Our first swim meet of the season was rained out tonight, but I learned something about my internal clock.

My husband gets home between 6 and 6:30, but he doesn't want to immediately sit down to dinner. He likes to read the mail and watch the news first. So during the school year we have dinner around 7:30. During the summer dinner time is even later. We swim laps from 7:00 to 8:00, so often it's close to 9:00 before we eat.

Tonight's meet was to start at 6:00. That meant warm ups at 5:00. There were lots of swimmers and the meet wouldn't be over until late, so I decided to eat my dinner before the meet. I had left over cod, a sweet potato, and watermelon. It surprised me, but I liked eating dinner at 4:30.

Storm clouds moved in, and the coaches postponed the meet. When my husband and kids ate at 7:30, I was still satisfied from my early dinner. I sat at the table to enjoy the conversation, but just had a glass of water.

Having dinner together is a priority for our family. I certainly don't want to eat early and miss the good companionship around the table. But I could use the oven timer and the crock pot more, so that we're ready to eat when we come in from the pool. I could eat my meat late in the late afternoon and have fruit and or salad at dinner time. I wonder if anyone else in the family would benefit from an earlier dinner time. I'm going to have to work on this.

On a different subject. There is a restaurant where my son and I like to eat liver & onions. Today I tried cooking liver & onions for lunch. I cut the liver into thin strips and cooked it slowly in a skillet. I cooked the onions separately in grape seed oil. We both agreed it was very good, rivaling the liver & onions in the restaurant.