Productivity

I was productive yesterday! Go me! And I learned an important lesson in the process.

I cleaned the kitchen, doing lots of dishes and waging battles against the ants who are continuing to invade. (The pest control guy is coming on Monday, thank God.) I did laundry and ran around planning dinner for two with almost no groceries in the house.

I also made bread and carrot cake from scratch. The bread is a usual recipe for me, so that was easy-ish. (I don't use a breadmaker. I never have, and probably never will. I'm old-fashioned...and too poor to get a good one.) It always makes me happy when it comes out gorgeous and golden, and yesterday it was perfect. The carrot cake was a new thing. I've never made it before, or any type of cake from scratch, and while I may have mad baking skills, new recipes can be risky.

My first mistake was that I didn't think about the workload involved in the cake. Getting 3 cups worth of shredded carrots is definitely more intensive than I'd expected, especially when doing it by hand on a small grater. It made me miss our restaurant-grade vegetable/cheese shredder. I could wax poetic about that thing for paragraphs, so I'll just say it had a crank and three suction cup feet to stick it to the counter and you could switch out the conical blades...it was amazing. I miss it.

By the time I was done with the carrots, I was ready for a nap. But I made the cake, and it came out perfectly, even sliding out of the pan with lovely ease. I may post pictures later. I was darn proud of that cake! It's fluffy and carroty and soooo tasty. It's really kind of evil because now I can't stop eating it.

So I was productive, but forgot to drink any water. It's Texas, July, and I was in a hot kitchen for a while, as well as running up and down the stairs outside to go steal carrots from Plunder Bunny's kitchen, and then to pick up the stuffed shells for dinner. By the time we'd had dinner, I had a raging headache, was emotional, and seemed slightly goofy/drunk. At least PB got a kick out of the last part...

My lesson for the day - productivity is nice, and you can feel triumphant, but make sure you take care of yourself while saving the world. Otherwise you'll be useless the next day while you recover. Oh, and don't make your favorite desserts anymore unless there's going to be a party. You'll end up eating them all by yourself and will regret the calories. Now, if you'll excuse me, the carrot cake is calling.