I did it My Way...Oprah!

There's nothing better than a nice relaxing day off...and if I ever have one of those again, I will certainly be the first to relish every moment of the time! 

I'm always a phone call/email away from my clients...which is a great thing most of the time. I had a busy day planned yesterday, and my work was completely off my mind...or at least that was a goal. I can't help it though...knowing I had clients getting deliveries yesterday peaked my curiosity. So I initiated a call with a few of them to check on things.  As I did I could hear my friend Jill just tell me I was "gluttin' for punishment!"

Normally this would've been fine, but I was trying to get my home ready for a dinner party at 6pm. What was I thinking? Or was I even thinking?  Apparently not. Once I opened the client can-of-worms, we became overly chatty.  I should've focused on what I needed to be doing - getting my home ready.  But ever since I read that article in Oprah's magazine a few weeks ago about "multitasking," I've tried to make the most out of every spare minute. 

So I begin picking-up and tidying my home, getting out items needed from the pantry, turned the radio on to 94.9 The Surf for some beach music, and dialed up my client in Calabash, NC to see if she received her pair of chairs yet.  She did and exclaimed they were beautiful!  We chatted on endlessly, laughing, and cutting-up, until I realized we had been on the phone for 22 minutes. Heavenly Father!

I hung up with Calabash and quickly shot an email to an ongoing client in Grand Dunes.  He replied almost as soon as I sent the thing!  This went back-n-forth for what I later realized had turned into a half hour!  So much for multitasking! I walked right over to my magazine rack, searched for the "O" magazine, and properly placed it in the trash!  Clearly Oprah and I see things differently.

So back into the kitchen, I started focusing on my meal for the night!  The menu: Shrimp Creole over white rice, cornbread, roasted asparagus, and a pound cake for dessert - ALL HOMEMADE!  I had a lot to get cracking on! 

So I got everything out I needed to do Paula Deen's "Mama's Pound Cake," after finding the right page in my little cookbook.  I was having a great time cooking, listening to Nantucket's "Need A Ride to Raleigh," and thankful to have a good air conditioner on such a hot day!

Something caught my eye out of my kitchen door.  My poultry pets had come up on the porch: Mr. Bockers, the rooster, and Gertrude, the hen.  I mean they came right up to the glass door, and they have never done anything like that since I've had them.  Like a sack of bricks it hit me: they know I'm about to use their fresh eggs to make this cake, and they're pissed about it!

Well I just shut the kitchen door right in their beaks.  I mean I certainly had lost enough of my morning without feeling bad about using fresh eggs!  After I got my cake all mixed up, I threw it in the oven and began on my shrimp creole sauce.  By noon, I had everything ready: the sauce on the stove, my shrimp defrosting to add later, asparagus marinating, and the cake baking. Uh oh - The cake!

When I opened that oven door, smoke came pouring out like I was at a disco club.  Lawdamercy!  That cake looked as black as a Carolina midnight with no stars!  Well so much for that!  I walked out to the driveway and threw the cake to the chickens, as I was sure they had worked some kind of root or hex on me!  They wanted the eggs, so they could have them!

Oh well...you can't win them all.  At least my creole sauce was simmering to perfection.  I decided to make myself feel better about the cake fiasco that I'd reward myself with a movie. 

I love old black and white movies.  I think the acting and plots are much more authentic and better performed than the current technological effects.  I turned to the TCM channel and "Suddenly Last Summer" was just beginning.  This was based on a Tennessee Williams play and has some great, legendary actors in it - Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and Liz Taylor.

Afterwards I felt much better, and I had just enough time to "fluff" the house and change my clothes before having to set the table. 

5 o'clock means two things to me when I'm off and at home: 1).  Happy Hour & 2). "Fluff" the house.  I'm total OCD about my home and it's daily functions.  All of my house guests notoriously tease me because they've noticed my 5 o'clock rule by monitoring my actions without me ever saying a word.  I just like things orderly, neat, pillows fluffed-up, and lamps on at 5pm.  Yes I know it's crazy.

I quickly changed clothes and started to dress the table as well.  Low and behold, another client call!  I decided to fore go answering Litchfield - I mean everyone needs a little "off time."

I did not plan to "go-all-out" as I sometimes do for dinner parties, but I still wanted to set the table nicely...without it getting too fussy or formal, so I left out the charge plates and more formal accoutrements.  I will say that when the table was dressed and done, it did look beautiful even if it was more simple.

My guests arrived, I turned the phone on silent, and the evening started.  The creole tasted delicious, "Smooth Steppin Papa" by the Holiday Band was blaring on the radio, and the heat had cooled just enough to be quite relaxing.  Nothing is more fun or relaxing to me than to entertain my friends in my home and have a great time. 

The evening went on for a few more hours of cocktails and nonstop laughs after we were done eating.  I walked away and left the dinner table full of dirty dishes to sit and enjoy my friends.  Oprah can multitask if she wants to, but I was going to enjoy my company while I could!