Plan What?

This was the plan today ... let's call it Plan A:

- bake gluten-free cornbread

- make gluten-free stuffing

- bake gluten-free pumpkin pie cake

- (have daughter bake) gluten-free chocolate chip cookies

Not too bad, except for the beginnings of a migraine and a throbbing foot. Then I went to preheat the oven. It wouldn't preheat. It will only go on the "clean oven" mode. 

So I went to Plan B:

- panic

- cry

- look up what might be the problem online

- try to fix it

- cry when it doesn't work

- panic

- make snowflakes

That didn't work, so I moved on to Plan C:

- look up crockpot recipes for cornbread and stuffing

- look up crockpot dessert ideas

And so I found out that I could most likely accomplish gluten-free cornbread and stuffing in the crockpot. Problem solved. But what about dessert? Every single crockpot dessert that looked fabulous enough for Thanksgiving required ingredients I didn't have and looked incredibly complicated and I didn't want to risk them not coming out right. And then...

Plan D:
- friend, whose children I'm watching later in the day, offers to run to gluten-free bakery to pick up cupcakes

- I hem and haw and finally agree and thank her profusely

Relief! I get to work on the cornbread and stuffing.

And then ... a call including many apologies and screaming children in the background ... plan C aborted due to lost wallet and overtired children. Instead she comes over with the girls and we share our horrible mornings with each other. I feed children, then load the girl children into the van for a ride to the gluten-free bakery ... in hopes that overtired girls nap and getting out of the house helps me de-stress and reframe my day. 

On to Plan E: 

At the bakery, I procure a dozen yummy cupcakes, a half pound of snickerdoodles, a treat for the awake kids in the van to share, and a lemon bar to calm my nerves. Yes...that's it...calm my nerves. Lemon bars do that, you know. 

Amazing friends offered suggestions and oven usage along the way, but going to someone else's house with a horde of kids in tow just wasn't on my list of "easy fix to frustrating problem." I'm not sure the kids would have survived helped my stress levels.

Mischief managed. The cornbread looks edible, if a bit lumpy. The stuffing is yummy. The cupcakes will hopefully survive the day in the fridge, as it's a very difficult thing for me the children to not eat them. 

If the rest of the day goes as planned (ha!), I'll feed the kids dinner of some sort in three hours and put them to bed in four and a half hours, then shower and go to bed myself. By 8pm. So I can get up at 1, load everyone in the van, and drive eight and a half hours to Pennsylvania to spend Thanksgiving with my in-laws.