Often I try to do too many things at once. Multitasking? Sometimes it just doesn’t pay off.
Take for instance the night last week our 13 year old, Justus, invited some friends over for a movie night/sleepover. You must have popcorn for a such an event, which my boys were in charge of popping since I was in the middle of making and canning tomato sauce. Somewhere in there, I had also started mixing up the waffles for our breakfast the following day. Like I always say, “why measure flour tomorrow when you can put it in a bowl tonight while you’re making tomato sauce?”
So the flour/baking powder/salt mixture sat on the counter by the popcorn maker, which was being manned by our eleven year old who had left the room. I was cranking my Victorio on the other side of the kitchen so as to get the tomato sauce in jars and in the water bath. Since I’m so careful and good at multitasking, I was also squirting tomato juice into my face and onto my flip flops. Somewhere in there, popcorn kernels began flying around the kitchen, which went unnoticed by the eleven year old who was no longer in the room, and which was noticed too late by the woman cranking out tomato sauce.
Popcorn on the floor and flying outside of the bowl? Eh, it’s happened before. After all, an air popper does like to send popcorn flying at times whether you’re watching it or not. The chief popcorn maker made his way back into the room because pre-teen intuition in the form of motherly hollering gave him a hint that something was amiss. He picked up the popcorn that had tried to escape, and started another batch in another bowl. After all, you can never have too much popcorn during a movie night. I insisted that he stay by the machine this time so as to lasso in more popcorn escapees.
Five quarts of tomato sauce and four batches of popcorn later, we cleaned the kitchen and gathered around to watch a movie.
The next morning, I set about making big stacks of waffles for all of my boys and their friends. Ironically, it was our eleven year old who was the first to find a popcorn kernel in a bite of waffle. “Mom, you accidentally got a piece of popcorn in the waffles.” (Wait – who accidentally got popcorn in the waffles, Mr. Turn On the Popcorn Machine and Walk Out of the Room?)
He and I hoped it was only that one kernel, and we were relieved that it was he who found it and not one of our guests. Our relief lasted for about three minutes, at which time one of our guests found a popcorn kernel in his waffle too. Then Justus almost broke his tooth on one. And then our other guest found one. It was one of my finer hospitality moments.
Lesson learned: Never make tomato sauce, waffles, and popcorn all at the same time. But if you do, be sure to sift your waffle mix.
This tip is, without a doubt, just as helpful as the information I shared about Freezing Peaches Whole, is it not? I make it a goal to try to continually amaze you.
Has your multitasking ever caused more trouble than efficiency?
I don’t drink coffee. I don’t like coffee. Coffee smells great but tastes terrible. Coffee is super bitter, how could anyone like it? Yuck, coffee, no thank you. All things I’ve said about coffee for years and years.
