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Awe, Snap, y'all.  Could it be? Could bacon once again be the answer to life, the universe, and everything? Or is that still 42? I think I'll let you decide.

Last night for supper, I borrowed another recipe from my girl Ree Drummond of The Pioneer Woman, and I roasted green beans in the oven with onion and bacon for our green-veggie side dish. Here's the link to the recipe from Food Network dot com. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/roasted-green-beans.html

I didn't have thin cut bacon, and I had frozen, not fresh green beans, but I still followed her guidelines for the most part. I did not add the olive oil, and I did not add the salt. Both of which I felt the bacon would impart on the beans in plenty, plus, my clan isn't hauling cattle, so we don't need the extra calories from the added oil.

But, today's post isn't about last night's supper as much as it's about this morning. Check it out.

So ... in using the bacon for the green beans, I cut the pound in half and used only half of the bacon last night, and saved the other half for breakfast today. 

I did a little test. 

At 6:57am, I put a pan on the stove, turned it to medium, and walked to the fridge. I got out the other half of the bacon, removed it from it's zipper bag, and put it fat side down in the pan. No, I didn't separate each slice. Wait for it...

As the heat of the pan starts to melt the bacon fat, it warms the slices, making it MUCH easier to peel apart. As it started to cook, I slowly pulled of the half pieces and laid them in the pan to cook. I turned them as needed, arranged them as they shrunk and made space for the others, and lovingly cooked them until they were ready to come out. 

At 7:06am, they were crispy, brown, and amazing, and draining on a paper towel. I turned off the pan, and headed upstairs to wake up the kids. Yes. You read that correctly. Less than TEN minutes, and a half pound of bacon was cooked beautifully and ready for my little morning monsters to gobble them up.

I opened their curtains to let the morning sun in, gently kissed their sweet heads and told them I made bacon. "Get up, brush your teeth, put on your clothes, and come on down for breakfast. I've made bacon and pancakes."

When I went into GG's room, I simply said, "Smell that? What is that? What's for breakfast?" and she sleepily looked up, then jumped up and yelled, "BACON!" 

Never have I seen those 2 move so fast.

I went into our room to get dressed, do my hair and face, and GG was downstairs, dressed, and sitting in her chair at the table before I got back downstairs.

The second (are we up to 2, or is it more than that, I've lost count) amazingly wonderful thing about this morning was the elimination of the, "But Mommy! I don't want to wear that!" fight that we've had every day of school so far. 

To eliminate this, I bought a hanging shelf doohickey that hangs from the closet bar and has 6 compartments. We have one for every day of the week for school, and one for our practice uniforms. The kids helped me pick out what they wanted to wear for the week, and in the morning they just grab the set from the next compartment, and they're done. No fight, no drama. 

The third amazingly awesome part of this morning was that I made the pancakes yesterday, put them in between layers of wax paper, inside a zipper bag in the fridge, so this morning I just nuked them and viola, instant awesome breakfast.

While the kids had breakfast I made and packed Conner's lunch. Morning crazy DONE.

We went into the living room to watch the news before going to the bus, and I looked at the clock. 7:45pm. I was amazed! 2 kids up, dressed, totally fed, lunch made, drama free, in only about 42 minutes.

I'm sure I'll have readers who think, "Oh yeah? So What? I do this every morning. And you don't churn your own butter, or gather your own eggs? And you call yourself a "Mom"." To you, my sweet reader, I'm proud of you and in awe. Being able to do this day after day is an amazing feet. I'm on day 6 of school mornings, and it has not been the sunshine and roses of "Leave It To Beaver" days of old. I'm new here. Bravo to those Mom's and Dad's who do this with grace and style each and every morning. Who makes a cooked breakfast for their kids every day and manages to leave the house with a swirl of butterflies, chirping robins, and bouncing baby bunnies following behind.

To the rest of us who are just really grateful that our kids are dressed in clean clothes, have seen a hair brush in the last week, and remembered to put on shoes, I raise my coffee mug to you too. This is hard work!  And don't get me started on the parents that do all of this and then go to an office/place of work outside of the house. Y'all aren't human.

So ... the answer to life, the universe, and everything could easily be bacon, or 42. As it took about 42 minutes from start to finish to have fresh bacon cooked, cooled, ready to eat, and 2 kids up, dressed, and not fighting before school.

What do you think?

Bacon, or 42?