Ordinary Day: Father’s Day

I have a couple of ‘series’ going, if you want to call them that.  I have the Fallout series, which I keep adding to, because more issues crop up all the time.  And I also am thankful to have the Guest Blogger series.  I hope that grows as well, I love having guest bloggers on!  I’ll admit that partly it lightens my blogging load, but mostly I like it for a two-fold reason: I get to be a venue for others to make their voices heard, and it validates our voice a little more.  I know none of you need convincing, but I feel with more people sharing a very similar story, it makes me feel like, “See!  I told you it’s a big problem!”

So the Ordinary Day series is just going to be posts where our family went through something typical without PTSD, SI or ED intruding.  I guess it will give you a snapshot into our regular lives.  Let me know what you think.

So, yesterday was Father’s Day.  My husband isn’t the type that likes a big fuss, so I tried to prepare the foods he liked and planned a simple activity in the afternoon.  Sunday is church day, so anything we did had to fit between the hours of 12:30-5:30 so that we can make morning and evening church.  Although my honey does enjoy a good steak, he really likes all those salad-y type dishes, so that’s what I made.  I’ll share with you a little about each dish, because I altered some stuff and it was really good!  Here’s the menu:

Turkey salad on homemade whole wheat bread: I roasted the turkey breast, cleaned the meat off, mixed it with celery, chives, chopped apple, mayo and onion salt/pepper.  I served it with sliced avocado and canned jellied cranberry sauce.  Not really a big fan of canned cranberry sauce, but it is good sliced on a turkey sandwich!

Broccoli salad: cut up broccoli florets, craisins, flaxseed, chopped sweet onion, bacon and pineapple

Greek style pasta salad: gluten-free pasta (Payne is gf), cubed cukes, halved cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, chopped sweet onion, green olives and minced cilantro.  I know cilantro isn’t necessarily a ‘greek’ herb but I love it.  I tossed it all with a bottled Greek salad dressing.

Tandycake: this is reminiscent of the Tasty Cake treat that you can buy.  You bake a yellow sponge cake then spread a good amount of peanut butter on top while the cake is still hot.  Let it all chill then spread melted semi sweet chocolate over top.  It’s a family favorite.  So easy, so yummy.  We also had some ice cream as a gluten-free option for Payne.

Homemade iced tea and pickles rounded out our menu which my husband declared two thumbs up!  Yay!

We then went to this river festival which we apparently arrived too late for, because no one was still there!  Not even the vendors! LOL  Oh well, we had a nice time walking along the banks of the river.  Someone left sidewalk chalk around the river walkways and the kids had a good time using that.  Dolorosa used her daddy’s name as an acrostic and wrote out character traits for him.  Grey drew boxes designed just for dads and their wives. Vale tried to draw a building of which Payne teasingly criticized.  He got her back by drawing a non-flattering picture of her and labeled it “My twin is a BatFace”.  Watching the two of them was too funny.

“That line is crooked!  What’s that supposed to be?? It’s pitiful” provoked Payne.

“Shut it Batface!” teased back Vale.
We ended up having some of the kids who are interested in photography take pictures of the same thing, but with their own composition and then they’ll edit it.  It will be neat to see how the photos come out.  I’m pretty sure my man had a good day.  It was kinda a bummer that we missed the River Festival activities, but my husband said it was a fun and relaxing afternoon.

Vale ate his lunch well, with no sneering or visible pickyness.  There wasn’t a hint of self harming anywhere.  Vale was pleasant and funny, making up his own little rock song of “BAT FACE!” to which his twin rolled her eyes.  Even Oldest Brother wasn’t difficult.  Hmmm, there was harmony.  What more could you ask for?