Loaf of Trouble

Get out your pens, Ladies.

Today I'm sharing my recipe for making the perfect Loaf of Trouble:

Ingredients

-4-6 pieces of chicken, some stuffing, and breadcrumbs

-1 cup of Fatigue (the "Monthly Visitor" brand works best)

-1 small, cabinet-raiding child

-An over-worked husband, divided. (They separate like eggs: allow your husband very little sleep over several days, and you'll soon be left with just a shell.)

-Equal parts Over-sensitivity and Self-Interest

-Poor Judgement, to taste

Method

While turning the chicken, stuffing, and breadcrumbs into a meal, the chef should trip over the cabinet-raiding child several times, until mildly annoyed. (Note: if working near a recently-swept floor, pour breadcrumbs on it.)  Next, ask the conscious half of the husband to look after baby--save the rest for later. Place over heat.  Don't worry if husband doesn't require much heat before sweetly agreeing--as mine did yesterday. Move to last step.

Use liberal amounts of poor judgement to spread Self-Interest and Over-Sensitivity on top of the remaining (exhausted shell) portion of husband. 

Sample technique:

Wife: It would be great if you'd fix the fridge today.

Husband: I already know.

Wife: You seem grumpy.

Husband: I'm tired.

Wife: You're short-fused.

Husband: Maybe you're being too sensitive.

Wife: So, I just have to deal with it, because you're tired?

Husband:  Oh, here we go.

Wife: What's THAT supposed to mean?...

Continue pounding dough in this manner, until serving raw.

Variations:

Last night, Luke took my Loaf of Trouble and sweetened it with patience and kindness until it was unrecognizable. At 3:15am--which is wide-awake time for a third shift person--Luke woke me to apologize for his part in the baking. He said his backwards-schedule complicates things; he struggles with irritability during his "off-hours." But he also called this “an excuse” which was "too easy." 

Then he promised to work on communicating better--so that it’s harder for me to cook up Trouble in the future.

Luke wrote: “A duet is more beautiful when each singer works to make the other sound more beautiful, instead of fighting to be heard above the other.”   I couldn’t agree more. And I’m grateful for the way he reached out to me, though I was equally guilty of wrong. It’s easy to harmonize with someone like that…

In conclusion, it takes two people to bake a Loaf of Trouble; thus, it only takes one to sabotage it, and make a sweeter variation instead.   

Thanks, honey, for being that person this time around!