Wild Wild Week - The Rookie Mistake

Last week it was my first day toting two kids to and from school for the day. I woke them at 5:45am. The Boy is accustomed to waking that early and rolled out of bed easily and went into the bathroom to get dressed. The Girl isn't quite so used to being awakened before the sun is up and she squinted at me, blurry-eyed. Without a word she scooted off the bed and shuffled to the window where she pulled over the blinds to look out into the dark. She looked back at me and her expression was priceless, a sort of, "Woman?! Why are we up this danged early?!"

But the morning went smoothly enough. The kids got dressed, went downstairs for cereal (which I served to them at the kitchen counter because we'd not received our table yet). We still didn't have our gas turned on, so we couldn't use the stove or oven, but I'd prepared a vegetable beef stew in the crock pot the night before. All the stew meat, veggies and potatoes were cut and sitting in the pot so I just placed it on the cooker, added the seasoning packet & water, turned it on and we left for the day.

The Boy went to his school (10 mins in the opposite direction) and then I dropped The Girl at her school, which is on my way (sort of, with a detour) to work. I was even early clocking in! This was working out great...I was good at this! I told my office mate at lunchtime that I couldn't wait to get home to that yummy stew for dinner.

5:30pm - Picked up The Girl from school, picked up The Boy from Grandma & Grandpa's house and headed back to the house. Danny was at school for the evening and wouldn't be home until after 9pm but I told him that the stew would be ready for his dinner.

I unlocked the front door, expecting the strong smell of the simmering beef stew and veggies to hit me when I walked in and was met with...nothing. I dropped my bags and went to the kitchen. The beef chunks, potatoes & veggies were there just like I'd left them that morning. Exactly like I'd left them...completely raw and uncooked. The cooker was set to low and the plug was just as I left it too, laying out of the socket, on the counter.

I took a few turkey corn dogs out of the freezer and popped them into the toaster oven. Add a bag of frozen veggies in the microwave and voila, dinner was served!