Sunday Night Rituals.

Sunday nights almost always mean two things to my family:

1) Dairy Queen Blizzards for the boys. Oreo for Joe and peanut butter cups for Teacher Man. Always. Sometimes a Blizzard for me, too, but sometimes not – depends totally on what I feel like. And if I do have a Blizzard, I am the only one who ever switches it up week to week – midnight truffle one Sunday and banana split the next, for example. Apparently I am less set in my ways than the boys in this house. 😉

2) Teacher Man heads up to bed sometime between 6:00 and 7:00. Yes, that early. I can’t quite remember when he started that tradition – a few years ago, I suppose. It’s his down time as he gets ready for the upcoming week. He turns the TV on to something World War II related – or if there’s nothing interesting, he may watch an Alaska-type reality show. (Is it just me, or are there a ton of reality-type shows that are set in Alaska now?) In any case, I think he probably dozes off to sleep pretty quickly. Teacher Man is an excellent sleeper!

Our friends and family chuckle at our little Sunday night rituals, but I know we all look forward to them. With Teacher Man upstairs, I have control of the remote control and can watch my favorite shows – Madam Secretary and The Good Wife (or HGTV if they aren’t on) – without interruption. Joe will often come into the porch and hang with me, while he watches something else on his iPad. All three of us are pretty chill (um, wait, did I just write that?), which is kind of a nice way to end the weekend.

Tonight, by the way, I picked chocolate cake over ice cream. I made my favorite chocolate sheet cake recipe from The Pioneer Woman this morning, which is quite simply an amazing concoction of butter, sugar and cocoa. Did I mention a ridiculous amount of butter and cocoa? It makes an absurdly huge cake for three of us. Well, especially since I’m basically the only one who seems to be eating it today. 😉 So worth it, though.

In my head, by the way, I think about how I’m going to lose a few pounds before our trip to Hawaii later this summer. Then magically I forget all about this and bake a cake instead.

The irony that is my life.

Have a good start to the week!

– Lara –