I LOVE MIMI

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I am starting a bit later this morning. Not good since we have an early morning out. I am having coffee & homemade apple bread with cream...made it myself yesterday...but NOT without some effort.....which is why I am dragging this morning. I have a new affinity with Lucy Ricardo. My friend Barb usually gets the Lucy honors but not this day! Let me tell the story and then I must be off with Missy to the hospital, midwife ( obstetrics nurse ) & her office to meet people.

Monday ( yesterday ) I started my day as I have been doing ( until today ) predawn. I wake to tea and toast ( I am having a stout coffee this morning ) and a quiet peaceful morning. ( I feel haggard today :-) After the children were off to work I set about to perform needed miracles for their busy work life. Missy & I started that morning emptying her small closet of clothes she cannot wear anymore and I finished hanging after she left .....her new maternity clothes. I made the bed....gathered a laundry pile and things were nice and tidy.... that was good. In my own room.... I redid my bed so that I wasn't sleeping on a half side of a day bed...but made it out into a whole king bed....with pillows and pretty comforter...... that was good. I hand washed and cleaned the kitchen, swept the floor and rug and begin organizing the things I would need for the rellenos I was going to prepare for dinner..... that was good..

The Perils of Lucy...a la Mimi..... I then was ready to tackle the laundry....trouble is....it resembled nothing I have ever operated in America that washed clothes. Missy had given me a quick go over of all the appliances...but I may as well have been reading Greek for as much sense as it made. I tried calling..... which was interesting. The tone sounded like a busy signal and an Australian prerecorded female voice informed me I could not dial that way...and to hang up! Oh dear. So I emailed Missy...which works wonders in America....and because she had a busy morning....I got a reply finally. She wrote " 30. " Now I ask you....does that make any sense at all to you? I wrote back...." I will check it out." It is always important as a Mum to sound knowledgeable and in control.

A quick look confirmed there was a 30 on one of the dials...but what about the other. So I wrote that... and she replied "3." I know...makes no sense either but there was a 3....which I would learn later on.....was a very important number.

Now let me describe her washer. It very much reminded me of the little stack able apartment washer and dryer Larry purchased for me during our college years. Teensy probably doesn't adequately describe it. However....it washed....so I loaded it up and since I had a front loader myself knew the ropes. I remembered how to bring out the little drawer for the detergent and before long the little room off the back porch was humming busily with washing machine noises. Yay!

A cold front had moved in over the night and I could not seem to get warm. I dressed in long sleeve leisure wear with socks and warm shoes but I remained chilled despite my activity. Missy had the heaters going...but I was still cold. There was a lovely big gas heater where the fireplace once was.....but I was terrified of not switching the little lever right..or making the clicking pilot start the fire and becoming overcome with gas as only Missy can graphically describe.....so I left it off... and continued to do my household chores all bundled up like I was skiing.

Next I decided to make the shortbread I promised them. I was going to give a quick email to Lara or Larry to send it to me from my cookbook....but I realized....they were asleep....drat. Missy confirmed she also had the Swann Family Cookbook it was in....but it was packed away somewhere so decided to do that another day....and make the Apple Bread she wanted. I finally dug around and found all the utensils and ingredients and was ready to preheat the oven. Missy had given me a quick lesson on running the oven. Seems it has several different ways you can do that.... I selected the dial I remembered her showing me and set the temperature. It is Celsius but my instructions had the conversion in Fahrenheit and Celsius so I was able to translate the right temp. Before long I had a lovely loaf pan ready to pop in the oven and feeling very proud of myself I was off to the next project.

The " Cooking " area

I dashed in to see if there was any email and not even 10 minutes later I began to smell a burnt toast smell....that was odd... so I dashed in to take a peek and found a smoldering black burnt topped apple bread!! I pulled it out....and ran in to write Missy ( since I couldn't call ) and simply put in the title....." We have a problem!!!" she called immediately. Seems I had the dial set to broil rather than blowing heat...go figure. So I cut off the top of the cake.....reset the dial cautiously and popped it back in the oven.... 30 minutes later.....it came out smelling yummy and although had a nice.....crunchy sort of top.....looked none the worse for it's traumatic start.

