Calabaza!

Mindy marveling at my p.pie prowess. Now that’s more like it! I was able to get out of bed and begin my day at a much more reasonable hour. I was out of bed and down the stairs by 7:45am. Sadly, the beautiful weather from Saturday was no where to be found. Instead we were once again stricken with CCGD. I did my best to ignore the less than desirable weather and pushed forward with my routine. By the time I had brewed coffee, exercised, and walked Ykraps, it was 8:15am. Not knowing what time Mindy wanted up, I didn’t bother making her a bed side cup of coffee. I did verify that she was planning to attend church. I tinkered in the kitchen until about 9:00 whipping up some homemade pie crust. I placed the baseball sized doe ball in the fridge for the prescribed 4 hours and then headed upstairs to ready for a run. I wasted little time and headed out the door minutes later. I took the outer loop east on Trabue and south on Hague ave. Traffic was thankfully very light compared to recent runs. When I finally found my way back home I could smell the maple bacon baking in the oven. Too, it looked like Mindy was making French toast form scratch. While she cooked I played. I decided to run Windows security scan and to upgrade to I.E. 7.0. Breakfast was ready minutes later. I knew the PC would take a couple of hours to run the full scan. I was comfortable with that. I went and joined Mindy in the kitchen for breakfast. The French toast and bacon was very good – top notch! It has been a while since we’ve had a big Sunday breakfast. I asked Mindy when she was leaving for church. She apparently decided not to go. They’re not going to be all that pleased with her, I am sure. After breakfast Mindy disappeared upstairs for what I assumed was a nap. Come 12:30pm (fours after placing the doe ball in the fridge) I removed the doe ball to began rolling it into a useable pie crust. Problem… I couldn’t locate the rolling pin. Mindy, it seemed, had opened a drawer to verify we had it earlier in the day. I searched high and low. I had no choice but to interrupt her nap. She insisted it was in that very drawer, but I had looked at least three times and it’s not like that drawer is crammed full. It is not. As she came down the steps I looked a gain only this time I could see it at the very back. I had mistaken the wooden rolling pin for the back of the wood drawer. Emergency averted. I carefully and slowly rolled out my crust admittedly nervous having not done this but one other time with marginal results. This time, however, it seemed to go much better. Soon I had what I felt was a good crust at the right thickness. Mindy inspected it too, and agreed. I carefully placed it in the glass pie pan and formed the usual edge. I set it aside to begin mixing the pumpkin filling. I had a handful of recipes available but ultimately decided on a very basic concoction – the one on the can. I took my time preparing the mixture wanting my pie to be a success. By 1:30pm I completed the mixture and poured it into the ready and waiting pie pan. I baked it at 425 degrees for 15 minutes then another 45 minutes at 350 degrees. I removed the pie around 2:30pm. I could only hope that it tastes as good as it looks. While the pie cooled, I watched football. Sometime close to 3:30pm Jim brought the kids back home after their weekend away. At about the same time, I got in the shower. Come 4pm we left for Gloria’s house. We took our pie along for dessert. We arrived at Gloria’s a little earlier than normal and learned once there that we would be the only dinner guests. We had thought that Joe and Lindy would be joining but that wasn’t the case. We watched the finish of the Bengals game. They won. I had hoped the Viking Seahawk game would be up next even though FOX 28’s webpage said otherwise. Nope, they ended up showing the Indy vs. Washington game instead. Just as well, I figured. I didn’t want to be ranting and raving at the TV in front of Gloria. We sat down to a nice quiet dinner around 5pm. We had fried cube steak, a’ gratin potatoes, and baked beans. For dessert Gloria made a Boston cream pie & I made the aforementioned pumpkin pie. Everything was good as expected, including my pumpkin pie. However, if I had it to do over I would bake the pie five minutes longer (note to self). We stayed at Gloria’s until almost 7:05pm when we loaded up the kids and the gear and headed home. Once we were home I took Ykraps on his evening walk right away. Mindy began bathing the kids. After a bath we did reading night and a quick tuck in. They were in bed just before 8pm. We retreated to the family room to watch the World Series. Come 9:30pm we went to bed.