Cookies, Smoke, & Chaos, oh my!

We had so much fun last night getting together with some friends of ours.  The ladies baked and decorated cookies and biscotti while the men babysat and played video games.  Super fun!  We were able to talk, eat yummy treats and bake treats to give to others.  It was great!

Now fast-forward to today just before lunch.  I was sitting at the kitchen table working on finishing and publishing my last video for the Cinch program.  I knew my little sweetheart was going to wake up any minute now so I wanted to get our lunch ready beforehand.  I grabbed our lunch and laid it by the oven that I had just turned on to preheat.  I sat back down and chatted with a few blogging friends of mine on Facebook as I waited on the oven.  It never beeped so I decided to go ahead and go upstairs to get her anyway.  To my surprise, when I stood up, I notice that the kitchen AND living room are both filled with smoke!  Loads of it.  I’m in a panicked state of confusion.  My mind raced to think of what we had for dinner last night to see if by chance anything could have spilled over.  I thought, “Chicken pot pie? No.  Lasagna? No.  We had spaghetti!  No that wouldn’t cause it.”  I noticed that the back burner was smoking every so slightly so I calmed myself down and reassured myself that it was only a dirty tea pot causing the burner to smoke.  I don’t know what I was thinking, the burner wasn’t even on!  I removed the teapot to examine it but I quickly learned that it wasn’t the culprit.  When I picked it up smoke began rushing out like a geyer.  I quickly put the tea pot back.  I stood there for a moment to muster up the courage to open up the oven and see what was inside.  What on earth could cause an empty oven to produce so much smoke and possibly fire!  Oh, no, what if it wasn’t empty?  A lost teddy bear, a dish rag, who knows at this point.  I quickly peer inside as a wave of smoke attacks my face.  I see a pan of something that resembled burnt cookies.  I quickly shut the oven and breathed a huge sigh of relief.  No fire, no precious dolly, just cookies.  No big deal.  I turned off the oven and went and opened a door.  As I walk past the smoke detector, which clearly doesn’t work I realized that I didn’t know what to do next.

I called my husband in a panic because I needed to get this smoke out fast.  What if one of the upstairs smoke detectors went off?  My emotionally sensitive dog would be a mess, much less my sweet toddler.  Panic ensued.  My husband didn’t answer and I shook my fist in the air.  How dare he be at work, probably at a Christmas party, while I’m here trying to save our house from burning down?   Yes, I was a little dramatic but my heart was racing and adrenaline was flowing.  {Come to find out that he was at the pharmacy picking up a prescription for me.  How sweet!  I should have called his cell phone!}  I got online and messaged those blogging friends I was talking with just a few minutes before.  I was too jittery to explain much.  My message was something along the lines of, “HELP! Cookies started burning in the oven. Not fire but smoke everywhere. Don’t know what to do. Take outside? Let smoke out slowly? Help!”  They took longer than 30 seconds to respond so I tried to think of someone else to call who wouldn’t humiliate me for not knowing what to do.  Finally, I thought, “My mom, of course!”  She answered when I called and so sweetly and calmly instructed me to open the windows and doors on the other side of the house to let the breeze go through.  Why didn’t I think of that?  Even though I just vacuumed yesterday dog hair tumbleweeds were blowing through the house and out the door.  That gave me confidence that the smoke was headed out too .  Not to mention, a new idea on how to get rid of dog hair!  It’s very windy here today and the Christmas tree was rocking with all of it’s beautiful glass ornaments.  I run to the other side of the room, hurdling Christmas presents that had been blown to the middle of the floor and removed the ornaments that were most important to me before heading back to the kitchen.

Coming in the kitchen I see that my friends have replied to me and instructed me to take the burnt cookies outside.  I once again stand in front of the oven gathering courage to open it’s door but this time I’m prepared with an oven mitt.  I grab the pan and make a mad rush for the door.  I set the hot pan on the porch to cool down out as I rush back to the other side of the house to try and help direct the smoke out.  I don’t know how much I helped swishing a dish towel in the air but I felt productive.

Now the rooms are much more visible with hardly any smoke left in sight.  The UPS man drops off a present and in the process nearly gives me a heart attack.  I’m a very paranoid person and I don’t usually leave my front door open so seeing a big man there, even though he was waving, was startling.  I composed myself and re-accessed the smoke situation.  The house looks empty of smoke so I begin closing the windows and doors.  When I get to the back door I find my dog eating as many burned pieces of coconut cookies as she can before I take the pan away from her.  I don’t know how she even knew that those charred remains were once delicious cookies.  I laugh at her, begin to relax, brought the pan inside and went up to get my daughter.  I’m thinking that she’s probably bouncing off the walls at this point but when I went in I found her sleeping.  I stood and watched my little sweetie sleep for a minute while thanking God for her, our warm house, and for keeping us safe.  As I walked back downstairs to make myself a warm cup of tea, I thought, “Hey, this will make a great blog post.”  Now here I am, sharing my humiliating and comical day with you in hopes that it will make you smile.