The Best Laid Plans

Trevor left for China yesterday morning, and arrived there this morning. That's 23 hours from take-off to arriving in his hotel room. As you can imagine, he was not particularly thrilled to leave. I felt so sorry for him as I watched him walk into the terminal. I would have gladly taken his place if I had any idea what it is he does at work, but I'm pretty sure it involves math and spatial reasoning, so that was out.

I invited Trevor's family over for lunch Sunday after church in honor of several birthdays we had last week. I spent the early morning today sweeping, mopping and doing some general cleaning, and then cooked as much of the meal as I could. It's hard to get home from church and have dinner on the table without some serious prep work.

I decided to make a ham, chicken and cornbread dressing, green beans, cucumber salad and homemade biscuits. The dressing was easy to prepare, because everything can be cooked, chopped or prepared ahead of time, and then mixed together at the last minute to bake. I made the cucumber salad, and baked a cake. I figured that we would go to the early service, I would teach Sunday School and then be home around 11am. I would run home between the service and SS to throw the ham and dressing in the oven, and then whip up the biscuits when I got home.

Of course I had a plan. I always have a plan. I live for having plans and lists and rigidly adhered to schedules.

My plans were running smoothly until about 6:30 pm this evening. That was the time one of the physicians from work called. Called to let me know that I needed to be at work in the morning to treat an emergent patient. An emergent patient that couldn't wait until Monday.

I asked her if I could call her right back about what time I could get there, because I needed to find someone to keep the kids for me. Luckily, she offered to bring one of her daughters with her to keep an eye on Nathan and Grace while we do our work. Whew! Problem #1 solved.

Problem #2 was figuring out how I was going to cook a 9 pound ham without actually being here. It needs to go in the oven around 9 to be ready for noon, and I'm not sure I'll be home by then. So I pulled out the owners manual for my oven to see if there was a cook delay feature, and lo and behold there was!! Whoo hoo! Problem #2 solved.

So I'm back on track with my plans, and now it's time for me to go to bed since I have to get up stupid early.