As I went about my cooking and cleaning chores looking like an Eskimo bundled for the walrus hunt....I kept peeking in on the washing machine. An hour later I went back to email because I couldn't work the blasted phone..... and wrote in the subject line... " Laundry won't stop! Is taking a zillion years!" Her subject line back was " 3 zillion years!" Omgosh! Seems it takes hours for it to get through a cycle of laundry....not to mention drying the silly things!. I had suspiciously eyeballed an outside clothesline earlier ...complete with clothespin.... I didn't have to be a rocket scientist to understand it's significance....and put it to good use. The number 3 by the way was an indicator of how long it should wash....and that was HALF the normal allotted time! Ok...so it may take me all week to accomplish a house full of clean laundry.

Remember this? It is called a ......Clothesline :-)

It was time to cook the chicken I would need for my rellenos. I found a lovely big stew pot and washed and placed the chicken in and covered with water and managed to get the little clicking pilot on the stove top to turn on under the stew pot. I decided to keep the back door open.....just in case I had that one wrong.... and odorless gas fumes would be pouring in ready to explode the place. I just piled on another big sweat shirt.

That action produced another story....of the Big Fly. On the way home from the airport the first day, a big fly flew in the window. As he flew by me I swatted at him. Missy said.... " don't kill it!" She went on to explain if I did it's belly, that was full of maggots would burst open and fall all over me." Ok....so would that be a blow fly? Didn't matter....I freaked anyway! Eww!!! The next time that fly buzzed by me I screamed bloody murder!! We laughed till we cried all the way home.

Enter the Big Fly....... Because I left the back door open....Mr. Fly with a belly full of maggots.....happily flew in my kitchen to make my already complicated day....more complicated. This time...I would not freak....I was feeling a tad bit irritated...and he was just the source I needed to vent. My war strategy was to corner him and work him outside so when I smashed the life out of his stupid body his children would fall helplessly on the ground to die motherless... ( Just a little aggressive venting mind you :-) We waged war off and on for hours....I am not sure who won. :-(

I ran to check the still washing clothes...I mean how long does it take to get something clean! Ran to check email....do a bit of dusting along the way and as I was padding back to the kitchen I began to hear this .....popping sound. I went in to investigate and found in that short time....my water had boiled away....my boiled chicken was browning in the pan as if I had pan seared it!!! groan! I pulled it off the fire....without burning myself..... and forked it out of the pan. It was done....and lightly browned.... I decided to take credit for that and say I did it on purpose. :-)

I let it cool...shredded it....and put it aside in the little fridge to stuff my green chilis later.

The Refrigerator

I washed and cleaned some beautiful produce. Everything here is huge! The celery is the longest I have ever seen! The tomatoes and lettuce and mushrooms and green onions were lovely and soon I had them draining on the sideboard for salad later.

I set the table and went in to open the can of green chilies and discovered I didn't know how to use the magic opener.... Nothing about it's construction was intuitive.....everything on it was in the wrong place. Back to the email......subject line...." How does the opener work!" Her reply in subject line...." I am on my way home!" She works about 10 minutes max from the house so she was indeed home in no time....showed me how to work the silly thing....something I do not think I could accomplish.... and I set about to assembling my rellenos. I complained that the salad items would not seem to dry. They were as wet as when I started.... and as a matter of fact....nothing seems to dry quickly.... You have to hand dry everything.... We popped the rellenos in the oven..... put the salad together.... Missy made the Mexican rice.....we finished setting the table.....and by the time Wes was home we had dinner on the table. He was delighted!

Wes, God Bless him, cleaned the kitchen, Missy and I watched the second half of Australian Idol, and I managed to make it to 10 pm before padding back to my cool dark room and fall into a deep exhausted sleep.... Mission Accomplished! :-)

I must go quickly dress... for a day of adventure. Stay tuned for the next chapter...

God Bless!

Elaine