Kids and Kitchens

Since I still don't have internet at home (I hate money... mostly because I don't have enough!) I have been behind in posting. I know some of you know that because I have been hearing about it. So I'm taking a break from all my preparations for finals to update you.

You're welcome.

Okay, first up, kids. Anyone want some? Alex and Annie were home all week last week. Luckily I had the week off, too, so there were no babysitting issues. However, Aiden and Ashley still had Head Start through Wednesday. So much for my resolve to study last week. Alex and Annie play pretty well together. Until they don't. There is a lot of screaming that can come from Annie's mouth and I heard many variations of it last week. Not all because she was in pain. In fact, mostly because she was playing or having fun or just "vocalizing".

We played a lot of games including a new one called There's a Moose In Your House. If you see it, buy it. It's so much fun. When you read the directions it seems complicated but once you play a hand, it's really easy. It is labeled for kids 8+ but even Ashley got the hang of it sooner than later. We've also played more SORRY! than I care to admit. The great thing is that they kids TOTALLY get the sarcasm of the title. The bad thing is that some of them (mostly Alex) can strategize now. So as Alex realizes one sorry card may be best used to get closer to his own safety zone but another person is closer to their own safety zone and uses the card to bump that person instead, the game never ends.

Friday night I ended up changing the rules a bit. The secret rule that "When the game crosses over to the fourth realm of hell all cards go by twos (8=16, etc)" was introduced. That and some creative counting of the spaces by yours truly made the neverending game finally end.

Anyway, the Thursday before Thanksgiving I went to the oven to pre-heat it for dinner. I put the fish sticks in and looked down at the FLAMING ELEMENT. Hmmmm... I closed the door to see if it would go out. Nope. I opened it again. BIGGER FLAMES. Uh, Aiden?

We turned off the oven and it still didn't go out. By this time I have the fire extinguisher ready to put out the fire. (It was still small so it's not like we were really in HUGE danger). It's one that is made to handle electrical fires. Okay, never shot one before in my life but here we go...

SULFER DUST flies out of the nozzle igniting the flames further. That's not what I was after so I decide to call 911. Aiden, meanwhile gets the kids outside and turned off the breaker. That put the fire out, by the way. So now the fire is out and the fire department shows up to a dead fire.

The kids enjoyed the show of the truck and lights and the fireman so it was worth it. The parting remark from the fireman was "tell your landlord to buy you a new oven". yeah, ya think?

Too bad we couldn't get one until Monday but at least everyone was safe, nothing major went on, and the whole thing happened before Thanksgiving.

The new one is all pretty and we are better than everyone else in our complex because we have TWO big burners. HA HA!

Okay, so karma for being braggarts about the new oven: on Thanksgiving, our fridge died. Of course we can't take care of it until our landlord is back to work on MONDAY so we had a lot of condiments go bad. And the leftovers. BUT the upside is Mom says she's mailing a condiments check and we'll be back to enjoying our soy sauce and pickles in no time.

Krista, the landlord who is now CONVINCED we hate her and really want to move, sent the repairman to see if it's just iced over or really broken. I hope it's really broken so we don't have it go out again in 2 months. Our oven had a multitude of things need a lot of help in the last year so if the fridge does it again I'm going to vote they replace everything.

What we have learned and will pass on for you, just in case, is: Do not try to sweep up the sulfer mess from your fire extinguisher. It just flies around. Use wet rags and rinse often.
Also, when you think you've cleaned it all up, you're wrong. You will continue to find things that did not catch fire but the sulfer tried to put out. Luckily it's yellow and easy to tell what you've missed (the tops of the cabinets? Really? Out to my living room? For real? ) Sulfer FLIES and goes far and onto EVERYTHING you own. I'm sure it's in my storage unit across town by now, too.