What I Learned from Sunday dinners

Through this year of Sunday dinners, sometimes Sunday dinners were just, well, dinner. It was just food. Nothing fancy, nothing new, just a chance for the family to come together and eat, watch Sunday tv together, then go on our merry way. So what did I learn from this year of Sunday dinners?

• Cooking for family is sometimes a chore, but never a burden.  

• Sunday cooking is a chance to cook slow, eat slow, and bring our families, even those who have passed, into the kitchen
• Some things should be constant - dinner is always at 6. That way if people are gone, when they come back, they'll know - Sunday dinner, my house, 6 pm. 
• Dessert is mandatory for Sunday dinner. Seriously, when there's no dessert on Sunday, no one leaves, there's just no satisfactory transition to Monday. 
• Jello is a staple (see the bullet above)

So I have two more posts before I move on this year. The next theme for this blog has to do with the fact that I'm moving to Honolulu today and will be working and going to school there while the majority of my family stays in Hilo. I'm renting an apartment with my oldest son, and using this last year to pass on my  pake survival skills to him before I can let him go and declare him officially "raised." This year it's all about living pake in Honolulu. After all, my husband and I still have the same basic jobs, but we're adding on to our two mortgages one more apartment rental in Honolulu, I'm selling my Sequoia ($200/month in gas) and picking up a Honolulu car, and we're maintaining two separate households. In between, we'll try to send me home at least once a month.

Change is challenging, but it's good to stir up the pot sometimes don't you think?

Here's the view from the street outside our building. My bedroom has a straight view of the capitol building. We have the main highway right below the bottom street of our hill. This is definitely living in Honolulu.