Karin Calloway's blog

There are a lot of things to like about the summer. Even though the professional obligations are still there, the pace seems slower at home. Dinner doesn’t need to be on the table by 7 p.m. and the kids’ schedules aren’t quite as crazy.

And then there’s the experience I only get to have in the summer. Call me crazy, but I live for “So You Think You Can Dance.” Honestly. I just can’t get enough of it. As a former aspiring dancer, I love watching these super-talented kids doing feats extraordinaire.

Hubby and I are kid-less this week for the first time in a long time. Son is at Scout camp and daughter is at the beach with a friend.

I spend a lot of time in grocery stores. It’s part of my job as a recipe developer/food writer. I’ll often run into readers of my cooking column or viewers of Channel 6 and almost always the person will ask me what I’m cooking. (They usually ask this while they’re doing a little secret agent work trying to see what I have in my shopping cart.) One of the funniest questions I get when I’m out in public is, “Did you bring us something to eat?” Sure…I walk around with fresh-baked lasagna in my pocketbook...would you like some?

The “What’s for Dinner?” question plagues most mothers. With 365 days in a year, each with the opportunity to decide what to feed your family for dinner, it is no wonder many a mother is frustrated by the dinner dilemma. Even though a major part of my professional employment comes from developing recipes, I too will have weeks when making the dinner decision is difficult. I’ll ask the kids, “What are you hungry for?” You’d think with the “cooking lady” as their mother, a long list of meal ideas would roll off their tongues. But, no.

I’ve been a mom for over 16 years and most of the time I am pretty convinced I “know” my kids.

This weekend, favorite son and daughter were part of a huge high school musical. Girl-child was in the chorus, and son had a leading role, as Ren in the musical Footloose. (Yes, those of my generation will recall that it was Kevin Bacon who originated the role in the 80’s movie by the same name. Kevin Bacon…Be still my heart…)

I have a birthday this week. I am not happy about this. Not one bit. However, on a positive note, I had a super fun weekend with my sister in celebration. We stayed at her in-law’s Atlanta (Buckhead) high-rise and shopped…shopped…shopped. Oh, we also dined…dined…dined. My sister, who is 15 years younger than me, is my best friend. And this was exactly what I needed…some time away from my “mom” responsibilities, time to shop for some clothes to wear to work… I am not dealing with this birthday very well. It is an unwelcome age.

Our favorite daughter has been on a class trip to Washington, D.C., this week and I’m not the only one who has been missing her.

Christie Joe, our new Calico cat, had only been a member of the family for a week when it was time for the much-anticipated trip.

Daughter had been waiting for the trip all year, so she was very excited to leave…but also not quite ready to leave her new pet. Christie Joe sleeps with her—literally. I mean right under the covers and all.

Taste of Home

Last night I served as emcee for the Taste of Home cooking school. While it isn’t my first time to be on the stage at the Bell Auditorium as an emcee, the experience is never something I look forward to. I’ve got a pretty good case of “public speaking paranoia” and getting up in front of a crowd of say, 1,000 of my friends and neighbors, isn’t high on my list of “fun things to do on a Tuesday night.”

I used to stay on top of my weekly plan by outlining a schedule on Sunday afternoons. The thought was that I could keep on top of things “one week at a time.”

As my children have gotten older (they are now teenagers) and my work life has amped up, I’d look at the weekly “to do” list and tell myself, “Just take it one day at a time.” I could cope with the demands of my life by having a schedule for the week, but I would focus on what I needed to do “that day” and not project too much into the rest of the week.

There was a time in my life when the animals outnumbered the people in my home. By a lot! My mother even commented that my house was an honest to goodness menagerie.

We had two Pekingese. We had a cat named Spud. We had goldfish. A bird. We even had a frog.

Over the years, we whittled our way down to just one Alpha dog named Trixie. Miss Trixie thinks (no, she KNOWS) that she is the queen of our house. She does not appreciate having any competition for our attention. Oh no, not one bit.