No Phone Calls Allowed

If you're wondering why there is a picture of a plate of cookies on my blog, wonder no more. I'm going to tell you why.

It's because sometimes you really need to be able to look at a nice picture of something that did, after all, turn out ok.

Instead of looking at the following picture, which my youngest child has suggested that we "print two copies of and hang in the kitchen." (His exact words, I promise you.)


Let me tell you about yesterday afternoon, which started so promisingly and ended up such a mess.

I started the afternoon making chicken pot pie for dinners. One for us, one for a friend, and one for the missionaries. I peeled and chopped and boiled and mixed, keeping an eye on the clock at the same time because I was on a tight time schedule. Things were humming right along and I was just as happy as could be.

I even decided I had time to make cookies for everyone, so I pulled out the chocolate chips (and some white chocolate chips too, just to be daring!) and some butter and sugar and started mixing.

From time to time I would set down the cookie making tools and do something else for the chicken pot pies. Everything was under control.

And then it happened. Right as I started mixing the cocoa and the flour into the cookie dough, the phone started ringing. It rang and rang and rang. Every call someone I both wanted and needed to talk to. So I did what any woman would do. I mixed and talked and mixed and talked. But somewhere along the way I lost track of exactly how much mixing had occurred during all that talking. I had no idea how much flour I'd already put in and how much still needed to be added. I guessed — and guessed wrong.

I also realized as I glanced at the clock that the combination cookie making and phone talking had put me quite a bit behind schedule. I no longer had time to deliver the dinner to my friend, and I certainly didn't have time to figure out how to repair the cookie dough. In a frenzy of re-planning I put the dough in the fridge to fix later, asked Russ if he'd drop off the dinners, and left for my photography class.

Last night as we climbed into bed exhausted, Russ made a comment about the dinners. In that moment I realized that in my frantic attempt to get everything done and still leave for class on time, I had switched the dinners. Russ had taken the small pan of chicken pot pie (meant for the 2 missionaries) to my friend, and the really large pan of chicken pot pie (meant for my friend's kids who really like my chicken pot pie!) to the missionaries.

I felt so dumb.

Perhaps Jared is right, and we should hang the sign in the kitchen...this is just the last in a long line of recent telephone + cooking disasters. Pancakes with no salt...muffins with no spices...and even worse, muffins with no baking powder! It is clear to me that my brain at 43 cannot hold on to as many things at once as it used to.

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I'm so glad that today is a new day. I can laugh about all of the mixups and hope that my friend enjoys chicken pot pie for lunch. I can hope that the missionaries enjoy their left-overs. And I can fix the cookie dough and finish making the cookies.

Just don't call me on the phone while I'm doing it!