My friends and I were joking around one morning because I sent them a picture of my “gourmet” dinner being prepped in the crockpot. It was a Friday morning which meant it was whole bunch of random things thrown in. I was joking about spicing up the meal with garlic cloves and even offered to bring them a taste. Neither took me up on the offer, but it led to some of the funniest texts and started my day in the best way.
See, there’s something these friends know about me: I don’t really like cooking. It’s not that I can’t. I can follow a recipe if I have to, but it just stresses me out. If I pull something up and it calls for tons of ingredients, I’m immediately out. I don’t even care if it’s simple stuff like salt and pepper. Once you start with a laundry list of items, you should know you’ve lost me.
There’s also something else you should know. My kitchen is equipped much like a college kids. I have very limited utensils and even fewer pans in which to cook. Trey wanted to make a round cake for Easter and I had to go buy some round cake pans. True story. He also made homemade mashed potatoes which were great, except I had no way to mash the potatoes.
So you may be wondering, how do the Norman’s survive? Eat out? No way. We have 5 kids who act like they’ve never been in public when we leave the house. Take out? Sometimes, but not often. That’s pretty expensive. So, I do what any subpar wife in the kitchen does. I cook subpar meals and live for the weekends when J.O. fires up the grill. We eat a lot of spaghetti and “chicken in the crockpot” as my children have so lovingly named it.
During this time of early morning texting, I joked that I might just start a food blog. I made the comment that people always say, to “blog about what you know” and from the looks of my crockpot I clearly know about food.
But, I started thinking. What does that really mean? Write about what you know? Does that mean only foster and adoptive moms can blog about fostering or adopting? No. That only Racheal Ray can blog about cooking? No. Of course not.
However, it does mean that sometimes we become experts in an area we never dreamed we would become experts in.
Honestly, when we started fostering and eventually adopted I knew things would look different. I knew my world would be open to things I had never encountered before. Poverty, addiction, abuse, and that’s just to name a few.
I never wanted to become a self made expert in Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Or parenting kids from trauma. Or how to navigate the prison system. Or walking the fine line of keeping biological ties open, but safe.
But yet here I am. And you know what? As much as I wish some things weren’t a part of their story, it’s a part of their story nonetheless. I imagine my friends who have experienced unimaginable loss would say the same thing. No one wishes for tragedy to enter their lives. There are things we never want to become the expert in. Cancer, losing a loved one, losing a job, losing your house, abuse, neglect, etc.
So, while it might be fun if I could blog about an amazing meal and show beautiful pictures, the reality is…..that’s not our reality. Our life actually resembles what was cooking in my crockpot. It might not be the prettiest, or most appealing, but it works. And not only does it work, but it’s actually pretty good.
The Norman's Life 