Does your routine help get dinner on the table, or bore you to tears?

We parent with routine and structure. Serious structure. Maybe it's the German in me, or maybe it's because we have had a relatively easy time of things when we are all rested and have even blood sugar levels...It's worked well for our home from eating to sleeping.Well last night we had to go to M's school 'family science night' and the pork chops weren't cooked through, and the mashed potatoes were too milky (I dumped too much in in my haste...) Having to eat dinner an hour earlier threw me off completely. I let M play at the park too long, I pulled out the photos from two years ago that need to go in an album, I lost track of time... (BTW, why do I pick now, when we move in three weeks, to pull out the albums and two years of old photos???)We are creatures of routine. Unlike my French family, who made every effort to keep living the life they had, with the children fitting in, we fit our life around the schedule that worked best for our child. (This is not judging parents who don't live by routine, just saying what worked for us. I watched my French relatives with awe and a little jealousy, as they biked to Parisian dinner parties that lasted until early in the morning with the kids along and they all did just fine. I think we had less of an exciting social life to sacrifice if I'm being honest...)We have had a harmonious, if totally predictable routine. When did it start? I trace it back to when M was 7 1/2 weeks, we warmed up the bathroom with a space heater and gave her a warm bath (no soap, just a natural oil in the water). This was followed by 5-10 minutes of  massage, fresh diaper, last bottle, warm jammies, song, then I put her down awake and she slept six hours straight. I'll tell you we did that same bedtime routine for months, and it sort of cemented our love of routine. Sleep will do that to you.Meals and dinner are much the same. We eat every 3-4 hours.  I start cooking between 5:45 and 6 pm. I peel, wash, or start the potatoes—they ALWAYS take longer than you think. I lay the table while things are simmering, perhaps the rice cooker has been going while we were at the park. Sometimes M helps me lay the table, sometimes I let her play Legos or barbies. Then we sit down to eat between 6:30 and 6:45. Every. Night. And I like it that way, and it works for us, and I'm grateful that I have the time and the predictable routine at this point in time to make it happen. I know some day we will wrestle with evening activities that M desperately wants to do, but for now, I protect those evenings with a passion. I love dinner. I love the food I cook (mostly) and I love chatting with my family. I resent evening activities for cutting into that time. I turn down speaking engagements so I can walk the talk with family meals, because yes, it is that important to me.We ate the squash standing up and ran out the door with the half-cooked meal on the stove. Sigh. We all did fine, and science night was a blast. We nuked the pork chops and potatoes when we got home, and it was edible, and we went to bed later, and we survived. I will be more careful planning my time when I'm out of my familiar routine, I will not chose those evenings to reminisce over photos of family vacations from years ago...Are you a creature of routine? Does your routine help get dinner on the table, or bore you to tears?  Maybe somewhere in between? What does your afternoon look like?