grill/griddle system. Two furnaces, two air conditioners, two family rooms (no, I don’t live in a mansion…) but we wanted a big house because as I told you before, we had always planned on a big family.

We chose a stock plan from the builder when we built our house, but we were able to make quite a few changes to tailor it to our needs. One thing we absolutely insisted on was two dishwashers. That’s why we ended up with two sinks in the kitchen. Each dishwasher had to drain to a different sink. Even with two dishwashers, it’s difficult to keep on top of the dirty dishes. Most days I run four loads of dishes and at least four or five loads of laundry.

During the summer I’ve been watching my grandsons while Bossy and Gamer are at work. That means 13 of us for lunch! I don’t mind cooking for dinner, but I don’t like to prepare full meals twice a day. It’s generally cold cereal for breakfast (except on the weekends when my sweetie does most of the cooking).

For lunch it’s usually leftovers, sandwiches (requiring more than an entire loaf of bread), something simple like Spaghettios (6 cans!) or soup. We cook most of our meals from scratch since prepared foods can be SOO expensive. The three big freezers make keeping extra meat and frozen veggies easy.

I’m not really a very good cook, but I have a few things that I have developed over the years that the kids like. Some of those, like Parmesan Chicken and Tuna Casserole I’ve shared on our Food for Thought Fridays. I also plan leftovers on purpose. If I need white rice for stir-fry, I fill the rice cooker to 10 cups and then use what’s left for a casserole or rice pudding. That cuts a little time from food prep.

There you have it, now you know all my secrets for taking care of a big family. OK, maybe not all my secrets. But if I told you everything, you might never want to come back…