Postpartuum Paranoia Plunge

Some people cry; some people glow; some people thrive. I get paranoid. After the birth of my first child, I refused to answer my door for weeks and made my husband take down celebratory balloons. I was convinced someone would take my baby. I worked through this by walking and running more and more streets in the neighborhood with baby and dog. Three years later, I became obsessed about crashing my car on a bridge and ending up in the river. My best Christmas present ever, the Life Hammer, helped me through that fear.

After welcoming Baby #3, my paranoia centers around disasters; a recent issue of Parent's Magazine (and a much older edition of Popular Mechanics) encouraged families to create a disaster kit. As I started working on this, I started wondering what I would do if I lost everything I had in a fire. If I had to run out of my house, the last thing I would ever think to take is my cute Longaberger recipe basket. All of the recipes I've collected from magazines, websites, friends, and family LOST. My recent recipes are on scribbled pieces of paper with Halloween stickers; I can't even find them twice in the same day.

The only person I ever talk kitchen-shop with is Joyce. Because I don't think she judges how I cook or how little I know about cooking. We are in survival mode-busy working moms who try to have something of our own. So through a series of emails and texts, we decided to try this as a way to share our successful kitchen triumphs. And work me through my third bout of paranoia.