Don't Try This At Home

I wrote last week about how I knew I needed more sleep because I was doing stupid things. While I've been making a concerted effort to get to sleep earlier, I apparently have not yet caught up on my sleep. Today? Definitely one of the stupider things I've ever done, and I'm beyond lucky that there were no lasting repercussions.

I'm on a productivity roll today. I dropped off my husband's lunch. I picked up my driver's license that I forgot at speech therapy yesterday. I returned the book on CD that was due. I got a load of darks in the laundry. I put away the dirty dishes. I updated my expenses spreadsheet. I even finished a few more solicitations for Mister Man's gala.

My mind is sort of running a million miles an hour, as there's a lot more I need to do today before I leave at 1:30. I won't be home again until almost 6:30 when I walk in the door with two very tired and hungry wee ones. Dinner needs to be ready, and I'm not quite ready to stoop to fast food. This is where the crock pot comes in handy. I have nothing thawed, but the awesome part about a crock pot is that you can put meat in still frozen. Yay, I have a roast left from the last time I made pot roast (yay Costco for selling meat in large quantities). And I have carrots and celery and onion and all the other ingredients on hand. Phew. I'm making my easy pot roast.

I placed my large cast iron pan onto the stove and began heating it while I got out the rest of the ingredients. After all, I want the pores of my pan to open before I put in the oil to sear my meat. As I tried to get the meat out of its glass container, I realized I had a little problem. It was frozen to the glass and was not coming out. The oil was now heating in the pan, and I didn't want it to burn. Warm water to the rescue - after a minute or so of warm water flowing over the container and meat, the container released the meat. Phew. Utterly paranoid now about my soon to be smoking oil, I immediately placed the meat into the pan.

My wet meat.

My frozen wet meat.

Into a very hot pan.

Into a very hot pan that contains oil.

Annnnnd I watched the flames flare. Can you say grease fire? Yep, that's what those ingredients get you. I pushed the pan to the center of my stove after turning off the stove (always step one!), as the flames showed no signs of dying down anytime soon, but the pan was too heavy and my sink too full to place it there - plus grease fires should never ever have water added to them.

I held my breath, and the flames died down with no damage to anything, aside from grease spattered everywhere. Oh, and the smoke alarms blaring throughout my house. Even with the vent fan running on high - because I of course forgot to turn it on until after the fire had died out - the smoke wasn't dissipating quickly.

I was lucky. I was very very lucky. This is why you always dry your meat before putting it into oil to sear. And probably why searing frozen meat isn't a good idea, for that matter. Learn from my stupidity - please! It's my public service announcement for the week.

Proof That I Need More Sleep

I get into a really bad habit where I have a ton that needs to be done so I stay up late working on it. Then the alarm goes off in the morning, and I'm still tired. I manage to get through the day, but I'm slightly less productive, so that's more work to do after the wee ones go to bed. Generally, this works out alright, even though I'm one of those people who really does best with more than eight hours of sleep.

Every once in awhile, this habit catches up with me and my body - or maybe my brain - screams at me that I need to get some more sleep. This week? Yeah... I need some more sleep.

When I woke up Wednesday, I wanted to go back to bed, but I didn't. Instead I got up and got the wee ones ready for school. I fixed their breakfast, got out their vitamins, packed their lunches, and we headed out the door.

After dropping the wee ones at their respective schools, I headed to the gym as I do most days. Even when I'm tired and can't do my full workout, I can at least do something, I decided awhile ago. I popped into the locker room and started grabbing my clothes to change. I had just done wash and was happy that - tired as I was - I remembered to grab my workout gear before I left the house. So of the two items that were in my clean laundry, which do you suppose made it into my gym bag?

If you guessed the black cami that I also happened to have washed that day, you'd be right. The only good thing is that I always have an extra of each item in my bag at all times just in case - why yes, I do know myself well. They aren't my favorites, but they'll do. After my workout, I reached into my bag to get my towel so I could shower. Ummm, no towel. Why? Because my oh so responsible self had folded it up and put it away instead of placing it into my gym bag where I needed it. Oops.

