[2021-07-08] From drudgery to delight
My son and I recently established a new tradition. Once a week, Shane and I cook dinner together. This serves three purposes:
- It helps Shane gain experience in the kitchen.
- It gives him another way to contribute around the house.
- Most importantly, it creates an opportunity for the two of us to spend time together.
I also bake with my daughter, though we're not on a set schedule. Not only does such collaboration cut the time to prepare a dish or dessert in half, but it also makes for an enjoyable endeavour.
It reminds me of a quote that I read back in 2012 from Ellie Krieger, cookbook author and cooking show host:
I used to approach making dinner as drudgery, but then I started putting music on, pouring a glass of wine, having my daughter there ripping up lettuce for the salad. It can become the nicest part of your day.
I love the idea of turning a moment of potential drudgery into the nicest part of one's day.
In addition to cooking with my children, I enjoy doing the supper dishes with one of my kids each night. It takes just enough time to allow us to sink our teeth into a topic of conversation, but not so much that it feels like a grind.
Going for my daily walk is another activity into which I've inserted a little delight. I walk with a family member, chat with a friend over the phone, or listen to an audiobook. And, lately, I've made the final leg of my walk a trip to my local Farm Boy for fresh fruits and vegetables.
Kreiger's quote from 2012 inspired a blog post in Café Jen about turning daily drudgery into delight. In that article, I mentioned another activity that benefits from collaboration: collating numerous copies of documentation for a meeting. I remember one occasion, many years ago, when an employee and I stayed late at the office to prepare binders for a retreat of executives the next morning. We vastly underestimated the time it would take to print the content for and stuff several dozen binders. Somewhere around 10:00 p.m., we decided to go looking for some refreshment and found a couple of beers, likely leftovers from the occasional office parties that were a thing back in the day. It lightened the mood and gave us the psychological boost we needed to finish the task as victors not victims.
While I'd like to say that I've always succeeded in turning the mundane into champagne, the reality is that I forget all too frequently how pleasant an obligation can be when doing it with someone I love to spend time with.
