Bruschetta and Babies

Exhaustion. It's a ten letter word. Defined by yours truly, it means not being able to move, having aching feet, and feeling like no amount of sleep could ever suffice.

If you're wondering why I've chose to define exhaustion, simply put, it's because I'm exhausted. Due to unforseen circumstances, I played nanny for two full days on Monday and Tuesday to two twin babies and a wonderful four year old, who just happen to be my niece and nephews. After those two days I suddenly had a new appreciation for mothers who do that all day long. And by that I mean feeding babies, dealing with poop of the explosion variety, changing babies, and anything else that a baby could ever want. Add in one very active four year old and you've got exhaustion. It's the scientific formula.

For the two days after I was temporarily relieved of duty, I felt like no amount of sleep would help me. Eventually I found the will to live again, and I got on with my life.

To add insult to injury, my sister's house is roughly a thirty minute drive from where I live, and that's without morning traffic. Factor in rush hour, and you've got close to an hour drive on your hands, plus the obvious coffee stop for your employers. This means getting up at 5:30AM and being there for 7:00AM. I'm sure a lot of you are like, "Heck, that's no big D." Well to those people I say, it probably isn't. But you see, this is a big deal for me. The person who, the day before I started, got up at roughly 11AM. Kind of a big difference, wouldn't you say?

Besides the two full days of nanny-ing and surviving the days by singing Mary Poppins and coming up with my own acronyms, I've celebrated a friends birthday by seeing Eclipse and eating chicken strips, survived another full day of babies (this time they were on my turf) and seen another movie. Alright, minus the babies, my life is pretty simple. Simple and carefree. I'm completely lucky to be able to do what I love while school is out.

Tonight, we feasted like real Italians. I get asked a lot if, because I'm Italian, we eat like twenty courses of food every night and then finish it off with a cheese platter. My answer to that is, no. We eat chicken. A lot of chicken; with veggies and rice. However, today we dined like semi-Italians. It was a dinner with Tortellini in an alfredo sauce, with dark chicken, and... bruschetta. Yours truly even helped. The bruschetta is something I make a lot, usually once ever week or two. It's fantastic and, no lie, one of the easiest things to make.

I actually got the recipe from the hunger inducing film, Julie & Julia. Watch it!

The bruschetta is a part of my semi-new Get Into Summer mode. I'm going to be trying out recipes that inspire fun, creativity, and an appreciation for this time of year.

Until next time, happy baking!

-Jordan