If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always had.

Saturday, March 04, 2006

post-gig

Remember the huge catering gig I mentioned a week or so ago? It's a thing of the past. It was actually much less painful than I'd thought it would be. The World's Greatest Boss (hereafter refered to as WGB) planned well and we only had three minor glitches.

Yesterday four of us made 35 banana cream pies in about two hours. We developed a good system early in the process, so it went really quickly. Toward the end of the second hour we had the first minor glitch: I dropped a pie. It was not as bad as I'd thought; it had a lid, and we were able to jiggle it back into place, so we really only lost one piece.

The second minor glitch occurred in transporting the pies from the shop to the church (which is where the gig was). We discovered that banana cream pies can't be stacked four high without damage to the bottom pie. That took care of a couple more pieces, but again, nothing we couldn't work around.

We arrived this afternoon in more than enough time to unload the appetizers and put them out. I was safely ensconsed in the downstairs kitchen, pulling pies out of the fridge, before the 210 guests attacked the table. I was very happy that WGB's husband volunteered to help with appetizers!

The third minor glitch was that, although both WGB and I remember saying we needed to pack a skinny scraper, it didn't get packed. That meant we had to pack Cool Whip into the decorator with a pie server. It wasn't quite as efficient, but it worked.

Serving actually went quite smoothly. Again, we developed a good system. WGB plated the slices, I garnished with Cool Whip and strawberry slices, and my good friend Curly Sue covered the in-between things, like dressing plates, slicing berries, and refilling my decorator. Sue and I have worked other gigs together and have been known to hang out and terrorize people on occassion, so it was great fun. It helped that I had comfortable shoes on!

The very best part of the event was that my kids were serving meals to the paying guests. This was our big youth mission trip fund raiser, so all the youth work. After we finished, I stood in a shadow and watched them work for a while. It's just such a novel thing to see! When I left, Vicky was serving dinners, and Alex was refilling tea glasses. I bet they sleep well tonight!

Friday, March 03, 2006

Do you hear a cricket?

It's been so quiet here! There is a reason: I'm boring.

No, really, I have a busy life, but none of it is very exciting. The most exciting thing I've done this week was pay off three credit accounts with our tax refund.

No, really, that was exciting! That means we're three steps closer to debt-freedom. If you've never heard Dave Ramsey, he's worth listening to. Check his website to see if he's on a station in your area, or I think you can listen on-line. We're taking his Financial Peace University class and it's been really great so far. If I've crunched my numbers right, at our current income, we can have everything including the house paid off in six years. Debt snowballs are awesome!

Oh, and I did find a couple of the tops I was looking for last week. It was a productive day!

Monday, February 27, 2006

Shopping

We have a huge catering gig at work this weekend. The dress code requires black pants and a white shirt. The black shoes I wore Valentines night me blistered and miserable, so after dinner I embarked on a quest for black work sneakers.

Normally I work in Nikes, but of course I went to three stores and could not find black Nikes. I settled for Champions, which I think will be fine, and since they had a sale going I bought two similar pairs. I figure if nothing else I can change shoes part way through the gig. I have a couple days to test wear them, too.

While I was out, I decided to look for tops, either mock turtlenecks or polos. I don't need it for the gig; I need it to go under a wool sweater with a slightly itchy neckline.

I found nothing.

Nada.

Well, that's not exactly true. I did find one polo with horizontal stripes, and some polos in the men's department that would not have fit right. I also found button-down cotton shirts that I thought might work, and the price was right.

Then I realized I was in Maternity. They didn't have cute stuff when I was pregnant! Makes me so mad; I was stuck with turquoise overalls, tent dresses, expando panel jeans, and Eric's shirts. Oh, and let's not forget the lovely maternity battle dress uniform! You, too, can look like a walking bush!

Sorry. I digress.

I ended up with the shoes I needed. That was the important part. I'll find the other stuff later, but I'll shop someplace where I won't wander into Maternity so easily.

Back!

Sorry for the absence. I was away for the weekend on my daughter's confirmation class retreat. We went to a United Methodist Church camp a couple hours from here--"we" being our associate pastor, eight Jr. High kids, and me.

Yes, I'm sane; at least reasonably sane.

The kids learned a lot. So did I, but not about the church. I learned that:

-The average attention span of a 13 to 14 year old is about five minutes.
-It is just as gross to clean up puke produced by someone else's kid as it is to clean up after your own. (No, Vicky didn't get sick this weekend, but one of her friends did.)
-There is no top limit to the amount of noise a group of teens can produce.
-The silence after teen noise is profound.
-The exhaustion produced by listening to chattering teens in an enclosed area for two hours is roughly equivalent to that of running a marathon. (Yeah, I've tried that one! Not!)
-Kids still think that a guy with a pierced ear is gay. (He wasn't, and he's engaged. To a girl.)

Anyway, I'm back and getting back to normal life. I did get some prewriting done yesterday, so I'll probably head upstairs later with a glass of wine and get some work done.