Seeing that proves with even more certainty that the title of my post today is absolutely, one hundred percent correct! I am definitely certifiable!
Certifiably what you may ask? And my answer is CRAZY! Forget about merely being forgetful or on the edge of senility, I am now, totally convinced that yes indeed I am certifiably crazy!
The past week apparently did me in completely.
Last week, at this time, I hadn't yet decided what it was I was going to cook to take to the special Anniversary Dinner after our church service Sunday morning but finally decided I would make chicken divan, a casserole of macaroni and cheese so the grandkids would have something there they would eat and also, a Swedish baked custard called "Panakaka." None of those items are difficult to fix so I figured I would be okay managing those things.
I went on a search and destroy mission about then too, trying to locate anyone from our church who might have had some old photos from 1986 and 1987 when the planning, groundbreaking and dedication services took place for our sanctuary which is now 25 years old! One lady, who I figured would be a shoe-in to have photos told me she did HAVE some photos of those occasions but had been searching for them all week and was unable to locate wherever it might be that she had put them for safe keeping! Don't you just hate when you do something like put an item up in a place so you will know for sure where you have it stashed and then, when you want to get it out, you can't remember where in blazes it was that you put the thing? I'm notorious for doing things like that and my ex-husband used to say when encountering me trying to recall where I had stashed something or other to "Let me know two years from now when you find it!"
So, I went on a campaign calling everyone and their brother. Then, on Thursday, my neighbor and good friend Kate, brought me a little folder in which she had newspaper clippings about our plans to build this new sanctuary, the groundbreaking as well as the dedication service and she also had a few photos of these things in there too!
Thank goodness! I was saved! So I picked up a poster board and then, Friday evening, starting around 8 p.m., I began the task of scanning all the items in this folder and then printing the scans out so I could then snip and tuck at them to position them in some sort of order (I hoped) on the posterboard which would then serve Sunday as a "memory jogger" for folks to see what all had happened back in 1986 and 1987 within our church.
Around 11 p.m. Friday nite though, my printer began to act up on me. I could print anything from my e-mail but as soon as I tried to print out one of the scanned documents, it would refuse to do anything! I tried everything I could think of or every tip in the online help file for my printer and all to no avail. Desperate, I picked up the phone and called Hewlett-Packard's 24-hour tech-help line. Two hours later, thanks to a very nice tech-support person someplace in Manilla -the printer began to function once again for me!
By that time it was going on 3 a.m. and it took me till 5:30 a.m. to finish printing the stuff, doing the snip and tuck stuff and pasting these items on the poster board!
Enough for that night's work, I hit the sofa and fell asleep there for roughly 3 hours before I had to get up and get cracking and gather up some azalea branches from a bush in the front yard of a former member's house and I also wanted to see if I could maybe locate some dogwood branches too -all for the work of a member of our church to decorate the church hall with some pretty floral displays. Since my son happened to float in here for coffee and a touch of conversation, I was able to guilt -trip him into going with me, giving me a hand and got the azalea branches I needed and he even managed to snip a few dogwood branches down in the woods for me to take to use on the tables too!
So, from about 9:30 a.m., I was out at the church with a bunch of other women from our group, getting the tables all set up for the next day's dinner, programming the coffee makers so that two big urns of coffee would be ready right on time for when the dinner would begin. Last minute preparations were reviewed to make sure we had all our ducks in a row and I finally got back home shortly after noon.
And then it was time to begin cooking for the next day! Panakaka was made first since it takes a bit over an hour to bake and while it was baking, I could cook the macaroni as well as the ingredients for the chicken divan too and got all that done up shortly after I removed the panakaka from the oven!
Then it was time to hurry up and shower and get dressed as my son, his girlfriend, Mandy and a mutual friend of hers and my son and I were all slated to go to Altoona -which is an hour's drive from here -to the Chili's over there for dinner to celebrate Clate's girlfriend's birthday! After a nice meal -I ordered the sirloin steak and yes, it was good enough but not so awesome as to make me think I would really want to drive that far for a meal again and at those prices too -we got back home.
I did squeeze in a very brief nap in the car on the ride home -about 15-20 minutes worth -but just enough to enable me to stay awake for roughly another hour after we got home. The kids -Clate, Elizabeth, Mandy and Jeff -along with a couple other of Elizabeth's friends -were all going to have a Cinco de Maya party then up at my son's house to celebrate Elizabeth's birthday a bit more. I had planned, originally, to go up for the party but by 10 p.m., I knew there was no way I was going to be able to deal with staying awake much longer -much less party and have a couple beers or some such!
So the couch and I met once again -much to the relief of my aching back, knees and ankle joints!
Up Sunday a.m. to finish the mac and cheese as I had to make the cheese sauce, get ready for church and get out there by 10 a.m. to help with the finishing touches for the dinner to be ready to start as soon as the service was over.
And, the dinner went off in a pretty orderly fashion and seemed very well received too by those in attendance. Here's some photos I took of the food table at our dinner.
