Befuddled Baker FAIL

Somedays I think I should be riding the short bus.

These last couple of weekends I have had to be at work bright and early at 7 am.  Folks, for someone who normally doesn't report for duty until 1 or 2 pm, 7 am seems awfully early to be my normal chipper self.  Just to make sure that I get to work on time, I have to set my alarm for around 4:20 am.  Yes, you read that right 4:20 AM.  This way I can hit snooze a billion times (and yes, I mean that literally) before actually getting my rear end out of bed at 5:15 am.

Well, the other morning, once I finally mustered the oomph to get up, (which, by the way was 5:30 am NOT 5:15 am : shameful) the first thing I noticed was that my throat was feeling scratchy and sore.  Being grumpy anyway due to the early hour, I was even more annoyed by this unhappy discovery.  I decided that I just didn't have it in me to suffer through the irritating tickling feeling, and that the cough medicine had my name written all over.  Let me clarify: reaching for medicine, unless it's a last resort, is not my usual style.  I would usually wait it out for a few days before taking said cough medicine.  That being the case, I'm really not too familiar with what's in my medicine cabinet.  I reflexively grabbed something that resembled cough medicine, poured out a hefty dose, chugged, and trudged to the shower.

About 20 minutes later, as I was getting dressed, I realized that I was still incredibly tired.  Literally, I couldn't even put makeup on I was so tired.  So I decided to forget about being chipper, and climbed back into bed for another 20 minutes of much needed sleep.  Sadly, the second alarm went off much too soon, and once again I was dragging myself into a standing position.  While driving to work the situation only got worse.  I could barely keep my eyes open.  No exaggerating, I could have easily closed my eyes and fallen immediately asleep, even though I consciously knew I was driving!  Ridiculous!  When I did get to work, things continued to worsen.  I was coherent enough to know that I needed to get coffee into my system - STAT!  However, it didn't seem to do much good.  For the next 2 1/2 hours it was all I could do to keep my head off my desk.  I was even having a little bit of trouble forming rational sentences.  One of my coworkers asked me if I had been out late the night before drinking - how mortifying!  I tried to explain that no, I had gone to bed early, and had no clue why I was so groggy.  He laughed, shook his head, and went back to work, obviously thinking I was fibbing.

Around 11:00 am, after 4 hours of this torture, I began to feel more like my normal self, and the incredible tiredness began to fade thankfully away.  As I began to relate my crazy morning to a friend, she asked about the cough medicine that I had taken.  Could that have possibly been the problem, she wondered?  What an obvious idea.  So obvious that it had not even occurred to my genius self!  I had actually grabbed the bottle when I left my house that morning just in case my throat kept bothering me.  Curious, I fished it out of my lunch bag.  Just my luck : I had taken night time cough medicine.  Yes, yes, I know.  Now you are agreeing with me : I should be riding the short bus.  

Continuing on this shamefully embarrassing streak is my first, and probably only, attempt at brining meat.  I had a lovely meal planned consisting of quinoa, green beans, and brined chicken which sounded fabulous (and smelled fabulous while it was cooking, I might add).  The brine consisted of salt, turbinado sugar, herbs de province, lemon juice, and olive oil.  Sounds delicious, right?  Yeah, I thought so too.  One problem though. Once I sat down and ate my first bite of chicken, my face probably puckered so bad I looked like I was 80!  Salt OVERLOAD.  Eck!  I'm not sure where I messed the process up, but believe me, I seriously screwed this one up folks.  BEFUDDLED BAKER FAIL (reference: failblog.com - go now!).  Sadly, the chicken met my trashcan, and I was stuck with only some quinoa and a pile of lonely green beans.  Jeez....what a week.