Paula Deen Caused Our Fire. Fun-filled Week.

Did ya know that Paula Deen about burnt our house down this past Monday morning? Well, we did have a small contained kitchen fire thanks to her Baked French Toast recipe (which by the way is delicious and has never happened before - check it out and print it!). Yeah, the culprit was those two sticks of butter that were in it. I am almost positive!!! Duh, what do you think?

I had made it the night before and baked it that morning. I saw some had spilled out in the oven, but I didn't realize to what extent. For lunch Andrew wanted one of those small frozen pizzas so I preheated the oven, stuck it in and a couple of minutes later, Andrew says, "Mom, there's smoke coming from the oven." I look and don't think much about it at first but see that it's really pouring out of the back vent. Then I make the big mistake of opening it to look and then the chaos commences!

All that super hot grease gets some oxygen and a fire jumps a good six to eight inches high. I hollered at Wade who was home, thankfully and he goes immediately for the fire extinguisher. I do NOT want that stuff in my house (I know a fire spreading is worse, right? LOL) so I try to stop him which doesn't work but is okay any ways because our FOURTEEN YEAR OLD fire extinguisher doesn't work. Ha ha ha. So it wasn't funny at all then, and there was some panicking but all those days in the Boy Scouts became useful again as Wade remembered that baking soda is used for putting out grease fires. He went looking for the box in the fridge, but I got the one out of the cabinet quicker.

Oh the excitement you can imagine that was going on in our house. We turned on the ceiling fans, opened a few doors to the outside and hoped that the smoke alarm wouldn't go off. The reason being that with our security system if it goes off then we don't get a call to see if it's a real emergency, nooooo, they immediately send the fire department (which is how it should be but in gaffes like this you don't want that to happen!).

See this yummy goodness! The perpetrator:


Go ahead and try that recipe. I've made it several times and every time I just want to eat and eat and eat more of it. It's pretty good re-heated too in the microwave. I would just suggest that you check your oven afterwards and make sure you clean it out if anything spills. ;) That was the first time that had happened. I think the problem is I usually use my air-bake 9x13 pan which is larger than the glass 9x13 pan I used this time. And I know they should be the same - NINE by THIRTEEN, right? Well, they aren't.

Wade left on Tuesday for a meeting in Chicago. The kids and I missed him although I think he missed us more being the one away from home. We stayed super busy having something going on every day. On Tuesday I had a hair appointment to get some highlights so they played on their Nintendos the whole time. I ended up taking them that night to spend the night with Nana because I had two more appointments (doc and dentist) the next day.

I stayed up until 2 am that night as I had the whole house to myself. Mostly sewing. (Yes, I'm afraid I've found a new hobby. Shhhh!) And I paid for it the next morning when I had to be at an appointment a little after 9. I am a full-eight-hours-of-sleep kinda gal and feel the lack of it if I don't get it. I made it through the day though, got the kids and went to bed a little after ten that night. :)

On Thursday we went to the Barter Theater with Nana and Jeremiah and saw a FABULOUS play, My Imaginary Pirate. I loved loved loved it! I think it is my favorite I've ever seen by the Barter Players which is the group of performers who do the short-run plays for kids. I laughed and cried. It was good!

The fun didn't stop there though. The kids and I had decided the night before that we would drive to a local drive-in movie theater to watch "Toy Story 3". It was about 35 minutes away and started at 9. It was over at 11 (it didn't really start at 9). We had a great time and enjoyed it. We have plans to go back with Daddy soon. It was only $10 for the three of us though ($6 for adults and $2 for kids 10 and under)!! Woohoo!


On Friday I finished one of my two ongoing projects. They are ongoing because of me. One is the refinishing of the kitchen table and chairs that I started four weeks ago. Yes, I am embarrassed to say that but I've been busy, I got disgusted with the results (of the stain I had bought and then had to sand off again) and the weather has been so hot that I have been shying away from outside. Alas, though I have finished the panels that go on our skylights in the living room. They were on there when we bought the house 7.5 yrs ago and I liked them. They softened the light. The last time I took them down to wash them they basically fell apart they were so old and had been fried by the sun. So I bought some more sheer fabric and made two more.

The second one was much easier after doing the figuring and all for the first. I had looked online for quite a while and could not find anything like this to buy to replace this so I did have to make them. In retrospect I will say that it may have been easier to buy some sheers from Bed, Bath & Beyond using a coupon or somewhere to use the fabric for the design because even with Hancock Fabric's sales they are having right now, these cost me about $15 each.

We were happy to have Wade come home Friday night. It was almost midnight so the kids were in bed. We got up the next morning and had a photo shoot of our family by Holly Rainey. I can NOT wait to get them back!! Afterwards we checked out the farmer's market in the downtown and scrounged up enough cash to buy Elizabeth some colby style goat cheese. We also ate breakfast at Cranberry Thistle. Our waitress was wonderful and we saw they were having live music that night (Bluegrass, yeehaw!) so we went back that evening for dinner and some entertainment. Our waitress wasn't even half as good and I personally didn't think my food was but Wade enjoyed his and we enjoyed the music for an hour before leaving.

I think I'm slowly getting Photoshop Elements 8.0 figured out. I finally got my actions uploaded to it yesterday and edited some photos from our celebration of Tom's 70th birthday (my father-in-law). Pictures to come hopefully in the next day or two!