In the photo just below here, if you notice those two oblong pans with a yellow color to the item in the pans, those are both the Swedish custard I mentioned. The one on the left is mine and on the right, was made by my neighbor, Shirley. She and I are usually the only ones in our church who often make this and bring it to church dinners now. When the meal was finished, there were 4 very small pieces left in each pan! Something my daughter was very thankful about as she almost went into a panic when we got home and she thought there was no panakaka left to bring home!
This photo is Denise -who frequently is the person in our church who takes pictures of members and/or special events to post on the church's website and also, the church's facebook page too. Here she is getting herself a little cup of punch just prior to the start of the dinner.
I had bagged up three of the white tableclothes used on the tables to bring home and launder them -something we all try to take turns washing 2-3 of the cloths after each big dinner -and I put them on the counter in the kitchen beside my empty casserole dish so as to not forget then to bring them home.
When I got home and began to unload the dishes from my jeep, to my chagrin, I realized I had apparently walked off and forgot to put the tablecloths in the trunk of the jeep so asked Mandy to stop out at church later and pick them up. However, she didn't get around to doing that until Monday night and when she did go in for them, lo and behold, the bag was gone! I am hoping that the other lady who was still there when I left picked them up and took them home with her!
Sunday night, I was totally exhausted again and slept almost as soundly as I had on Saturday night after that full day!
Monday, Mandy had to leave here shortly after 7 a.m. as she had to be at the hospital by 8 a.m. to be readied for two biopsies she was scheduled to have done. Her good friend, Jenn-Jenn, was driving her over to the hospital and was going to stay there until she was discharged so she could then bring her home. Although the surgeon told Mandy and Jenn after the procedure was completed that on the one lump he removed, it was located a bit further inside the breast than he had anticipated and therefore, he had had to delve in a bit deeper then to remove it so he warned her that it might be more troublesome that night and cause more pain from that. She did weather the night fairly well though and yesterday, was moving around pretty good, just favoring her left arm a bit, as you can imagine.
We won't know the status of the biopsies now until either this Friday, the earliest but probably not until next Monday or Tuesday is more likely when we will learn if they were benign -which is what both the primary care doctor and the surgeon think the outcome will be. And I most certainly am praying --over and over --that their guesses will be right too!
All those things in the past week have had me more than a bit on edge and slightly antsier than normal. But what happened this morning is what has me totally convinced that I am most definitely qualified now to be certifiably crazy!
I got a phone call Monday -a reminder from my doctor's office -that I have an appointment for a check up with Dr. Hays and that appointment was to be at 1:30 Wednesday. I had told the receptionist no problem and I'd see her there today, laughing too as I joked with her that I remembered I have that appointment as I have it marked on my calendar here on the wall, right beside my desk. Mandy even asked me yesterday about what the appointment this afternoon was for and I told her -just a routine check-up visit. Well, okay!
So this a.m., up at 7 a.m. to see to Maya and Kurt, make sure they are dressed, ready to roll when Kurt's van arrives and about 4 minutes after that, Maya's bus and they get off to school okay. I get my morning coffee -actually my second cup by 8 a.m. ya know -and sit down at the computer to clear my e-mail, check facebook and then, look at the posts in my Reader, waiting to be read. Around 9 a.m., I remember I need to do a blood sugar test and so, grab my little booklet to record the date, time and reading and when I do, I see a discrepancy in the date for today to what date was showing I had marked yesterday. I glance at my calendar and see that on the 10th I have an appointment written in for 10:30 a.m. but I don't get up close and personal to read what the appointment is for as I just assume it is my doctor's appointment.
And that is when my mind really boggled up on me! I look at my blood sugar record book again and determine somewhere along the way I must have logged the wrong dates there so I mark in today's reading as being May 11th, because at least I was sure it was Wednesday, the 11th. Sure I was sure of that!
Then I think oh crap! My appointment was actually for yesterday and I misunderstood the receptionist when she called with my reminder on Monday and now, I've missed my appointment, gonna have to pay for a missed appointment as well as pay then too when I manage to get this one rescheduled! ARRGH.
I call the doctor's office and tell Deb, the receptionist my dilemma and she informs me that no, my appointment is still on for today! I'm okay on that part.
It was then that I looked closer at the damned calendar and realized I was looking at the April page, not May! Apparently I either thought I had pulled the month page up and had May's showing or it had slipped down and was showing April as the current month!
And that my friends is what has had me very occupied for the past week plus and also, why I am now very convinced of my mental status being that of one who is totally unglued at the seams!
Or so it does seem to be to me anyway!
1 comment:
Jeni -
I'd be crazy too if I tried to keep up with your schedule. It sounds t me like you church is very lucky to have you. I will say some prayers for Mandy. Since Muri's breast cancer, we've had some false alarms and long waits, so we know what it's like (than goodness, it;s been 15 years with no recurrence). Azeleas and dogwood were my Mom's favorites.
Post a Comment