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We have slipped into a nasty habit lately. I’m spending more time with the kids after school, which has been terrific. I greet them at dismissal with a healthy snack, we talk about the day and we play a bit before it’s time for reading or homework. Then I get busy preparing dinner. By this time, they are hungry. I’m hungry, too. They want another snack. But dinner is so close, I ask them to wait. It’ll be just five more minutes…this is where the problem begins.

A few weeks ago, I was walking along the Georgetown Harbour and snapped this late afternoon image of The Kennedy Center, where we hear the National Symphony Orchestra perform Handel’s Messiah every year. It’s a serene pause in an otherwise harried season. I felt the same way about this photo, its stillness capturing a moment of tranquility and stunning light. Both are a reminder to stop, breathe and pay attention for a moment or two (or in the case of the Messiah, that would be two hours).

Despite the fact that we must eat each day, I don’t necessarily feel like cooking every day. Or eating every day. Or sometimes even thinking about food at all. In recent weeks, this is how it’s been. I’ve been uninterested in the topic of food altogether. This is a tricky thing for me.

The older I get, the more poorly I handle the inevitable return to reality following vacation. Real world reentry is predictably painful. The heaviness starts to set in as we zip up our dirty laundry and souvenir-stuffed luggage and print the boarding passes to the plane promising a return to nonstop responsibility and obligation. I’m not sure if the vacations keep getting better, therefore making it harder to resume normal life, or if life is getting more complicated and therefore more difficult to face. It could be a bit of both, I suppose. Whatever the reason, I’m slow to adjust to the notion that my toughest decision of the day will no longer be what bathing suit to wear. Sigh.

When we’re really exhausted and want to relax, we say we want to “veg out.” What does that mean really anyway? Perhaps it’s a reference to the fact that unlike animals, vegetables are still and quiet. But lifeless they are not.

Why is it so much easier to criticize ourselves than it is to celebrate our hard-won successes? It’s the same principle that makes us shoo away a well-deserved compliment. “Oh, it’s really nothing at all.” Are we afraid of sounding too boastful or is it something else? I frequently tell you of my kitchen disasters and meals that have been pushed away with disgust. It’s so easy to be self-deprecating. I can generate tales of cut fingers, dull knives, burned breadcrumbs and flavorless fish like nobody’s business. But it’s not often that I use this space to congratulate myself. I had a recent victory and I’m going to pat myself heartily on the back. Right here. Right now.

One of the most frequent reader questions I get is whether or not I have any slow cooker recipes to recommend? Up until now, the answer has been not. As in, not a clue. Not at all. And probably not gonna happen.

When the wrap has been balled up and stuffed in the trash, and my sugar-fueled children fully immersed in the splendor of Christmas morning glee, my thoughts begin to drift to the impending new year and a shiny, fresh start. What self-improvement project will I tackle this January, I wonder?

Gone are the days of casual mingling at the farmers market. Thick air, full sun and quickly melting popsicles…all a memory. Last weekend, I trudged through sloppy puddles while pelted by rain to walk the handful of blocks to the Mt. Pleasant Farmers Market. Rain boot-clad children in tow, we were all wetter than necessary since my preschooler had high-jacked our only umbrella, insisting on carrying it himself, mostly tipped to the side, benefitting precisely no one and endangering dogs passing by.

It finally happened. I couldn’t believe it. I had to shake my head back and forth and blink my eyes a few times to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. The dormant taste buds of my hunger-striking preschooler finally awoke from their slumber. He eats! How this child has grown into a thriving 3-year-old is beyond me, but it’s not for a lack of trying. A steady diet of goldfish crackers and birthday party fare mysteriously catapulted him to the top of the height curve and midway up the weight curve. Turning a blind eye to his enduring disinterest, I’d thrust an array of foods before him daily from the time he began solid foods. Everything not resembling a non-nutritive white bread product was pushed away or thrown on the floor.