5.24.2008
It's for the kids
Today started off with a to-do list — really, it's for the whole weekend, but two things had to be done before this evening: baking a pound cake and making some accompanimental mocha chip ice cream for the guys at church who won said prizes in the silent auction a few months ago, which was helping the youth raise money for their mission trip to Belize.
We were up at 6 with Kent, and by 7, we were already on our way to Louie's for breakfast before the farmer's market opened at 8. Breakfast was nice, and we had a leisurely stroll around the market to pick up some tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, butternut squash, and an iced coffee. We ran into a few friends from church (we always see people we know at the market) and they flirted with Kent, as usual.
The stress part is coming, I promise.
Kent was getting sleepy, so when we got home, I went to put him down for a nap while Jack went out for a haircut and some groceries that I needed. Kent's nap was short, but it was okay, and when Jack got home, I thought I'd start baking the cake, until I realized that we were completely out of shortening. I use shortening for exactly one thing — baking pound cakes — so obviously the last time I made one, I ran out and then forgot about that. We were going to do a real grocery run to Target anyway, so we just decided to go there and tackle the rest of our shopping list, then come home and bake, etc.
Target wasn't that much of a madhouse, but it took forever for us to get out of there. Jack stood in line to pay for everything while I looked all over the store for this candy bar that I had a free coupon for, and when I finally found it at the one register that still had some left, Jack was already done and was waiting for me in another part of the store. I saw him, but he didn't see me, and I just decided that Kent and I would wait in line to get the free candy bar — it couldn't take long, right? Wrong. The woman two customers in front of me was having some major issue with her payment method, and she kept swiping different cards and trying to remember PINs while I began to fume silently. I'm not ordinarily an angry or impatient person, but Kent was getting hungry, and I could already feel that he had peed through his clothes onto my shirt, so I just wanted to sit down and take his shorts off, nurse him, and then get the heck out of there. By the time I got through the line, Jack had completely given up on finding me in the store and had gone out to the car to look for us, but he finally came back in as Kent was finishing up eating.
So we got home, and I was thinking, "I have to get this cake in the oven, but I'm going to pass out if I don't eat something right now." My breakfast was gone, but the iced coffee was still doing its thing, so I was jittery and low-blood-sugary. I threw together some bagel pizzas for lunch, then began the ice cream while they were in the oven. After a hasty lunch, Jack whisked Kent away to a cooler part of the house (seriously, it's 90 here, and I think our A/C has stopped working again), and I tried to get the cake together while the ice cream was churning. I took off my shirt halfway through the mixing process, so there I was, standing in a hot kitchen that was slowly becoming a disaster zone, wearing only my bra and shorts and wanting desperately for it all to be over. There were chocolate chunks on the floor, spilled coffee on the counter (which I wanted to blame on someone else but then realized it was TOTALLY my fault), and a general sense of impending chaos until I got the ice cream in the freezer and got the cake in the oven.
Then, within five minutes, I was okay again. In those five minutes, I took a sleepy/hungry Kent into my arms, rocked him to sleep in his semi-dark room with the fan blowing on us, and cooled down in more ways than one while I got a nice dose of Prolactin. Jack came out to the kitchen and started to clean up the disaster zone, and when I came out and turned on the baby monitor, he reported to me that the cake batter and the leftover ice cream in the bottom of the maker were both delicious. He's a good husband.
Once the cake has finished baking and has cooled, I'll deliver it and the ice cream to the winners of my silent auction prize, and then I might sit in a colder part of the house for the rest of the day.
Oh wait, there's the rest of that to-do list... it's a good thing this is a three-day weekend.
We were up at 6 with Kent, and by 7, we were already on our way to Louie's for breakfast before the farmer's market opened at 8. Breakfast was nice, and we had a leisurely stroll around the market to pick up some tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, butternut squash, and an iced coffee. We ran into a few friends from church (we always see people we know at the market) and they flirted with Kent, as usual.
The stress part is coming, I promise.
Kent was getting sleepy, so when we got home, I went to put him down for a nap while Jack went out for a haircut and some groceries that I needed. Kent's nap was short, but it was okay, and when Jack got home, I thought I'd start baking the cake, until I realized that we were completely out of shortening. I use shortening for exactly one thing — baking pound cakes — so obviously the last time I made one, I ran out and then forgot about that. We were going to do a real grocery run to Target anyway, so we just decided to go there and tackle the rest of our shopping list, then come home and bake, etc.
Target wasn't that much of a madhouse, but it took forever for us to get out of there. Jack stood in line to pay for everything while I looked all over the store for this candy bar that I had a free coupon for, and when I finally found it at the one register that still had some left, Jack was already done and was waiting for me in another part of the store. I saw him, but he didn't see me, and I just decided that Kent and I would wait in line to get the free candy bar — it couldn't take long, right? Wrong. The woman two customers in front of me was having some major issue with her payment method, and she kept swiping different cards and trying to remember PINs while I began to fume silently. I'm not ordinarily an angry or impatient person, but Kent was getting hungry, and I could already feel that he had peed through his clothes onto my shirt, so I just wanted to sit down and take his shorts off, nurse him, and then get the heck out of there. By the time I got through the line, Jack had completely given up on finding me in the store and had gone out to the car to look for us, but he finally came back in as Kent was finishing up eating.
So we got home, and I was thinking, "I have to get this cake in the oven, but I'm going to pass out if I don't eat something right now." My breakfast was gone, but the iced coffee was still doing its thing, so I was jittery and low-blood-sugary. I threw together some bagel pizzas for lunch, then began the ice cream while they were in the oven. After a hasty lunch, Jack whisked Kent away to a cooler part of the house (seriously, it's 90 here, and I think our A/C has stopped working again), and I tried to get the cake together while the ice cream was churning. I took off my shirt halfway through the mixing process, so there I was, standing in a hot kitchen that was slowly becoming a disaster zone, wearing only my bra and shorts and wanting desperately for it all to be over. There were chocolate chunks on the floor, spilled coffee on the counter (which I wanted to blame on someone else but then realized it was TOTALLY my fault), and a general sense of impending chaos until I got the ice cream in the freezer and got the cake in the oven.
Then, within five minutes, I was okay again. In those five minutes, I took a sleepy/hungry Kent into my arms, rocked him to sleep in his semi-dark room with the fan blowing on us, and cooled down in more ways than one while I got a nice dose of Prolactin. Jack came out to the kitchen and started to clean up the disaster zone, and when I came out and turned on the baby monitor, he reported to me that the cake batter and the leftover ice cream in the bottom of the maker were both delicious. He's a good husband.
Once the cake has finished baking and has cooled, I'll deliver it and the ice cream to the winners of my silent auction prize, and then I might sit in a colder part of the house for the rest of the day.
Oh wait, there's the rest of that to-do list... it's a good thing this is a three-day weekend.
Labels: husband things, kitchen adventures
- posted by erica 5/24/2008 03:33:00 PM
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Comments:
Half-naked cooking--I've totally been there too. ;)
Glad you got your cakes and ice cream done though...even though your day was stressful, it was still far more productive than mine has been!
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Glad you got your cakes and ice cream done though...even though your day was stressful, it was still far more productive than mine has been!
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