Meringues are on hold until the apples are done

The one problem I have in the kitchen is I love to have too many things going on at once.  To some degree, I'm always looking ahead to five meals/chores into the future, while I'm still working on the previous three, so I can easily get distracted and make mistakes.  Learning to "slow down" and handle only a few things at a time would be much better for me, but it just seems like I need 30 hours in a day and four more hands to get all my ducks in a row.

I'm thinking about this email a friend send me not that long ago that is so very appropriate at this moment, and it's worth reposting for a giggle.

Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.
This is how it manifests:

I decide to water my garden.
 
As I turn on the hose in the driveway,  I look over at my car and decide it needs washing.

As I start toward the garage, I notice mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mail box earlier.

I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full.

So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first...

But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first. 

I take my check book off the table, and see that there is only one check left.
 
My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Pepsi I'd been drinking.

I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Pepsi aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over.

The Pepsi is getting warm, and I decide to put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the Pepsi, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye--they need water.

I put the Pepsi on the counter and discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning. I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table.

I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I'll be looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.

I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor.

So, I set the remote back on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.

Then, I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day:
the car isn't washed
the bills aren't paid
there is a warm can of
Pepsi sitting on the counter
the flowers don't have enough water,
there is still only 1 check in my check book,
I can't find the remote,
I can't find my glasses,
and I don't remember what I did with the car keys
Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day, and I'm really tired.

I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail....


Now you can see where I'm coming from as this is my day, but in spite of it all, I still manage to get stuff completed.  Fred calls me a whirlwind that blows through.  There are times I really get a lot done...so much he can't keep up with me.

So where do the apples fit in?  Fred and I got a bushel not that long ago, and I've been making jams, jellies, pectin, and dried apple rings from these.  It went much faster last year as I had a cheap dehydrator and the oven to back me up, but the dehydrator mysteriously died over the winter.  So now the oven is doing all the work to dehydrate the apple rings, while the burner renders down the apple peelings and cores to make pectin for next year.

This means no meringue cookies until they're all done, and a batch takes about 2-3 days at 170 degrees.  I HATE wasting that kind of energy, and when I get back to work soon, I'm going to invest in a good quality dehydrator that can really handle those kind of loads with less time.