Edit: I have been rightfully chastised for only showing stepson in a 'bad' light. My blog is not the news channel - there should be some good news sprinkled in there somewhere. So, let me preface this post with the following statements. Stepson is by no means a bad kid. He's actually a pretty good kid. He does well in school, is a quick learner, (as far as I know) doesn't do drugs and isn't a bully. He's a regular kid with regular kid tendencies. With that said, let's get on with the post...."

After the zucchini pancake disaster I still had zucchini left over. What to do with it, I wondered. Well, the next day I made herbed rice (really good) and zucchini fries (not bad although Sid has now decided that zucchini is nasty). Yesterday I made more of the berry muffins. Today I want to make a baked garlic cheddar chicken (recipe from the net). I really wanted to make the caesar chicken sandwich on ciabatta bread that I found in my cookbook but I have yet to prepare the chicken - but I did buy all of the necessary ingredients so I had better use them.
Edit: I did make the garlic cheddar chicken and everybody liked it.

On a different note... If your child is living in your house is it acceptable for that child to act like he is living at a bed-and-breakfast? He comes home, goes in his room, closes the door, and basically only comes out to eat. Is this normal 16 yr-old behavior?? I know I could never have done that in my mother's house. Keeping the door closed alone is a sign of disrespect. To me it's a way of saying this is my life here and you all are out there and the twain don't meet unless I want it to. This, of course, is wrong, because as long as we are responsible for him his life is not off-limits to us. Am I reading too much into this? I don't want to hear about privacy. He may think he needs privacy but to do what? Every day all day??

I don't like it and I've told him to keep his door open. What does he do now? The door is not closed anymore but is only open a half inch or so. His father doesn't like it but doesn't say anything. He's quickly developing his own attitude to this situation (and others). I'm the stepmother which makes it difficult to say anything. I know that if it was Sid this would not be going on. I would have put a full stop to it a long time ago. Having stepkids is hard. The biological parent can easily get defensive when something is done/said to their children. Hubby has never done this. Regardless, I'm well aware that there is a line and I try to stay far away from it, so 99 times out of a 100 I talk to hubby and he is the enforcer. There is that 1% though and it's a fine balancing act. One wrong move could set a lot of negative actions in motion. And I certainly don't want to make things worse than they are. But a kid has to learn respect.