Saturday, April 14, 2007

A Jonah Day

Today I had grand plans; I needed to plan my lesson for Relief Society tomorrow, make four Pumpkin Pies for the BBQ, clean my whole house (it gets messy when I work all week; I'm not very good at multi-tasking), get ready for the BBQ/Graduation Party for Avram, and go to a Bridal Shower.
Grand plans, yes. Accomplished? Not really.
Avram got up at 7:30, and Lydia woke up then, too. But I couldn't get up. I really mean it; my eyes wouldn't stay open. I think they were swollen shut. Really. So Lydia crawled all over me, because she wouldn't let Avram take her away from me. Then Lydia finally went with Avram, so I got some sleep. Unfortunately that meant Avram had to take care of Lydia instead of focusing on a paper he needed to write. (I, however, got to stay in bed and dream about living in Alaska with Avram, and our teenage son's girlfriend.)
So I finally got up at 9:00, and then the day seemed like it would progress fairly well. That is, until we made Pumpkin Pies. I had bought extra deep Pie Shells, so that all of the pumpkin pie filling would fit, but there was a lot of extra room. And the filling seemed awful dark. Avram and I both noticed this, but didn't really think much of these two thoughts. We proceeded to put the pies in the oven for 15 minutes, and then we switched the pies around, so they would brown evenly. While doing this I had an epiphany 15 minutes late; we had forgotten the evaporated milk!
I'm embarrassed to admit this, because I pride myself on being a good cook, and Avram too cooks a lot, and is good. I had already given into conveniance by purchasing pre-made pie tins, and now on top of this the filling was substandard! After we both had a moment of panic, we pulled the pies out of the oven. I was tempted to just throw everything away and give up, but I paid a lot of money for these pies, and besides then we would have nothing for desert.
Our brains already being broken, we thought it might be a good idea that as we needed four cans of evaporated milk, and we had four pies, that we should pour one can into each respective pie, and that would fix everything. I poured one can into one pie, and the milk overflowed all over the table, and what was left in the poor pie shell didn't mix at all with the filling. So we ended up pouring the contents of all of the pies back into the mixing bowl, and finishing the recipe that way.
Luckily it seems to have worked, except for all of the pie crusts have large swaths of burnt edges where the pumpkin pie filling poured over the crust.
Meanwhile all of this put me incredibely behind with cleaning the whole house. I managed to do most of the dishes before I had to leave for the bridal shower, but then I had to get the pies out. While I was looking at the pies to determine doneness, Lydia came crawling over to the oven and tried to stand up by means of the door. She began screaming, and at that moment I knew that I was truly having a Jonah Day.* Luckily after running her hand under running cold water for a while she seemed to be okay, because I don't know how we would have bandaged her entire hand.
And now I've returned from the bridal shower, and my family's going to be here in a half an hour, and my house is still a mess, and instead of cleaning it I'm writing this blog. Productive, aren't I? Which means I had better go and at least pretend to clean until people arrive.

*A Jonah Day refers to Anne of Avonlea, when Anne has a toothache and she is in a horrible mood and beats a child at school, and she calls it a Jonah Day.

4 comments:

  1. I laughed at your misfortunes. You're good for my mental health.

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  2. Bork! i am so sorry! I hope that when the Fam gets there that they help you out. oh well I remember one thanks giving I forgot to put in the sugar. We didnt realize until after they were already cooked. No matter how much whipped cream you put on it didnt help. Oh well I hope that they taste good
    I love you

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  3. the pies tasted fine.. and Thora I for one was glad your house was not spic and span like it is every other time I come over. It makes me feel better about my own house in disaray. And why is it we feel like we have to impress our own sisters with spotless homes? I mean we all have kids, we all know how hard it is to keep up with. i love you and your messy house too!! so dont clean jsut for me coming over on wed!

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  4. Mary, I'm still laughing at your comment. I remember once when Mom made hot cereal with salt instead of sugar...we had eggs for breakfast.

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