About Last Night...

Yesterday a dear, sweet, lifelong family friend had a pacemaker inserted. This is now an outpatient procedure - yes, I was surprised too. When 65MD and I learned of the surgery and that she would be home the same day, we immediately volunteered to bring the evening meal to this lady and her daughter.

The menu was meatloaf, green beans (from our backyard garden), potatoes (from my uncle's garden) and apple cake (made with apples from a friend's orchard). In the south, it is wrong to take a meal to someone without dessert. It is also a requirement to make at least three times the amount needed! I had planned everything the night before and did whatever prep work I could.

Yesterday when I got home from work I popped the meatloaf in the oven, put the beans & potatoes on to boil and whipped up the cake. My tube pan is too small to hold all the batter, so put the excess in muffin tins. 65MD likes a muffin for breakfast every now & then so this was, in my mind, a good idea. Of course, since the muffins were small, they got done before everything else. I took the pan out of the oven and put it on the counter to cool.

In the meantime, 65MD was on the phone with this lady's family checking on her recovery. He told them that we would bring the food by a full 30 minutes before my plan, so I began to scurry around getting things together a little more quickly. Of course, I couldn't make the meatloaf or cake cook any faster. I called and explained that I had not told 65MD my plans, and they were gracious enough to say that any time would be fine with them. I still felt like I needed to rush and get the food there as quickly as possible. So, I didn't take time to fix anything for us to eat. We could do that when we got back.

The muffins were sitting there on the counter smelling absolutely fabulous. I've made this cake since high school and I know how good it is. I was stomach growling hungry so I decided that a little pinch of that good crusty part right at the edge of the pan would be just what I needed. Oh my! It tasted even better than it smelled. The nibbles got larger with each successive pinch, and I ate the whole top. Then of course, the bottom part would get all hard and stale if it wasn't eaten, so I did.

At that point, I stopped myself. The 'damage' being one muffin off plan. Even though it was made with apples from an orchard which could not be any more organic, it also had white flour, sugar and oil, so it wasn't not a good choice. I didn't beat myself up over it. I really didn't have time at this point. The meatloaf and green beans were done and I wanted to get them wrapped up and delivered while they were hot.

The cake was done by the time I had the rest of the food ready. As any baker knows, cakes need to cool about 10 minutes before they are removed from the pan, but I had visions of my sweet friend starving because she hadn't eaten since midnight, patiently waiting for me to bring her supper, so I flipped the hot tube pan on to the plate. The cake stuck, about 1/3 of it remained in the pan. I got a spatula and got most of the rest out and slapped it down where it belonged. I quickly wrapped it up hoping the heat would somehow adhere it together and off we went with the food.

Our friends only live one street over, so it was easy to get the food there while it was nice & warm. I was a little surprised to find 6 people there instead of 2, but since I had "allowed for leftovers" as my grandmother used to say, I knew there would be enough food for the evening meal, but maybe not lunch today as I'd hoped. I confessed that the cake stuck, but they were just glad to have cake. 65MD and I visited briefly; were glad to see our friend up and looking good; and we went home to eat.

The first thing I encountered was the cake pan with some cake still stuck in it. It was the good crusty part and I started nibbling again. I was able to stop myself before it got too out of control, maybe another 1/2 muffin. I was disappointed in myself for sure, but I immediately recognized that this was not the end of the world. In times past, I would have either beat myself up and not allowed myself any dinner, or eaten everything I could get my hands on since I'd already blown it. Instead, I took a few minutes to truly assess the situation (and I dumped water in the cake pan).

I had eaten about 1 1/2 muffins. In the great scheme of things it really wasn't a huge misstep. It was far from a binge. I adjusted my evening meal, but ate. I did not overreact emotionally either way. The scales overreacted to the tune of 171.2 this morning. Again, a disappointment, but I'm not letting that bother me. I have no control over that, so why fret. I don't like that this happened, but I am using this as a learning experience. I am learning that it is OK not to be perfect. One slip up doesn't define me. Next time, I'll work harder to make better choices, like maybe chewing gum.