More Rules, Empty Tummy

I want a snack but I can’t have one because it’s after 10:00p.m. What does that have to do with anything? I’ll tell you. One of the rules here is that the kitchen closes at 10:00 every night. The kids go to bed at 9:00 and the kitchen is still open for the adults to have snacks if we want but I wasn’t hungry before. I’m just sitting here and my stomach started growling. It’s growling now, as a matter of fact. And I can’t have anything to eat. It sucks!!

When I had my own place I could get up at 10:00 at night, go to the kitchen, and get a snack if I wanted one. I could get up any time of the day or night and eat when I was hungry. Here I have one hour every day to prepare dinner, eat, and clean up afterward before the next unit’s dinner hour starts. The kitchen is only open from 8:00-10:00 in the mornings for breakfast; until 11:00 on the weekends. And for lunch it’s open from 12:00-2:00 during the week and until 3:00 on the weekends. For the past six months I’ve been living under these restrictions. My kids and I have to follow these rules every day and it’s not easy to do.

I bring snacks down to our room, in sealed packages, so they can have after-school snacks, which they eat outside because I already told you that we can’t eat in our rooms. The kids run in after school, grab a snack and stand outside in the cold eating a quick snack. If they want a snack before bedtime I have to run upstairs quickly, grab something for them, and they stand outside and eat it. I usually try to bring something down to our room when we leave the kitchen after dinner so I don’t have to run back up there later in the evening.

No, I’m not lazy; we’re not supposed to be in the kitchen during another family’s dinner hour. Dinner is considered “family time” around here and one of the endless rules is that we have to stay out of the kitchen when it isn’t our dinner hour. Breakfast and lunch don’t follow that rule but dinner is almost considered sacred. The kids and I combine resources with Lisa and her daughter so we eat together almost every night. Arrangements like that are fine, we just can’t invade anyone’s dinner hour if we haven’t been invited. Most of the current tenants don’t really care but we still try to keep to the format.

Anyway, I’ll grab snacks for the kids at dinner hour so they can have something before bedtime because the last dinner hour over here is from 8:00-9:00. We eat at 5:00 so the kids want a little something a couple of hours later. They get a snack and I always forget to get something for myself so I get to sit here watching TV and all the food commercials and I get hungry for something and can’t have it. I guess that’s for the best, though. At least I’m not packing on empty calories before I go to bed. If I really can’t take it I’ll get a glass of water, otherwise I’ll just hang out watching TV and go to bed with an empty tummy. Breakfast will get here soon enough. {sigh}

Until next time…peace to all.