Earth to Claire . . .

Today I tried to do too many things, which of course resulted in many things not getting done well. And I still didn't accomplish everything. For example, most of the groceries we brought home yesterday are still in their brown paper bags, lined up in the garage. Hey, they're not (totally) in the way, so what's the rush?

I cooked and cut up a whole bunch of chicken to freeze, I made muffins, and I made lasagna. The muffins were "blueberry oatmeal muffins", a new recipe for me. The batter seemed a little thin, but they cooked up nicely and were quite tender and tasty. I was quite surprised at that because the recipe didn't call for soaking the oats beforehand, and that usually makes for a drier, chewier muffin. It was then that I realized I never put the oats in. But they really are quite good, so I'm thinking surely they would have been too heavy with the oats? I'll have to play around with the recipe.

The lasagna might not seem like a big deal to you out there in reader-land, but I would just like to say that I have never made lasagna before. No, never. But something inspired me, so I called Amy Wednesday to get her recipe so I could buy everything at the commissary. Amy uses sausage instead of ground beef, and it really gives it a nice flavor. This lasagna was as healthy as it gets around here--I used half whole wheat noodles, and I added frozen chopped spinach to the sauce part. A lady from church did this in the baked ziti she brought, and you can't taste the spinach at all! The boys just thought it was parsley. I knew then that this would be a good way to get more spinach in our diet. I'm not a fan at all of cooked spinach, although I love it in salads or on a sandwich. But it tasted just fine in the lasagna too, and the boys didn't say a word about it. They were probably too thrilled that we were actually having lasagna IN OUR OWN HOUSE to be critical. My brain was really going this afternoon, so I screwed up the order of the layers (can I not read anymore?!), and I totally miscalculated the time it would take me to make it. And--this is how you can really tell something was wrong--I miscalculated it to be done WAY early! I can't think of the last time that happened! So it was totally done by (ahem) 4:50. Amy told me to let it sit for 10 minutes to firm up. Well, it sat for 45 minutes in the turned-off oven. Good grief. It was firm though! Not watery a bit. But it tasted great, so that's all that counts.

Then we headed off to Bible study where we discovered that we (specifically Nathan) were signed up to bring dessert tonight. Whoops! That didn't make the calendar! And it obviously never crossed his mind again either. Anthony saved the day by running out and buying apple pies and ice cream.

So tomorrow is another day. I'm going to try to make the library book sale. I'm not planning on doing any cooking, LOL. I don't think I'm forgetting anything else . . .