Are You Kidding Me?!?!

I may have the best husband ever. Or at the least the most thoughtful. It's been about 6 weeks since he took off to Chi-town to start his new job at DDB. November 4th to be exact, which was exciting in and of itself since he had the opportunity to vote in Hoboken and fly to Chicago to be part of a celebrating city as we elected our next president.

Anyway, flash forward 6 weeks, 6 pretty difficult weeks, and I get a card from him. Inside is a truly heartfelt message that acknowledges my efforts during his absence and a bunch of sweet nothings that I care not to share on this site :). More importantly however, within the card is another smaller envelope that asks me not to open it until Dec. 15th after the "knock" on my door at 3PM. How cryptic is that? And how freakish is that? I mean I'm expecting something but I don't know what it is.

Monday the 15th rolls around, per my previous blog entry, I spend a good part of the day with Karen, Deville & Luca. I get home a bit after 2 and proceed to anxiously hang out and await this knock. 3pm comes and goes. 3:30 approaches and of course I'm in the middle of changing a very messy, poopy diaper when sure enough there is a knock on the door. Flustered, I leave Stella on the changing table (clean), and answer the door.

An older Asian woman is at the door with a giant plastic bin and immediately starts talking to me introducing herself, and recognizing me from the gym. Interesting...I probably came off a little standoffish as I told her that I had no idea what was going on. She directs me to open the envelope. Aha. I invite her in, finish getting Stella dressed and hear the woman busying herself...with what, no idea. I come back out and find the envelope, rip it open and begin reading...

Hokie sh*ts as Scott would say. He delivered me a gift via this person. Ping is a personal chef! As I watch her unload her plastic bin full of fresh food, pots, pans and spices, she explains that she is to make me dinner that night and two additional entrees for the rest of the week. I can't even begin to describe what this means to me from a 'my husband is so thoughtful' perspective, and just from an outright logistical help standpoint. Don't think he truly understands how much time and energy he has saved by doing this in the final week we are in our apartment.

I had a fantastic day. It was about 65 degrees. Stella and I went out to run a couple of errands and to just lackadaisically meander the streets of Hoboken. I was in no hurry to get back with groceries to prepare dinner. YES! I just needed to show up when I got hungry. Stella and I hung out for 2 1/2 hours. We got home by 6:30...I was eating a deliciously home cooked meal by 6:40. Seriously.

My dinner menu consisted of: Chicken Marsala (melted in my mouth), side of sugar snap peas and cous cous. It was delectably delicious. She also made two other entrees: 1) Coffee grind crusted skirt steak, broccoli rabe, yellow rice w/ black beans and sweet plaintains (see pix above), 2) Chicken curry stir fry with noodles and vegetables. I have tupperwares full of deliciousness that I can open and heat up and eat to my heart's content. In addition to this, she left me plenty of sliced up veggies in ziploc bags for me to toss a salad together in 5 minutes or less. She also made plenty of each dish as like me, she has a hard time cooking for 1.

The fact that Scott not only came up with this idea, but executed it and worked with Ping on the menu is just a wonderful thing. It is thoughtful, it is helpful and it is freaking DELICIOUS. Thanks baby!