Friday ef-ups on a Thursday

Thank you all so much for the kind words, prayers, and encouragemen for my dad. He was sent to a rehab facility Tuesday. It's only 9 minutes from Rea's school, so it'll be easy to see him and to bring my mom. After visiting him Sunday evening, he acted so like himself - joking around, wanting to read his book on some history thing, I decided that he has the will to live. He wants to be here for my mom. He's hoping to get a great grand baby (first wedding of his 24 grandkids in a few weeks, so great grand babies feel like a pipe dream). I'm hopeful that he recovers and isn't in constant pain. 

*****

I have organized upcoming post ideas in my drafts. So many of them fall into the ef-ups category, I thought I'd share a few today: 

Got Milk? 6 weeks ago, Kay asked if she could make my protein balls for me. My inventory in the freezer was depleted, and she's made them before, so I said sure. I was at the minibar that straddles the kitchen and family room, drafting an email to Curly's coach - asking if she would reconsider allowing Curly to go to the 9/26 wedding before I cancelled the flights. 

Took this out of the freezer yesterday.
 Thawed it and turned it into balls.

I can picture all of you cringing. Rest assured, I didn't send the email. 

Kay:  I might've put in too much milk. Should I just add more oatmeal?

Me:  Hang on a minute. Let me look.

Too much milk? Quite the understatement. The recipe called for 3 cups of oats and a 1/2 cup of milk. We always double it. She added 6 cups of milk instead of 1. In order to fix it, I had to add 12 cups of oatmeal. I didn't have that much oatmeal. A trip to the store was needed, as was every single large bowl that I owned. My shoulder hurt for days after stirring the huge vats of protein ball dough. *sigh*

Good news:  I don't have to make protein balls for a while. I have a big inventory in my freezer.

Where's the beef chicken?  A woman in my college alumnae book club was hit by a car the end of May. A woman driving a minivan took a turn and mowed her down while she was crossing the street in her neighborhood in broad daylight. She was lucky that she had no internal injuries or head trauma. She broke her pelvis, her sternum, a collar bone, both bones in one leg, etc. I waited until after the grad party in late June to sign up on MealTrain to bring her dinner.

The first week of August:

• Tuesday I hosted the families I sit for for an early dinner, so they could watch the Curly Movie and say good-bye and get caught up the week before daycare starts up. 
• Wednesday, the next day, we had family dinner. One last gathering before Curly left. 
• On Thursday, I signed up to take the woman's family dinner. 

It was a hectic time. I wasn't babysitting yet, but Curly was sitting for Lil Curly (who has pin straight hair, but has the same first name IRL as Curly). 

As an aside, I video chat Curly while I'm babysitting quite often. She loves to say hi to Baby Curly. Every time Baby Curly sees Big Curly, she says, "HI BIG CURLY," and I die laughing.

Before the babysitting dinner, Reg ran to the store to grab necessary ingredients for crockpot mac and cheese. He came home without a mandatoy item, so Tuesday morning I ran to the store. While I was there, I thought "I'll grab the chicken for MealTrain dinner."

I walked in from the store, and Curly alerted me of a Lil Curly potty victory. To quote Monty Python, "They all rejoiced." Lil Curly loves Big, but she's attached to me, so my involvement in her potty training continued as a theme all summer. 

We danced, we sang, and I gifted stickers and M&M's. I loaded the mac and cheese in the crockpot, and continued to prep for the upcoming days of meals and guests, etc.

I know she loves Diet Coke, so I threw
 one in with the dinner and dessert.

Thursday, I opened the fridge to get started on balsamic chicken and peppers. I couldn't find the chicken that I'd bought. After checking all.the.fridges, including the dining room fridge, I started to grumble. I assumed Coach had grilled the MealTrain chicken when he grilled for the family dinner. He swore that wasn't the case. 

I raced to the store, bought more chicken, and  prepeared the dinner. When it was time to drive to deliver it, I realized that I had to take GW (Great White, our 12 seater van). Curly had to drive somewhere and she doesn't drive GW, as there's a learning curve with it. I was bummed, because holy gas guzzler and the address was a haul - like 25-30 min away. 

If only the scent of
 the flowers could've
 over powered the
scent of rotting chicken.

I'd not thought about buying flowers for a centerpiece, so I cut some hydrangeas from our bush in the front yard, loaded the food in the car, and hopped in. The car smelled bad. We don't drive it often, but Reg takes it to caddy when the other four cars are in use, so I thought he'd left something in the bag for garbage. The bag was basically empty. Huh?

Then it hit me.

Me (outLOUD):  OH, NO -I KNOW WHAT THIS IS!

I hopped out of the car, jogged to the rear, opened the door and there it was. The chicken that I bought on Tuesday. 

In my mind, it all made sense:  I'd raced inside with the ingredients, and intended to run back outside to get the rest of the bags (that happened to contain chicken), but I got sidetracked celebrating potty time . . . and one of my kids probably walked by, slammed the rear door without looking inside. The chicken had been festering in the 90 plus degree temps in the rear of GW for like 52 hours.

I tossed the chicken in an old recycling bin, kicked it out of the garage, got back in the car, and drove to the address - windows down, while batting at a swarm of flies. By the time I got to this woman's house, I worried that she'd smell rotting meat on me, or note flies stuck in my hair (it felt like they were stuck all over me). I called Coach to warn him of the treat waiting near the driveway when we got home. "See if you can think of a dumpster nearby." Our garbage men had come that morning.

Fortunately, the patient was asleep upstairs. Her daughter let me in. I didn't linger and I hope my perfume, au de rotting chicken, didn't either. I don't know this woman well enough to explain my mistake. Maybe some day?

*****

Have you had any good ef-ups lately? What food item have you left in the car or out of the fridge and lived to tell smell like it?