2001-10-14-8:39 p.m.

Sunday is my night off. Stan takes all of the children - or most of them - to church with him and I get to stay home and do whatever I want. I can piddle on the computer or watch a mindless TV show or read or sit in the tub (without anyone banging on the door saying "I need in NOW") or maybe even clean up the kitchen.

(Believe it or not I really enjoy cleaning up my kitchen on Sunday nights. I scrub the sink and scrape the gunk out from under the sink stoppers and clean under the stuff on the counter and put the coffee carafe in the dishwasher, stuff like that that I don't have time to do during the week. And I can listen to mindless TV while I do it, so it's like killing two birds with one stone.)

But the best thing about being home by myself is that I can eat whatever I want and I don't have to share with anybody. I can rattle a candy wrapper and not be swarmed by kids wanting one, too, or "just one bite"-ing me into wishing I'd left it hidden behind the cream cheese in the refrigerator.

Tonight I wanted some chicken strips. Some nice, crunchy chicken strips with gravy. I didn't want to drive and get some, and all I had was two dollars anyway. I didn't want to use "the thing we don't mention" because I absolutely refuse to use "the thing we don't mention" in a fast food place. "The thing we don't mention" is only to be used in emergencies, and although wanting, or rather NEEDING chicken strips on Sunday night is urgent, it is not an emergency, well, not yet anyway.

So I got a frozen chicken breast out of the freezer, thawed it, cut it up, did flour, egg, flour, egg, flour, fried them and made gravy, heated up leftover blackeye peas, made ONE glass of lemonade (as opposed to the usual gallon) and voila!

I ate it all in front of the TV watching part of a show about the making of Gilligan's Island.

Ahhhhh. Now that's what Sunday night is all about.

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