Post Image Day two of swim team practice for The Boy. Amid my worries that our tight new schedule was gong to affect my ability to produce healthy dinners, one of my fellow swim team moms had a confession yesterday. Her three kids are so active in various sports and clubs that they eat fast food every weeknight without fail. Just the encouragement I needed. I'd never been so glad I only have one kiddo.

I couldn't criticize, though...her kids might be devouring McD's while mine dines on home cooking, but her three are thin as pages out of the Old Testament. The Boy has adorable little love handles and a squishy belly.

Anyhooo...many of you already know, I'm a planner. Good thing, too. Armed with knowledge of our upcoming time constrictions, I planned to make two meatloaves tonight and serve one tomorrow.

I careened into the driveway with The Boy after work and ran inside. The boy scrubbed potatoes while I threw the meatloaf together. The potatoes were tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper and sage, and the meat sat in a pan in two little lumps and we were out the door to swim practice in fifteen minutes flat. Those were two mighty quick loaves of meat!

The best was yet to come, though.

It is important to me to know whether or not my family likes what I made for dinner. More than a decade ago I instituted a rating system so that I could decipher the mumblings Honey makes around mouthfuls of dinner. The simple zero to ten scale yeilds a few zeros and mostly twenties from The Boy, but Honey is much more stingy. In ten years, I have earned a ten once. Yes, once. And i'm a durn good cook.

So, tonight, as we dished up meatloaf and potatoes and veggies, I asked for my score.

Honey gave me a 9.8.

A 9.8!!!!

I almost fell off my chair.

By the time the table was cleared, both of my men had eluded to the possibility of meatloaf as a midnight snack and staked a claim for a larger helping of roasted potato tomorrow night.

So, tomorrow if I seem a little off my game, it's because my back hurts...from sleeping on the floor...in the garage...in front of the fridge...guarding tomorrow night's meat loaf from a premature demise!