Thinking Ahead...I should look into that.

As I often find myself facing a clean-up after doing something that was, shall we say, less than "well considered," I have developed a favorite saying.  I have to use it a lot with my students since they are my usual audience for these little Denial Dances.  It goes something like, "I'm adorable.  I don't have to be smart."

Bless 'em, they don't argue.  They just smile in the way that one does when one is around a crazy person and let me go about the business of fixing things.  Which is saying something about the future of America, if you think about it.  The average pre/early teen is actually far more savvy than you'd think.

Last week's experiment in celebrating my Birth Week by doing only stuff that pleased me meant that there was a great deal of less than pleasing stuff that didn't get done.  Hence, it all needed to be done this week.  I'm not saying that the Birth Week thing is off the docket for next year.  I just need to tweak things a little bit...maybe do a bunch of practical stuff the week before or something like that.  Because having to do everything this week did not really work out the way I'd hoped.  Plus, I kept getting all distracted by other stuff and losing track of the things to which I should have been attending.

The upshot of this was a rousing case of insomnia Thursday night.  Friday was not pretty.  I stumbled through the day, head spinning with thoughts of all the things I needed to do, the things I'd rather do and a crushing need for coffee.  

I've known for months and then some that tonight was the Big Family Cookout.  And that I would be expected to show up with homemade bread.  And wearing shoes.  And being awake.    But I just didn't factor it all in.  

Which is why I was baking Cheesy Bread at 10:00 last night. (I knew I shouldn't have stopped to do a little shopping on the way home...or taken that nap)  And why I had to get up early to start the Challa before heading out to visit with The World's Greatest Stylist/Life Coach.  And why I felt really, really, really guilty about being seduced by the siren song of the used bookstore as I was making my way back to the car.  

All evidence of poor planning on my part.  

But, in the end, it all gets done, right?  When there is no choice, one can rise to the occasion.  The Cheesy Bread was nicely wrapped in foil when I awoke and the Challa rose to perfection while I was getting the tresses tamed.  The side trip to the bookstore didn't hurt it one little bit.   

See?  I nailed it.  It was perfect.

The best part of bread baking is that, while it takes a long time and requires that a great deal of flour be flung about, it isn't really as much work as people think it is.  You mostly just do something with yeast and flour, then go get your hair cut.  You do something else to it and then go watch cartoons.  You smack it around a bit, then go take a nap.  Then you bake it.  

And while that's going on, you get to spin for a little while.  

I still haven't really come up with a good excuse for the side trips to do book and movie shopping.  The best I can come up with is this:

I used to just rent my zombie movies or catch them when they came on TV.  But now that I am recognized on these here inter-webs as something of an expert in the study and extermination of the walking dead, I feel it is my responsibility to amass as much research material as is possible.  This requires that I scour the earth for obscure texts and video documentation in order that I might keep the readers up to date and in the know.  It is really like a second job and takes a great deal of effort.  But I do it willingly.  And if it means that I have to go out and purchase these materials so that I will have a working library from which to base my studies, then so be it.  

I do it for the greater good...

See what I mean about the distractions?  I seem to spend far more time thinking about justifying buying movies and books than I do getting bread baked for family gatherings.  This could go a long way towards explaining why I am so far behind these days.  (And why I am posting tonight's entry at 10:30 pm...)  But I'm sticking with the whole "adorable" thing.  Thus far, the strategy has proven disarming enough that no one has thought to challenge it.

And if that doesn't work, then I'll just bake everyone some Challa.

SA