Another Productive Day

This morning wif got up and got right down to the business of finding missing addresses for baby shower invitees along with eating honey nut cheerios for breakfast.  After catching the tail end of Cheaters, hub and wif got ready for the day and had a snack of nectarine.  Today's tasks included donating furniture to Community Warehouse, going to AT&T to switch to a family plan, trying out Hollywood Burger Bar and picking up more paint.  Community Warehouse (at the intersection of Interstate and Albina) was a quick and easy stop.  The employee that helped us was friendly and did not reject our furniture (for which we were thankful).  Next, we went to the AT&T store, where we experienced quite a wait despite being the middle of a work day.  Notably, the store has several "stations" where customers may check out or receive other assistance.  This made waiting in line difficult because people could (and did) move from area to area based on their perception on the wait length.  The AT&T employees also moved from station to station increasing the confusion.  After a moderate wait Hub and Wif asked to merge their individual cell phone plans to one shared "family" plan.  Prior to entering the store, Hub and Wif took bets on whether the AT&T employees would successfully handle this request.  Historically similar tasks have been met with smiles and promises of success but incomplete follow through; this was not hub and wif's first attempt to switch to a family plan.  This time the process took about fifteen minutes to complete and a later visit to the online account revealed the switch to be an apparent success.  After AT&T, hub and wif made a stop at the highly anticipated Hollywood Burger Bar.  This restaurant always smelled delicious and promised outstanding burgers.  Hub and Wif split a 1/3 lb burger with no mayo, thousand island or onions, an RC Cola and a chocolate milkshake.  Across the board, Hub and Wif were underwhelmed.  The restaurant was a little dingy inside rendering wif nervous about the cleanliness of the kitchen.  The burger was average; it was prepared in the old-timey style of Skyline Cafe only it didn't taste as good.  The milkshake appeared to hold promise on the menu - made from hard pack ice cream it sounded delicious.  However, the chocolate syrup employed by Hollywood Burger Bar was not the tastiest.  Hub and Wif finished their underwhelming lunch and headed to Miller Paint to pick up two gallons of seashell pink and a few other painting supplies; the employees are starting to recognize us.  Hub and wif returned home from this excursion and hub jumped into painting - first he had to finish priming then he could start the first layer of pink.  Wif played Internet, emailed Brenda the address list and then got started making blackberry pie.  Wif used the America's Test Kitchen pie crust recipe although she broke some of the rules, namely the one requiring refrigeration of the dough.  Well, wif refrigerated the dough but for only about a third of the time required by the recipe.  Anyway, as a result of wif's impatience the pie dough was tough to work with, to say the least.  It was both sticky and dry, because it was warm but wif didn't add enough water.  While wif was getting the berries ready, she noticed a few had little moldy spots; those were thrown away but caused wif some anxiety with regard to the impact on their neigoboring berries.  Wif washed the remaining berries and was assured by her mom and Hub that between rinshing and cooking everything would be fine.  Once the berries were rinsed and mixed with flour and sugar, wif discovered that her pie plate is deeper than most, so the required amount of blackberries did not quite fill the crust.  With no berries to spare, wif was forced to accept this condition and hope for the best.  Wif finally got the pie assembled and into the oven; however, wif forgot to brush the crust with milk (never heard of this method before, but did it) and sprinkle with sugar.  

When she pulled out the oven rack to quickly complete this task, she burned her right index finger for the second time in 24 hours.  All in all, wif did not have the best pie making experience but she's sure the results will be tasty making it worth the trouble.  Wif did, finally, get a chance to use her marble pastry slab and marble rolling pin.  Both were helpful and probably diminished the difficulty wif had with the crust.  Wif especially appreciated the weight of the marble rolling pin.  While the pie was cooking, hub called wif upstairs to look at the first large chunk of wall he painted pink.  It looked spetacular; baby will love her room!

Baby's day was pretty mellow.  She was busy this morning and throughout the day she jabbed here and there.  Notably, she appears to have developed a taste for jabbing toward the side instead of pretty directly out front.  This could simply be a product of her house getting increasingly deep.

Update: Hub and wif found the blckberry pie to be rather tasty.  While the crust looks pretty sloppy it tastes buttery flaky delicious.