Diaper Wipe Countdown

Well, today wasn't quite the magnificent day that yesterday was. I woke up feeling quite sucky and within about 15 minutes of being awake I had decided against going to the church to receive an order today. About 15 minutes after that I changed Gabe's first dirty diaper of the day and realized we had 5 wipes left. I spent a fair bit of time debating what I was going to do and I eventually settled on sticking to my plan of staying at home and going to Walmart tonight for wipes. About half an hour later Gabe had his second dirty diaper of the day. My confidence in my ability to stretch my 2 remaining wipes was waning. But, after a conversation with Matt my resolve held and I vowed to make it the rest of the day with only two wipes and I figured I'd resort to wet cotton balls if I needed to.
Yesterday when Matt and I went out for lunch there were hot buns at the buffet and Matt was raving about how good these buns were. He made me taste one and I couldn't quite agree with him about them being anything extraordinary. They were salty and had a fun taste to them, but I figured Matt liked them mostly because they were fresh and buttery. So I set out to make buns for him today. I whipped out my oldest bun recipe (Old School Better Homes and Gardens) and started making. And right away I screwed up. I was supposed to heat the milk until the shortening was almost melted. I failed to read the word "almost". So I kept heating until the shortening was completely gone and then I realized that I'd made the milk too warm for the yeast... but I realized that a little too late. So I ended up with a fairly tough dough by the time it had risen. I made clover buns, so I rolled 3 little balls per bun and put them in muffin tins, but I was too impatient to bake the pans separately and even though I know my oven to be finnicky, I thought I'd try my luck. My luck apparently ran out. At any time when there are any more than 1 cookie sheet, cake pan or muffin tin in my oven, the baking becomes very uneven and the bottoms of whatever I'm baking burn - or at least get very dark, very fast. I first noticed this when I was baking my annual 120 sugar cookies at Christmas our first year in this house. At first I thought I'd messed up and let the sheets touch eachother or the sides of the oven, but no. Then I thought I'd try to put one sheet up and one sheet down and switch them half way through - still no. The only thing that works is baking one sheet at a time. It's a real pain when I'm baking cakes. Anyway, as I said above, my luck ran out. The buns didn't burn but they did get extra brown on the bottoms, they failed to rise properly because I killed the yeast with my too-hot milk and they weren't as fluffy as they ought to have been, again owing to the hot milk. Smooth, eh? On the upside, they did taste a heck of a lot better than the ones at the buffet. Oh, and I made two dozen but there are only 8 left (Gabe ate four of them himself) so obviously they weren't the worst things I ever made.
I also made Millionaire's Shortbread for a family get-together tomorrow. I always forget how it should look when I make the dulce de leche filling so it kinda freaks me out everytime when it starts to chunk up a bit, but then it always works out in the end. I really ought to make a note for myself somewhere...
Gabe only had a half hour nap in the afternoon (and a third poop which cost me one more wipe and a few cotton balls) and I spent that time reading my bible instead of cleaning or cooking - which I can't really say I regret. But the result was that by the time my shortbread and my buns were done it was nearly 5:00 and I had nothing made for dinner. I called Matt and, much to my relief, found that he was still going to be a while yet, so I pulled out a Spaghetti Squash and got that baking. I also decided that I needed another dessert for the get-together, so I whipped up a boxed Devil's Food Cake to make a Black Forest In a Bowl (layers of cake, whipping cream, cherry pie filling and chocolate pudding). By this time I was quite exhausted since I had already been feeling lousy today and after dinner I collapsed on the couch. I lasted this evening for an epic trip to Walmart (the term 'epic' implies an expenditure of $200+) where we got everything from Sweetened Condensed Milk and Toothbrush to Diapers and new pants for Matt.
Oh, and after rewriting the cafe schedule for the 8th time I got an email back from one particularly hard to please volunteer saying that the second set of dates she gave me needed to be changed. Gah.
So, now I'm finally sitting down and relaxing now that Gabe has gone to bed nearly two hours late (he has a horrible diaper rash so those wet cotton balls weren't a bad idea anyway - oh, and just for the record, we used the last wipe on poopy diaper number 4 today right before we left for Walmart) and I'm excited for tomorrow but at the same time I'm pretty tired already and while the day will be fun, it will also involve a bunch of work. I'm going to need a lot of coffee.

Mrs. Vander Leek ;)