When Life Happens, There Are Always Corn Dogs

This is a fun conversation graciously sponsored by Tyson®. All opinions contained herein are my own.

In this post I talk about crazy things that keep me from putting supper/lunch/breakfast on the table from time to time. I’d love to hear your crazy stories in the comments section below! 

I’m sure you can relate. Homeschool, two parents with two full time jobs, teenager, pre-teen and her best friend, chorus practice, band practice, concerts for both, volunteer positions for everyone in the family, and more. Life is a wonderful busy array of activities when you  have a family and the best of plans sometimes get waylayed. Things come up, appointments sneak up on ya, and life happens.

Today I’m sharing a staple that has been found in my freezer since my son was a toddler, my secret weapon that keeps us all from starving when Mama is busy, out of town, out of pocket, or temporarily out of her mind due to crazy scheduling.

Frozen corn dogs. Seriously. Who can resist a crunchy cornbread coating wrapped around basically a stick of protein? Not me. Slather it with mustard and I’ll knock you down trying to get to it. Did you do that in elementary school? We always loved corn dog day and I’d get that one packet of mustard, squirt it all over the corn dog and then use the empty packet to smear it all over until every bite was coated. Ketchup kids weren’t that cool, they only dipped their dogs. Mustard people went all in!

I also buy what we call “breakfast corndogs” which are essentially a sausage with a pancake coating. They are Jimmy Dean® brand and my son just loves them. He and I are both “grab and go” breakfast people.

So frozen corn dogs are a staple at my house, and not just any kind, the ones that are individually wrapped are the only ones I buy. We have always used State Fair® brand beef corn dogs that come in their own wrapped inside the big blue box. Why? Well, let’s be practical here. There is no way on earth my freezer is cleaned out enough to have room for that big box. The individual wrapped corn dogs and breakfast corn dogs can be stuck in all those nooks and crannies of the freezer. Sure, it’s kinda like a treasure hunt when you need one sometimes but that also makes it feel more like a prize when you get it! 😀 It also makes me the hero when one of the kids declares “We’re out of corn dogs” and I can go dig around a minute and say with a triumphant smile  “No we’re not!”.

So when do corn dogs show up in the meal plan?

• When lunch passed hours ago without notice and my daughter and I realize we’ve been working all day and are nigh on famished.
• When we are rushing to get her school work and blog work done so that we can get out of the house and into the great outdoors and live a little.
• On those ultra rare days when my kitchen is immaculate and my mother was on her way to visit so dirtying up a single dish was out of the question.
• Mornings when my teenage son hit the snooze button for an hour instead of getting up the first time the alarm went off.
• When half the house was sick and the other half hungry.
• When your dog manages to unzip your purse, pull out a sealed chocolate bar, unwrap it, and eat the entire thing, prompting an emergency vet visit – and you come home two hours later and realize that everyone is going to be ready for supper in ten minutes.

The truth is that I plan on cooking supper every night, but that doesn’t always happen. The truth is that cooking lunch just isn’t in my schedule, so instead I “come up with” something in the middle of our day of homeschooling and work.

Our days are busy right now and even though that leaves me a bit frazzled at times, I know that soon enough the day will come when our kids will be out of the house with families of their own and my noisy house with the constantly moving traffic will be still and silent. So while I have this busy life, I don’t want to miss out on a second of it. As a result, I sometimes miss out on cooking because I am too busy living.

But thankfully, there are always corndogs.

I want to hear from you!

What are some of the crazy reasons why you haven’t been able to get supper on the table lately?

Tell me in the comments below!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Tyson®. The opinions and text are all mine.