And when I picked up Mister Man from school? Well, I got a little bit of an earful from him - well-deserved, too. I had sent him Little Miss's lunch instead of his own. And that's a problem. She has to have a dairy free lunch, and he won't do sauces or hummus or the like because of textural issues. Instead of sending them nearly identical lunches that day, I'd sent her dairy free pizza, heavy on the sauce, and celery sticks with red pepper hummus. Interestingly, I'd checked the containers before I slipped it into their lunchboxes to be sure I gave them the right ones, but I didn't open the containers to check to see that I'd put the right food into the right containers. Oops.

I didn't listen, in case you're wondering. My gym issues? I forgot the towel. Again. And worse? When I did remember the towel, I closed my locker and locked it. It wasn't until after my shower when I was standing there in my towel trying to unlock it that I realized I hadn't changed the combination before locking it, so I had no way to get in. My gym nightmare finally came true.

Tonight? I'm going to bed as soon as the wee ones do!

I'm Going Crazy; Don't You Want To Come Along?

I am losing my mind. Seriously losing my mind. I don't know how it happened or where it started, but it's definitely getting worse lately.

A week and a half ago, the school nurse asked me to pick up socks and underwear and sweats for her, since she hadn't had time to buy the $100 worth the PTO buys her every year. I agreed and asked her to send me an email. She did me one better. She wrote the sizes and info down on a sheet of paper for me.

I went to W-M (her suggestion)and got the list out of my purse. Or tried to. It wasn't there. Then I looked on the seat of my car, where it must have fallen out. I hadn't left the car since she gave me the list. It had to be there somewhere. It wasn't. I took a deep breath and hoped I remembered enough of the sizes and items that she'd be happy with my selection and went shopping.

I chose the items - including finding the $3 sweats and $4.25 packs of 6 underwear and $5.50 packs of 10 socks. I loaded everything in my cart and started for the front. That's when I realized that I'd left my nice blue mini-accordion binder that has our tax exempt info in the car. I sighed, left the cart, prayed it would be there when I returned, and headed for my car. Amazingly, the cart was still there, and I purchased my $100 worth of items. Phew.

Then at the book fair last week, I ran into a mom who volunteered to do our ink cartridge recycling for us. She'd start doing drop offs immediately. Yay! I told her that I had everything in the car, and I left her with the cash box while I went to get the info for Office Max and Staples where I turn in our printer cartridges for recycling. I grabbed the Office Max folder that was sitting on the seat where I'd used it the day prior, but I couldn't find my blue mini-accordion binder that has all my school stuff in there -- including two $30 Staples vouchers I need to spend by October 31 and a $15 Staples gift card. And my grocery coupons (including some free items). And our tax exempt information.

Ugh.

It was NOwhere in the car, but I figured I must have brought it into the house when unpacking the car accidentally. I decided to look for it when I got home. When I got home, I looked for it on the island, but the island was (miraculously) clean. It wasn't in the office on my PTO table. In fact, it wasn't in the house at all. My stomach started turning thinking about everything in that binder that I needed. I never take it out of the console of my car, except when I'm using it to shop.

Oops.

I left it behind somewhere. I tried to think back to the last time I'd used it. Maybe at Dominick's? Or Trader Joe's? Or Staples? Or W-M? Then I started counting the days since I knew I'd last seen it and groaned.

On Friday, Little Miss and I ran errands after her gymnastics class as I continued to puzzle over where I might have last seen it. Then I remembered my disaster of a trip to W-M. Where I'd had to hand back some items to the cashier because I was over my $100 limit. Where we had a ton of trouble with my tax exempt card because he couldn't read what number it was and kept coming up with other organizations. Where I was so flustered by the time I walked out of there that I was ready to just go home and go to bed.

I bet I left it in the cart as I put the three bags of socks, underwear, and sweats into my car. And I bet it isn't there anymore.

Since we were headed to the town where the W-M is located anyway, I figured I'd stop in to ask if it made it to the lost and found. There were three people ahead of me, and they all had apparently very complex issues -- to the point where the woman working the customer service desk apologized to the woman in front of me. Fortunately, Little Miss was fairly fascinated trying to identify all the coins on the Coinstar machine.

