The peanut butter to my jelly

Well, friends, I'm not sure if it's reassuring or disheartening to discover - after almost a week of significantly reducing my Internet usage - that the overwhelming status of our laundry/home cleanliness is probably related more to our current busy schedule and season of life than screen time.  That's not to say it hasn't helped at all, but I've noticed that a lot of the times I'd be checking in or reading blogs was when I was already sitting and nursing the baby, aka not times I'd be otherwise able to redirect my attention to washing dishes.  I have, it turns out (which should be no surprise, but still is), a significant inability to make realistic expectations about how much I can accomplish.  It was perhaps most telling when I had 3 hours of help from a University student one morning last week, and I accomplished only 1.5 of the 5 things on my list despite her entertaining the girls while I frantically worked.  (I still had to stop and nurse the baby and I helped Anna in the bathroom once...but I would not have estimated that the folding and putting away the mountain (not a particularly loose usage of the word in this context) of clean laundry would be measured in hours and not minutes).

Anyway, all of that is just to say that I've found myself increasingly interested in minimizing wasted time so that I can maximize whatever it is that I AM able to get done.

(non-existent transition here, since one didn't quickly come to mind...see efforts to not waste time)

Once, my sister and a friend were at my house for dinner when I had made macaroni and cheese.  I must have mentioned something about "needing" to make baked beans to go with the meal - my sister quickly agreed and the friend questioned the necessity.  We couldn't believe that he would eat the macaroni alone, and he was incredulous that we were so adamant about the beans.  I hadn't really thought about it before, but I remember laughing with my sister at that moment at realizing we had probably never had macaroni and cheese without baked beans.  For whatever reason (well, probably that's it's a delicious combination) my mom always made the two together.  It may not have the national notoriety of peanut butter and jelly, but in our family they were every bit the pair.

I realized tonight as Anna and I were eating that our dinner was another infamous combination - another pairing I always make together because I always ate it together.

tuna noodle casserole ~ Harvard beets

In the aforementioned interest of my time, I'm not going to fully flesh out my dinnertime musings about how little comforts of home can be grounding regardless of where you are or what plates you're eating from...or about how much of an impression even the smallest details of making a home can have on those we serve in that house...

beet-eater

beet-eater-observer

...and I'll stick to the random/silly burning question that originally inspired me to snap pictures of my dinner:  what combinations are family favorites in your house?