Current mood:	embarrassed
Current music:	A Bad Beginning (by Lemony Snicket)
Entry tags:	family, food

If at first you don't succeed...
...read the directions!

I got my first "bad" grade (B) in school in the second grade when I didn't read the directions on a worksheet I completed. I cried. I thought I had learned a lesson then, but apparently not.

Last night at our monthly sales meeting, my director handed out a math "quiz", part of an object lesson in host coaching. She went into great detail explaining what it was and that we had 2 minutes to complete it. She handed them out face down, set her timer, and told us to begin. I jumped right in, answering the second-grade-level subtraction problems as quickly as I could. I even had time to go back and double-check my answers. She commented on how quickly we were working and that she must have given us too much time. After the timer beeped, she read off the first answer and asked who had gotten it correct. It wasn't the answer I had. About half the group raised their hands. She grinned and asked who had read the directions at the top of the paper. Not me. Hey, hadn't she just gone into detail explaining what to do? Not really...

Tonight I was going to cook something new for supper, a recipe for mini frittatas that I found in an old Family Fun magazine. Caleb cut up ham and mushrooms while I chopped the tomato, onion, and bell pepper. Then I made my substitute half and half, added the eggs and seasoning, and poured up the little servings in my muffin pan. We took turns dropping our add-ins into our individual cups, then topped them with cheese. We oohed and aahed over how great they looked and I put them in the oven to bake. I went back to the magazine to look over the recipe again and read how much half and half I should have put in - half as much as I actually did! Uh-oh! I didn't mention my mistake to the boys, and I hoped they would turn out halfway decent. I ended up baking them an additional 8 minutes to be sure the insides were not too runny! Caleb liked his but commented, "They're kind of juicy." Ugh! He ate all of it, though. Jacob ate about half of his. I was surprised he wanted any because he likes all his omelet ingredients separate. I ate most of mine, but I didn't like the texture very much. The flavor was good, so I'm definitely going to try them again. Next time, I'll have half and half on hand so I won't have to mix up any substitute. And I'm going to read the directions more carefully.