As I started to describe my precious blue mini-accordion binder, the woman pulled out the lost and found bin. Amazingly, it was sitting on top. And nothing was missing from it. Hallelujah!

But it gets better. My work has an ID badge that we must scan to get into the building. We scan it to access the copier. We scan it when we want to print out anything. We scan it pretty much all day long. We had an off site event requiring our ID badges, and I put mine in my purse.

After that event, I didn't go into the office for a week and a half. As I got ready to go that morning, I realized that I hadn't seen my ID badge in awhile. I verified that it was not tucked into the corner of my car's console where it belonged. I searched my purse. I searched the purse I'd been carrying prior to that. I searched my husband's car. And I decided that I wasn't going to print anything that day.

Last night, I decided I had to find it. I didn't want to pay $15 to get a new ID badge made. I cleaned out my entire car. I searched my purse thoroughly again. I searched my husband's car again. I searched the outfit I'd worn the day of the off site event. I looked everywhere. It was nowhere to be found.

I decided to bite the bullet, and this morning I asked to have a new ID badge printed. The security guard mentioned how he always keeps his in the console of his car so he doesn't lose his. I smiled nicely and bit my tongue. A new one was printed, and for whatever reason, they didn't charge me for it.

I went upstairs. As I was waiting for my computer to turn on, I saw a receipt that had my credit card in it sitting in my purse. Not wanting anything else to get lost and/or stolen, I decided I'd recycle it while waiting. I pulled out another three or four receipts and other papers that I no longer needed. As I poked through my purse, I felt something in a side pocket of my purse.

You'll never guess what was nestled in there. Of course, it was my old ID badge. How I didn't manage to find it the other thirty times I looked in my purse, I'll never know.

Ironically, my new ID badge swipes me in and out of the building, but it asks me for some unknown PUK code when I try to print or copy anything. Fortunately, my old ID badge still works. So now I have two ID badges. How long before you think I lose both of them at this rate?

Does anyone have any good memory drugs? I can't afford to lose it like this!

Bad Brain!

I have official proof that my brain needs some time off.

Today I was working from home, as is typical for me on a Wednesday. Also typical is the regular weekly meetings I have -- my staff meeting, a project meeting a lead, an update meeting I attend, etc.

Well, four o'clock came around, and I had a meeting to attend. I clicked on "Done" when the meeting reminder came up on Lotus. As a quick side note, I absolutely love the reminder feature. Anyway, I clicked Done at 3:55 when it first popped up.

At 3:59, I flipped over to my calendar, grabbed the number for the meeting at 4 o'clock and dialed in.

There were two of us on the call to start. The other guy on the call is a guy who I don't see very often anymore, so we chatted awhile waiting for others to join. I was a little surprised that he was on the call, as I didn't recall him having been on the weekly calls previously, but who am I to question this?

At 4:04, another line joined in. Really, for this meeting (which has a good twenty or so people invited) that's pretty late to have only one other person having joined, but ... whatever. It was Laura and Shawn. Shawn is usually on the call, and Laura sometimes joins in, so I was back on track. Shawn had stepped out of the conference room for a moment, but when he rejoined he started the meeting.

"So you may notice that you have some questions arising from your teams on recent goings on-"

Uh-oh.

This isn't my meeting. This is my boss's boss's staff meeting. That would explain why the first guy was on the call. I quickly looked back at my calendar to figure out how I did this.

Oh. Yeah. My Monday 4 o'clock meeting is with my boss's boss, of course using the same dial in number. Apparently I can't read the days of the week anymore, nor apparently the names of my meetings.

Needless to say, I dropped off without a sound and dialed into my real meeting.

"You are the first caller to this conference." Wait, what? Did I mess this up again? I IM'ed the leader of the call, only to discover that the meeting had been canceled for today. It figures, right?

I just about signed off for the day, figuring trying to do any more work was going to be counterproductive. But then I remembered how much more I had to do yet. Thank God I'm going to Florida in a week and a half!

PS My husband just tried to describe Aldi as "Trader Joe's without the cache." Ummm, no.