Wrench in the Gears

Yesterday my cleaning lady was supposed to come and clean my house. Instead, she called me at 9am, and informed me that she was car trouble and had no alternative ride to get from her place to my house. She rescheduled me, but it sort of chapped my hide that I had plans to get all the errands run yesterday to avoid the last-minute 4th of July shoppers that will be out and ab, out today and tomorrow stocking up on things like soda, corn on the cob, burgers, dogs, brats and buns...

Now, it is not as though there is anything that says "YOU MUST CLEAN ON TUESDAYS", but I was all set to run my errands while she was here and know that I was coming home to a shiny clean, good smelling house, nicely cooled by my central air conditioning unit, a refrigerator that was clean and ready to be filled with yummy food that I would be cooking over the next days...

Instead, I spent the day doing laundry, dusting, sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, scrubbing toilets, ironing, weeding my garden, and then watching "Dr 90210", which is a scary show, while I folded the laundry and did the ironing. BB worked late last night, as it was his Shanghai conference call week. Captain Chaos slept for 2 hours yesterday morning, and 3 yesterday afternoon. Tiny Princess slept 2 hours at a shot throughout the day, so it wasn't as though I was dealing with screaming and cranky kids...but it was HOT yesterday, I worked my behind off, and ended up not being able to run any errands whatsoever because the kids were asleep all day and my neighbor girl didn't "want to" babysit for me so I could go to the store.

What kind of teenager doesn't want to come and sit at someone else's house, eat their food, drink their iced tea, and watch their television while being paid to do such a thing??!?!?!!??!!? Good grief, I would have jumped at the chance to sit around and get paid to do it...In fact, I would have come over, set myself up with a giant glass of iced tea, a bag of chips, some salsa, a big fat book, my music, and sat on the deck and worked on my tan all day if I'd been her...hmmmm, maybe I can pay her to do the errands, and I'll stay at home and do such a thing...

After I got over my pouting, I realized that I would have had to drag both kids into the 90+ degrees of heat, direct sun, and carted them throughout the store, jamming groceries into a too-small cart, load up the car, and then decide what was more important to get out of the heat and sun and into the house, the children or the perishable groceries...and then to have fought to get the kids settled for their naps so I could put away the groceries and cook dinner.

I must now pry myself away from the computer and television, and defrost some chicken breasts to make dinner for my neighbor and her family, as well as for my family tonight.

I did decide that I will be buying a box of Bisquick and making their biscuits rather than drop biscuits from the Better Homes cookbook, as I don't want to mess with powder vs soda, and measure salt etc. I'd much rather just measure the mix, dump in the milk and cook the biscuits. I am making crockpot chicken and biscuits. It is easy, it is fast, and I don't have to think about anything but making biscuits around 3:30 this afternoon. Heck, I might even get a package of Pilsbury Grands and bake up those. I'm buying pre-mixed salad, and a container of sorbet for their dessert...I'm too stinking lazy to turn on my oven and bake cookies or brownies, and actually chop vegetables for the neighbors.

I do, however, have to wait for Tiny Princess to wake up from her morning nap, which means I will be going out for groceries during the heat of the day...boy, doesn't that sound fun!??!??!!?