Driving the Struggle Bus

Life has been a bit of a struggle the past few days. In fact, I've been on the struggle bus for nearly a week.

My trouble began Friday when I received delivery of something I'd ordered. The item is heavy, bulky, and requires complete assembly. I didn't want my husband to see it because he would have likely insisted on assembling it. I actually enjoy building things as it brings back fond memories of my dad, so I want to put the thing together. Therefore, I hefted the box and manhandled it into the house. That's when I had an idea.

Due to its weight, I dreaded carrying it to my office. My hand truck was in the car, so I decided to put my new acquisition on top of a rolling suitcase instead of walking out to the car to get the right tool for the job. My idea worked for about ten seconds.

The suitcase went zooming off to the right, and my burden dropped to my left, slamming into the back of the couch with great velocity. I was able to hold onto it, but my hand was smashed between the box and the wooden support of the couch. But that's not the only pain I caused myself. Oh no, I wrenched my shoulder in my efforts to catch my treasure. Once I recovered from the immediate pain, I carried my package to my office and slammed the door.

Saturday was another challenge, but this one was a bit humorous. One of my writers' groups was supposed to meet at 10:30 a.m. at a restaurant in Springfield. Several of us arrived at the designated location early and chatted outside until the place opened. Once inside, we discovered someone else had booked the meeting room for a birthday party.

After a few phone calls, we discovered that August's meeting was supposed to take place at the library. We loaded up in our respective vehicles and motored to the library. Many of us stopped for a cold beverage since the library doesn't have a coffee shop anymore. We finally assembled shortly after 11 o'clock, and we enjoyed a great presentation by Bestselling Author JC Fields. We adore him and welcome his wisdom.

The cherry on the cupcake of the past week happened today. After a subpar night's sleep, I woke up late and barely made it to work on time. Once, there I came face to face with an empty coffee pot, but I didn't have the motivation to make more. I decided my Diet Mt. Dew would suffice. Then I was approached by both our foreman and a crew member requesting I order water heater jackets. The problem with that is my boss decided a couple months ago to purchase them locally instead of ordering them.

The foreman explained the R-Value is different, even though I checked our local supplier's website to be sure they had the right product before any decisions were made. Apparently, they don't carry the proper size. I looked up my past order and joined the guys in my boss' office to hash things out. Once a plan was in place, I went back to my office to deal with other issues.

I was coding a job when my husband called to say he had discovered a tripped breaker, and the deep freeze didn't have any power. The timer inside indicated it had been without power for thirty-six hours. He was hollering about us losing everything, but I couldn't get him to answer the question of whether he actually laid his hands on anything to see if it was still frozen.

He had to go to work, and I was already at work. Fortunately, I have several hours of vacation time that needs to be used before next month, so I came home to deal with it. I took a couple trash bags and a roll of paper towels to the garage (where the freezer is kept) with me.

By this time, the freezer had been back on for a couple of hours. When I opened the door, I found the food on the lower shelves still frozen. Everything on the top shelf and in the door needed tossed. The second shelf was a mix. All of my chicken and pork had defrosted, but the venison was still frozen or mostly frozen.

After all was said and done, we lost about half of our frozen food. We lost all of our bacon, fish, shrimp, chicken, ground beef, ground chuck, bread dough, ice cream, pizza rolls, frozen dinners, pork chops, a couple roasts, breakfast sausage, veggies, the banana slices I was saving for banana bread, and most of our steak.

I'm glad I came home to assess the situation. If I hadn't, we probably would have thrown everything out this evening just to be on the safe side. There were a few things that were nearly defrosted, which would be safe to use if I cooked them quickly. Three packages of venison tenderloin and steak were among them.

I decided to make a huge venison stew in the slow cooker. While my husband might not eat it, I can have it for dinner tonight, as well as lunch and probably dinner for the rest of the week. While making stew sounds like a simple task, I found many ways to complicate it today.

I wanted to use a plastic cutting board that would be tossed in the dishwasher when I was finished. I couldn't find my large plastic board to save my life, so I used my small one, which was another miscalculation on my part. The steaks were as long as the cutting board, and I had juice (if you know, you know) and steak bits everywhere before I was finished cutting them into bite size pieces. Then I nearly set my kitchen on fire searing the pieces before I put them in the Crock Pot.

I sauteed an onion with the first batch of meat I browned. I transferred that to the cooker and left my favorite red spatula in the skillet while I coated the second batch in my flour/spice mixture. I didn't realize the pan was super-heated. I looked over at the pan, and friends, that oil was red! My spatula had melted and created a bright red puddle in the middle of my skillet, turning the oil red.

With great effort, I removed my melted spatula from my expensive pan and pivoted. I added oil to a stock pot and let it heat while I coated more steak bites. By the time I put a lid on that slow cooker, I had flour and grease all over my cabinet, microwave, stove, floor, and me. Some of the flour made its way onto the hot burner and was smoking just to taunt me.

I can't even begin to tell you how many paper towels and how much Windex I used while cleaning up my mess. Then, I obviously had to load and run the dishwasher. Of course, I had used real towels and dishcloths throughout various stages of the process, so a load of laundry was in order, as well.

I have not only been on the struggle bus for nearly a week, I am driving the crazy thing. All aboard!

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