Panic. This is what sets in when you have had a very no-energy day due to stuff not talked about on a family blog, a sink full of yesterday’s dirty dishes, and the sudden realization that it is 4:45 P.M and you have company coming for dinner at 6:30.

Time to rally the troops. Arctic Boy volunteers to do the dishes (my hero). I start chopping random veggies to put in spaghetti sauce (Of course I made spaghetti, isn’t that what everyone makes in a time crunch?), things like peppers, and zucchini, and carrot,  and tomatoes. Brown the meat, along with salt, garlic powder, and dried onion (so I fudged, sue me). Dump in a can of tomato paste, four cups of water, 2 Tbs each of dried parsley, oregano, and basil, and boil it up. Stir 3 Tbs cornstarch into 1/2 cup water and stir it into the sauce. Simmer on low until everything else is done.

Spend 10 minutes racing around putting stuff away or hiding it. Say a prayer of thanks you had church at your house on Sunday so the place is already still fairly tidy thanks to Mei Guo (that’s my new name for Miss M) who visited last weekend.

Put water on to boil for the noodles. Decide: “Sure I have enough time to make batter bread to go with this” and soften yeast. Discover yeast is not activating properly and put a little honey in it. Help Arctic Boy with dishes. Heave a sigh of relief that the yeast is working now and mix up bread. Wonder: “What was I thinking to make bread? Am I crazy?” (don’t answer that)

Give Mr. Hot Stuff a perfunctory welcome home kiss and ask him to make the salad. Please. (Wait. I did give him a kiss, right? Must’ve been about a 2 on the scale of excitement. whoo.) Kiss or no kiss, Mr. Hot Stuff makes a glorious salad and the dressing.

Realize: No dessert. We. Have. No. Dessert. Company has to have dessert, right? Decide to make Crazy Cake. How aptly named for the occasion.

Run upstairs and wash face and put on something vaguely resembling make-up. Check for B.O. Hurry downstairs to mix up cake and wait for bread to come out of the oven. Take the bread out of the oven.

Company arrives. “Hello, thank you for the lovely flower.” Think, “Sorry plant, you have bad people-karma to get stuck with me.”

Dump the bread out of the hot pan and immediately pour in the cake batter. Double-duty pan, yay! Oops. Realize it was the wrong sized pan. Oh well.

Enjoy the lovely dinner with fresh bread, delicious salad, and wonderful new friends.

Play Mexican Train Dominoes with new friends. WIN!! Hahahah.

Take cake out of  the oven. Discover why cakes should cool before cutting them. Only completely crumble two pieces. Give those to Arctic Boy. He eats everything these days. Wash forks so we can use them to eat cake. Serve delicious, lovely cake to happy friends.

Say good-evening to new friends. Mr. Hot Stuff and Arctic Boy do the mountain of dishes (my heros).

It was a very fun evening, but I’m glad it’s over. Whew!

winner-winner, chicken dinner 🙂

P.S. I’ll put the recipes on a different post, but you already understand the spaghetti, right?