One less responsibility

I was to be a narrator for the Christmas cantata at church on Sunday.

I was getting a bit apprehensive - not because I mind public speaking, but because they'd not called me to tell me to come rehearse with them, and there was one point where you need to be speaking AS the music starts (and they are using recorded music), so it gets tricky.

Well, because of the ice storm, they missed a couple of practices, and they decided that the lot and sidewalks were still too bad for it to be safe for tonight's practice, or the Elder's or board meetings.

So everything is cancelled. The cantata is postponed until the 22nd, which means they'll need to get a new Narrator 2, because I will be in Illinois several days before then.

I'm sad about missing out on doing it - I always enjoy being a part of those things - but it does lift a time burden off of me:

1. I can grade my ecology exams tonight. (Biostats exams, except for the two I haven't received from students - they have mitigating circumstances, bad roads where they live and I know they have very unreliable transportation - they drive together - have already been graded)

2. I can find time to wash my hair without having to do it at 9 pm and then blow dry it.

3. I can cook a proper dinner instead of throwing something together and wolfing it down in a hurry before I run out the door. I had to go to the store today (I don't recommend big groceries either right before OR right after an ice storm. Apparently the local school is still out and lots of parents/caretakers had taken their kids to the wal-mart so the kids could run off and scream off pent-up energy. Not fun.)

I almost had a tiny meltdown in the wal-mart because I realized I really REALLY wanted a hot dinner, preferably one with quality protein (dinner last night was a peanut butter sandwich, canned peaches, applesauce, and prunes. Yeah, I was kind of scraping the barrel's bottom, foodwise). And then I realized I didn't have time to cook, if I was going to go to church for the 5 pm thing.

And then I thought: could there be a frozen dinner low enough in sodium I could eat it?

Clam strips: No
Any kind of pre-cooked, breaded shrimp: No
Mac and cheese: No
Pretty much any "Italian" style dinner: No, and anyway, if the luncheon for tomorrow is still on, that will be Italian. And better Italian than frozen food.
"Chinese" style: oh, absolutely not.
Chicken fingers, which at that moment my grading-addled brain seized on as The Thing I Want Most In The World To Eat Right Now: 660 milligrams for two stinking fingers? Are you KIDDING me? (This is why I hate having to be a label-reader.)

I put a bag of frozen plain green beans in my cart and just kind of stopped dead for a couple minutes. "I suppose," I thought, "I suppose I could buy some raw chicken fingers and bread them myself and cook them myself" but then I thought "No. You don't have time for that." And then I realized that even counting in breading time, I could probably prepare chicken fingers from scratch in 15 minutes (or less), which is less than it takes to cook a few of the premade kind in the oven (I don't do microwaved chicken).

So I bought the fingers and planned to run home at 3:30 and just eat them early-bird-special style, and then go down to church, which would mean I'd be better nourished and less likely to melt down if the director (who has a Reputation) started getting a bit short with me because I wasn't ideally prepared.

But now, I can go home, finish practicing piano, take a shower and wash my hair, fix the chicken fingers and green beans and some other vegetable for dinner, eat like a normal human, and then sit down and grade my exams.

Also, I don't have to worry about fixing food for the Jesus' Birthday Party, which has also been postponed.