Apple pie and serendipity

About a week ago, I had way too many apples that no one was eating. While grocery shopping, I found frozen pie crust that uses vegetable shorting instead of lard. I had my monthly knitting, crocheting, quilting group meeting on Tuesday. Usually there are only a few people there plus kids. I love apple pie so I decided to make 2, one for the group and one for home.

Now, as I've noted before, I'm a huge procrastinator. HUGE! I'm the leader/coordinator/whatever for the group and because people asked, I changed the meeting from Sunday afternoons to Tuesday at 10. We rarely ever get out of the house that early. It takes us at least 15 min. to drive to the meeting which doesn't include the eternity it takes to get everyone ready and in the car. The recipe called for 40 min. cook time. So, keeping these points in mind, when do you think I started the apple pies? Not the night before, like I had planned. Not 7 a.m. after getting up and getting my day going. Nope, I started leisurely peeling, chopping, coring 14 apples sometime after 8 then didn't get the pies in the oven until about 9:00.

As Murphy's Law dictates, the pies actually took almost an hour until they were done. We left the house 5 min. after we were supposed to be at the meeting. My friend even called me when we were a few minutes away to see if I was actually coming. Ooops! You think that would be enough right? Wrong. I get there and they were outside waiting. Odd, they could have just waited for us inside, right? Nope. The doors were locked. They're NEVER locked during the day. And, of course, no one here has a key. We stand around for a few minutes discussing options when another friend pulls up late for the meeting. Does she have a key? Nope.

I suggest my house. Nope too far for one. Chuck E. Cheese is suggested. Nope, another doesn't want to introduce it to her 2 year old just yet. Finally, I suggest the nearby library. They have a community room and maybe, just maybe it's available. All agree and off we go. On the way I think about bring the apple pie into the library. You can eat in the community room but I decide that it would be a bit much especially since when we arrive we find the library parking quite full. What's up with that on a Tuesday morning during school? We all had to park on the far side of the parking lot. No big deal, there are a couple of picnic tables outside and it's a beautiful day in the upper 60's so once everyone parks, I tell them change of plans, we're going to go sit at the picnic tables and eat our pie before going inside. We start the trek across the parking lot to the picnic tables and the kids start to bulk. There's so bird poo and no table clothes to cover it up. Hmm, now what? Oh wait, I think I still have a hospital drape (big, blue water-proof cloth) in the back of my van. We head back to my car, right in front of which is a nice sized grassy area.

So our inside knitting meeting turned into a outside apple pie picnic on one of the most beautiful days of the year. We spent the whole meeting time outside chatting while the kids played.

A whole chain of events came into play to make that such a wonderful morning. Me being late made it so that we didn't miss our friend's arrival. A second friend that hasn't ever come before decided to come and she was the reason for not heading to my house since she lives further away. (Being at my house would have meant we spent the time inside.) The locked doors had us looking for alternative locations. The unusually busy library parking lot had us parking near the grass. An unseasonably warm day plus having the pie to share had us outside. If any of these things had been different, we wouldn't have had nearly such a great day. It still would have been a good day but not nearly so wonderful. And the second pie, it was a big hit with dh. He's asked me for another, which I guess I'll make today or tomorrow. I forgot to take a picture until the second was half gone.

I got the dutch apple pie recipe from Allrecipes here.