Dumbed Down Day

Ever have one of those days where you are missing a few too many brain cells? That was my day on Saturday.

There was no extraordinary reason for the lack of brain cells; it just seemed like some of my important brain cells decided to take the day off. Lucky for me, it wasn't the cells that controlled breathing or my heart beating or anything like that.

Let's start with dinner. (Recipe to follow this blog.)

Phil had a hankering for something that our sister Barb used to make for him. I told him if he could find a recipe, or remember how it was made, I'd be glad to make it. He did a web search and did find the recipe on the Betty Crocker web site. Cool, I can follow directions.

Or, so I thought. For a simple recipe, I forgot to add two ingredients. I guess they weren't major ingredients (like the meat or the onions) but none the less, I forgot the salt and the cheese. The dinner was still ok as I remembered about the cheese with three minutes left to bake. Instead of being IN the pie, the cheese was ON the pie. As for the salt, well, the salt shaker on the table got a work out.

So, dinner wasn't catastrophic, but I know I could have done better. Where do you go from dinner? To do the dishes.

I rinsed the dishes and loaded the dishwasher. There is one well on the inside of the door where you add the detergent. There is another well where you add the rinse stuff. I'm not sure exactly what it does but your dishes are supposed to be streak and spot free if you keep this stuff in the machine. Maybe once a month I have to fill this well with the rinse stuff and today was the day since the well was empty.

I opened the cabinet under the sink and I saw bottle of yellow liquid detergent and a bottle of orange stuff. Since I knew I didn't want the liquid detergent, I grabbed the orange stuff and started to fill up the well. It was too late when I realized that this stuff was way thicker than it should have been. Yeah, I really goofed up. This was orange liquid dish soap (bought because I didn't like the yellow stuff) and what I should have grabbed was the blue stuff. Yeah, now you tell me.

I did what I do best. I yelled for Ron. He and Phil came running and I told them my story. We couldn't clean out my error without taking the whole door apart, so Ron thought the best course of action was just to turn the machine on and let it run it's course to get the orange stuff out of there. I may end up running the dish washer a few times to make sure all of that extra soap is out of there, but at least the good news is that after one washing I don't have a floor full of soap bubbles.

See, nothing terrible, just a lot of dumb mistakes today. And, the best is here for last!

My sister Cathie lives in California and we've finally got into the 21st century and decided we wanted to try video conferencing. Hey, even my almost seven year old great-nephew can do it, so why can't I? Ron hooked me up with a camera and a microphone and Cathie and I decided that tonight was the night to see if this would really work.

At the appointed time, we met on MSN Messenger. A minute to install the camera into MSN and we were up and running. Well, video anyway. I had no sound. I futzed and futzed, trying to open every menu that I could, trying to find a button that said either "sound" or "volume". Nothing. Dammit, it can't be this hard! Finally, I again yelled for Ron. He gave it a cursory look to see if there was an easy "sound" button but alas there was none. He wanted to sit down and start searching to help me figure out what was wrong and it suddenly hit me! I had the sound shut off on my computer! DUH! The constant sound bothers me on the computer, so I turn the volume off. Yeah, that was my problem.

So, Cathie and I had a great face to face chat, the first time in over a year! I even marked this situation properly. Before the chat, I got out of my jammies, took a shower and got dressed in real clothes! My poor sister had to see me naked before (She helped me out for a week a few years ago when I had surgery. Poor girl had to help me in and out of the shower! I'm still sorry for that, Sissy!) and I didn't think she deserved to have to see me in jammies with my hair in a pony tail. Definitely the down side of the 21st century.

A few brain farts today, but no injuries. All in all, that makes it a damn good day.

Now, if anyone is interested, here is the recipe, in full, from the Betty Crocker web site. It really was pretty good and very easy.

Impossibly Easy Cheeseburger Pie

1 lb lean ground beef
1 large onion, chopped (1 cup)
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup Original Bisquick mix
1 cup milk
2 eggs

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray 9" glass pie plate with cooking spray.
2. In 10-inch skillet, cook beef and onion over medium heat 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until beef is brown; drain. Stir in salt. Spread in pie plate. Sprinkle with cheese.
3. In small bowl, stir remaining ingredients with fork or wire whisk until blended. Pour into pie plate.
4. Bake about 25 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean.

Enjoy!