January 24, 2012

Outside Temp: 39 (and WINDY!!)

What I cooked today:
Banana Bread: If you can call it that.  I think I probably put in too much banana anyway, but that was insignificant compared to the other problems.  First off, I forgot to grease the pan.  It was a non-stick and I know better, but I thought it wouldn't make a difference.  It does.  Second, my temperature gauge in the oven is stuck at 450.  The temp in the oven was supposed to be 350, and since I saw it so high, I turned down the temp, and opened the oven to cool it down.  After a few minutes, I just prayed that it was cooking, closed the oven door and let it keep cooking, but I didn't turn the temp back up.  Which means it probably tried to cook at an oven temp around 275 or 300.   Needless to say, the bread was totally messed up.  If you take into account the 'too much banana', it was pure mush.  Even when I tried to turn the heat up and cook for an extra 15 minutes, it was dense and really, really moist.  The taste wasn't bad, but it looked really ucky.  I ate a few bites, but tossed most of it.  I guess it was time for me to have a significant cooking fail.

Cornbread: To make me feel better about my banana bread, I made up my cornbread for dinner.  I was very happy to find that it worked out just fine and tasted great.  I hate to quit on a fail, so now I have a success to sleep on!

Chili: Always the best meal with cornbread, it's easy and (relatively) quick.  Katie and Connor don't like it that much, but the rest of us ate enough to finish off the pot.  Bummer, no leftovers for lunch tomorrow!

Update:
So, as you probably all know, we're renting the place we are living in.  When we moved in here back in September, I asked Patrick directly, "How long are we going to be here?".  Of course, he didn't have a clue.  And I since I doubted that it would be forever, I chose to leave about 30 boxes packed in the garage.  Most of those boxes contain books, china or crystal or computer 'stuff'.  All things that you don't use on a daily basis.  And as much as I hate packing, I couldn't see myself wasting the time unpacking, just to re-pack everything a few months later.

As a result, I never bothered to move my file cabinet inside.  I can hear you saying, "but a file cabinet isn't a box or books?".  I know... I know.  The file cabinet got moved half way inside, but never made it as far as my desk.  So, for the last few months, the 'to be filed' pile on my desk just kept growing.  I have 5 of those plastic stacking file trays on my desk, trying to be mildly organized.  One tray for bills, one for school work, one for the business, one for the sale of the CA house, one for medical stuff, one for coupons, one for insurance stuff, one for information that needs to be kept (but not actually used).  Oh wait, that's more than 5.  So, once I ran out of room in my file trays, the paperwork started migrating across the desks.  Patrick and I have two 'L' shaped desks that meet in the middle, to form a 'U'.  The paperwork was all the way from my side onto his side.  There was no part of the desk that could be seen under all that crap.  The worst part was that more than half of it was garbage that needed to just get thrown away (newspapers, used envelopes, junk mail, etc). 

My 'chore' for the day was to move my file cabinet into place under my desk (it came with the desk and fits perfectly) and to clear the junk.  It took me about 30 minutes just to clear the spot under my desk where the file cabinet was going to go.  Then I went in search for those green hanging file folders, and the file folders.  I knew I had them... somewhere.  

I found the file folders (a box of about 500 multi-colored that I picked up about 3 years ago, in one of my mad 'organizing' fits).  They were in the first box I looked in, and I breathed a sigh of relief.  It was short lived.  I realized quickly that the hanging file folders were not in that box.  Ugh.  Okay, maybe this next one.  Nope.  Next one?  Nope.  What about over here?  Nope.  This one?  Nope.  Crap. 

My boxes in my garage are stacked, about 4-5 boxes high.  Most of them are somewhat labeled, but how descriptive is 'Books', or 'Office Stuff' or 'Misc Stuff from School Room'.  And there is not really a lot of room in my garage (it's filled with 2 cars, a washer and dryer, 6 computers, 3 monitors, 4 non-snow tires for the van, and all those boxes).  So, squeezing between the Miata and a bookshelf, I tried moving things enough to read the useless labels.  Finally, I thought I saw something that might be it.  But it was at the bottom of a stack, that wasn't accessible from this side of the garage.  So, I went back into the house, out the back door, across the yard and into the back door to the garage.  And there, under a box labeled 'Patrick Dress Shirts' (nope, don't need that here much) and another box labeled 'Wire Racks for bathroom' (I wasted a box on those?), I found a box labeled 'Old School Books, Paper, Office'.  And at the bottom of that box, I found the stupid green hanging file folders.  It only took an hour!

At that point, it was time to take Ryan to school, so I put off my chore until we got home, around 4pm.  Then I got to work on the massive paperwork laughing at me.  Two garbage bags later, and one whole file cabinet drawer filled, my pile is gone.  I still have a few things on my desk, but the clutter is gone.  And more importantly, I can find important documents if I need to.  But really, why am I keeping old electric bills and Connor's spelling test from 9 weeks ago?  I don't know, but now at least it has it's place!

The best part of the day was finding the phone number for the transplant center in Seattle (on a scratch piece of paper no less), that we were supposed to call a month ago to set up an appointment.  I also found the phone numbers for business accountants (another scratch paper) that I was supposed to call 2 weeks ago.  I didn't find the check for $250 we got last week (that prompted my chore in the first place), but it's probably in the car.  Oh crap... tomorrow's project.