The super bowl brownie story

Super bowl Sunday at the Herrock house went something like this. Owen had to be at work at 6:00 am. He woke up at 5:45. When I checked my phone before church I had a text from him asking us to bring his jacket. He'd left so fast he'd forgotten to get one and it was cold and raining. John took it to him and then we went to church and then came home and ate lunch. After lunch and before my nap I took Emma to do a drop off at Old Navy and Target in the driving rain. When we got home it was nap time on the couch. During nap time I received 14 texts from my three sisters. I thought I'd died and gone to bell hop heaven due to the incessant dinging of my phone. But I persevered, kept my eyes closed and stayed focused on the task at hand. 

While I was sleeping Caitlin made brownies to take to the super bowl party at Jared and Colby's house. I was beginning to wake up when I heard a happening, and once awake I looked and saw the kitchen full of billowing smoke and I could make out the legs of Caitlin fighting to retrieve her homemade brownies from the engulfed oven. It seems the molten brownies spilled over the shallow pan and created a gigantic mess inside causing much trouble. I said as I was wiping the sleep from my eyes, "Turn the oven off and open the doors and windows!" It was raining and freezing outside, but smoke was everywhere. The den quickly filled up with wafting waves drifting by heading towards the hall and the smoke detector, which was only going to add to the chaos. By then I was up and in the kitchen trying to help Caitlin who was saying, "But the brownies only need 5 more minutes." I said, "Well they aren't finishing in this oven!" So she got the brownies out while I got the smoldering oven racks and took them outside. I returned to find Caitlin scrapping the burned batter off the bottom of the oven using a large barbecue spatula, which worked quite well I might add. So she cleaned the oven out as best she could since it was still hot, but as anyone knows the smell is not as easily removed. It was so bad. I think it permeated the furniture and the walls of our home. So. Awful. 

After the crisis of the brownies had been handled, my focus turned to the fact that the smoke detector NEVER went off. There was so much smoke it should have been rattling the rafters. Olivia took it off its house, but the battery detector indicated it was working. John wasn't home when all this happened so when he arrived and saw the situation he said very little until I announced the smoke detector didn't go off. Then, he said THE dumbest thing in the history of our marriage. And I quote," Well the combustion particles must not have been high enough to trigger the alarm." If only I'd had no words. But I had SO MANY WORDS. So my rebuttal began. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard you say. That's your go to? Some teacher sounding crap that set off MY combustable particles? Because Buddy I've got combustible particles and they are ALWAYS set at 0! Your entire family is engulfed in smoke and the smoke detector didn't go off and you are defending the smoke detector by saying that!" So freaking annoyed. I then grabbed my purse and quickly left as he was trying to rebut my rebuttal. But he didn't get to.  

Once at the Walkers house I was pleasant as a daisy and joined the bunch to listen to the national anthem...bad choice of singers....watch the awful super bowl....it was so bad....and the not so good commercials....really? America the beautiful in foreign languages? NO. The halftime show was excellent. And while there John was finally able to say that since he wasn't home when the incident occurred he didn't know there was so much smoke in the house and yes the smoke detector should have gone off. Whatevs. The damage of his words was done. 

As the first half of the game progressed, Dale's singing of "the party's over" for the broncos increased and we finally threw in the towel and all went home. When we arrived, John took the smoke detector and put it directly over a candle and while soot formed on the surface, not one sound came out of it. We then looked at the manufacture date and discovered it was from 1999. Yes that's right, it was 15 years old. So this afternoon I bought a new smoke detector and I'm happy to say we're currently detecting in the present day. And in case you didn't know, the info sheet said smoke detectors last about 10 years. SO, you might want to check and see how old yours is. We've not been detecting for at least 5 years. I can't even talk about it. Even though I just did.

So today the house smelled of barbecue, cinnamon candle, simmering cider candle, burned brownie batter, a little hint of turkey dinner (I don't know) and every now and then a whiff of the red beans that were cooking on the stove. Even tonight the smells are still so weird. It's possible nose hair removal is in the near future.

And that's what crazy looked like yesterday which is now two days ago because I'm posting this on Tuesday even though I started it Monday morning.

It's so exhausting being me.

More another time cause it's 2:25 and I never get to bed before 2:30. 

I just hit my stride a little while ago and now I have to shut it down.

But it's 5:00 somewhere.

I don't know.