"The Witching Hour" - In European folklore, the witching hour is the time when supernatural creatures such as witches, demons, and ghosts are thought to appear and be at their most powerful, and black magic at its most effective. (Thank you, Wikipedia)
These are the finishing up homework, trying to get dinner started, everyone is most grumpy and starving, while I'm running out of steam, that's the last straw, and why is your father not home yet kind of hours. This is the time of day wherein any and all music lessons, sports, and scouting activities must be crammed, and if anyone has not napped sufficiently earlier in the day, well by all means this would be the time to show it.
I call them the Witching Hours. And golly aren't they fun?
It seems like dinner is the key to surviving the Witching Hours (at least for me.) If I can have dinner done faster, easier, or already taken care of earlier in the day, then I can manage the rest... barely. And yet there are only so many crock pot meals that I like. I'm always looking, but I've yet to find a huge jackpot of them that really impress me. Same goes for freezer meals. I've got some, but not a million.
AND THEN - how do I factor in my family's dietary needs? (Aside from the fact that many crock pot/freezer meals are not all that fresh and healthy...) In my house there are a couple of us that should be watching our fat and calories, and a couple of us that should really try to cram in all the fat and calories we can get. Then a 5th person who can rarely eat what anyone else is having no matter what! Considering the fact that we're in the middle of the Witching Hours here, I'm really not in the mood to fix 3 different meals. Ugh, just the guilt alone is exhausting.
I just needed to vent my frustration today. If you'd simply like to vent right back, feel free! But if you have some good Witching Hour suggestions (quick, easy, crock pot, freezer, healthy, or all of the above?) be sure to share, and I just might kiss your feet.
12 comments:
Ok, you make this ahead to a certain extent...
Flour tortillas (either the kind you fry yourself or the ready made kind steamed)
Frozen rice (already cooked)
Canned tomatoes (two small cans)
taco seasoning
onion chopped
Avacado
cheddar cheese
Olive oil in a pan. cook onions. Add tomatoes and seasoning, simmer. Add rice (a couple of cups)simmer. Set aside or warm up later.
At dinner, fry up flour tortillas or steam ready made ones. Put rice mixture in each tortilla, spoon avacado chunks in, top with cheese. Serve. Easy, filling and low fat!
I just try to ignore dinner as long as possible, in hopes that Jason will be home soon. Too bad he rarely gets home before 6am. Ha ha.
I know I have some quick healthy recipes... I'll have to get back to you on that. :)
Quit your stalling. What the news?
Seriously though. I completely agree with you about this subject. My go-to quick and easy is breakfast for dinner. Sometimes it's pancakes or waffles, or bacon and eggs, served with fruit. Even better is making a quadruple batch of pancakes a week before and freeze the leftovers. Then I just take them out of the freezer and nuke them. Viola! Mother of the year has just saved dinner.
I completely feel your pain Amy. Although I only have to make two separate meals, 4-7 is also my least favorite time of day! Since most crock-pot meals call for ingredients Matthew cannot eat, they don't cut it for us either most of the time.
The one thing I have found that works well for us...when I actually plan ahead and use it...is this meal calendar idea:
http://aprongirls.blogspot.com/2008/07/monthly-menu-planner.html
Hope you guys can get into a "witching hours" rhythm that works well for you!
I bet your handy-dandy book of favorite recipes you put together helps. I need to put one together for our family...might be a good summer project for me. : )
Amen sister! Two days a week, I also add piano teaching to those witching hours and on those days, dinner turns into whatever can get thrown together the fastest when I'm done! I think I've shared any recipes that I've ever found worthy of sharing -- and lately I haven't been creative AT ALL -- so I'll take any of YOUR recipes instead! ;)
I will have to admit not my favorite time of the day either!
I remember those days! Sometimes you have to live minute to minute and say "I will survive!" :0)
Amen! And everyone says the older the kids get, the more busy and occupied you find yourself! Oh joy, it isn't getting better anytime soon! But seriously, I love checking out what you are up to!! Your quilts are awesome and I have a few projects on my "to do" list to copy you:) Thanks for sharing!
The Witching hour is one of the biggest reasons I'm homeschooling next year. No more home work and chores crammed into the afternoon. And Sheila Carter is going to teach us piano lessons next year, during the day, so I won't have that in the afternoon either. The kids are also going to do a homeschool gymnastics class that's during the day as well. We'll just have bathes, dinner and family time in the afternoons/evenings and I can't wait!
The kids are counting down school for summer break, I'm counting it down to get rid of the witching hour. It just doesn't seem as bad when everyone is home all day. There is no witching hour on Saturdays and Sundays at our house.
One of my easy go to dinners, on crazy days is keeping frozen tortellini in the fridge. All I have to do is boil the noodles and throw spaghetti sauce on it. Easy peasy.
I make a menu every week and get all the groceries Monday so that I have several choices throughout the week. I change things up according to who has what that day and what came up during the day. Good luck and I hate to say it, but it's worse as they get older we seem to be out running until after dinner time is over, prepping things through out the day is a must for me. Good thing I have a lunch hour to come home and do it. Good luck.
I hate the "witching hour". I am in the same boat as you. 3 meals to fix between my husband and I, the 2 boys, and Payton. I am so terrible at doing this, but if you are motivated more than me it should help you out. I have all my meals planned out ahead of time (as I'm sure we all do), and the night before (if I'm feeling upbeat) I take a look at the next nights dinner and do all the chopping and mixing/measuring that I can. That way when the "witching hours" come and it's time to make dinner I just have to dump all the fruits/veggies/meat in with sauces/pasta/etc. Makes for a nice, easy, and less stressful meal. The catch is remembering to do it the night before or during the kids' nap. Also, many days I tell my boys if they don't like what we are having it's fine, but they have to find and make their own dinner then. They usually make pasta or butter bread or something easy like that and they love it, and it keeps them busy and out of each others hair!!! I don't know if this is helpful, but hope so. Such a rough hour. I know. :)
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