No pie? Oh my!!

Recently I've attempted to start a small, no...tiny, no...minuscule little pie baking business so a friend called a couple of weeks ago to hire me to bake a chocolate one for her husband's birthday.  I promptly put it on my calendar and then promptly forgot to look back at my calendar!!!  Oooops!!  His birthday was today!  It completely slipped my mind until this morning when after my crosswalk I sat down at my computer to waste some time till I had to be at my second job.

I'm not sure what brought his birthday and the forgotten pie to mind but there it was, front and center.  I immediately called my friend to BEG her forgiveness but as I was talking to her I realized I had at least 20 minutes till I had to be at my next job so I told her never mind, that I was going to make that pie!  And I did!!!!  I called my second job and told them I'd be a little late and went after it with a vengeance.  Thirty five minutes!!  That's how long it took to get from a made-from-scratch crust to the huge and beautifully browned meringue.  

My friend's husband is, of course, also my friend and, as it happens, also my dentist.  His office is, thankfully, just down the street from my house so I boxed that sucker up, delivered it with instructions to refrigerate it, and raced back to my (again, thankfully) somewhat flexible job.  But actually, as it turns out, I was exactly only two minutes late to pick up my first passenger.  Whew!!  

 I can almost hear my mom say, "Jeanne, you were just flying by the seat of your pants!"  Yep, I sure was!  But it worked!      

  

Ahhh! Jury Duty!

Okay, call me crazy (it's okay, I'm aware of the problem!) but I find myself fantasizing about jury duty.  I had to report last Tuesday and it worked perfectly because the first day of my second job's work week starts on Tuesday.  So I took off work to start my new distraction from the everyday humdrum routine of life. 

They only kept me that first day for about thirty minutes, long enough to watch the humorous but informative video about my duty as a citizen and long enough for them to tell me to come back the next day at the same time.  Yay!  Another day off work!  Don't get me wrong!  I love my job driving people around but who doesn't enjoy an unexpected day off now and then?  And here I was with not one, but two days off.  How cool is that?  And I get paid for it to boot!  Granted, the first day was only worth $6 but the next day was a whopping $40!!  Hey, that's almost as much as I make when I drive so don't be quick to knock it!

So I went back the next day to go through the process of finding out if I would be the lucky one out of six to serve on a jury deciding whether or not an ordinary looking, about my age, guy was guilty of abusing his ex-wife.  Well, you guessed it--I wasn't picked.  Darn it!  I was a little disappointed at first because I thought the whole experience might be kind of interesting.  But it didn't take long for me to figure out that now that I wasn't one of the "lucky" ones, I'd have another day off to do whatever I wanted to do!  

Well, THEN, apparently they at work assumed I would check in if I wasn't chosen but I didn't know that so I didn't get scheduled for the next and last day of my work week!  Woo hoo!!  A whole week off of work!  Now that's what I call a gift!  

And now you know why I find myself every once in awhile just daydreaming about my lovely jury duty experience. 

Views from the Crosswalk--part 3

Brrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

Baby it's cold outside!

Since it's so cold outside right now I thought I'd bring out a little spring in the winter.  Actually I should say a little fall in winter because, believe it or not, this beautiful heirloom iris bloomed right before Thanksgiving, about two days before our first frost.  For those of you who aren't familiar with irises, it's very unusual for them to bloom anytime other than the early spring.  So I was thrilled when a friend gave me one of her bulbs.

It all started when I was doing preliminary address varification for the census back in April of 2009.  I was working out in the country west of town and came across a couple of houses that didn't match the information I had.  So as I drove down the curving driveway to get to the first house I knew I was in a special place because of the beautiful plants and flowers.  When I arrived and knocked on the door I got the information I needed from the owner and then she very graciously offered to give me a tour of her gardens. 

Amazing is about the best way to describe what she showed me.  She uses only plants native to Texas and usually finds what she needs on the side of the road or in fields.  In fact a lot of what she grows might be considered weeds but they were the most beautiful weeds I've seen.  She has a knack that could rival that of Martha Stewart.  She gave me seeds from some and then we came upon the iris.  My newfound friend's talent was impressive enough but apparently her husband has his own abilities.  He tears down, moves, and restores old buildings for a living so once when he was tearing down an old cabin he found these heirloom irises and dug some up for my friend.  And now I am able to enjoy this unique iris whose history may goes back to when this area was settled. 

I have some iris in my garden but I will always treasure this small but interesting and unique gift.  

Bobby's dream

I was trying hard to be organized today, was cleaning out some "stuff", and came across this:

Bobby wrote this when he was probably in 3rd or 4th grade and it looks like they were maybe celebrating MLK day so the assignment was to tell about their dream.  Bobby's says:

                                    "I have a dreem that I can be a soper hero soe I

                                     can come up whith some crers that pepel will not

                                     die.  I have a dream so I can fly.  I have a dream

                                     so Billcliten will not be presedent eny more."

Well, two of his dreams have come true.  He flies and Bill Clinton isn't president anymore....or is he??  Anyway, all we need now is for Bobby to become a super hero so he can fix it to where people won't die!  My son the philospher!