Smoky the Bear Has Disowned Me

I have shamed one of my childhood idols. Smokey the Bear would turn up his nose at me once he learned of last night’s fiasco. Enrichment started at 6:30, and I was at Siri’s practicing her solo (for the ward party) until 5:45, so dinner needed to be quick and simple. I put a pot of water on for Macaroni and Cheese and then David and I headed to the bedroom (not for lovin’) to work on something at the computer. Maddie came in and said that the cookies were burned. We told her that the remaining few bar cookies weren’t burnt, they just got a little dark around the edges, and that they would be okay. Then Isaac came in to let us know that it was smoky in the kitchen. It only took ½ a second to realize that I had turned on the wrong burner. Instead of heating up Mac-N-Cheese water, I had set fire to those last couple of bar cookies in my biggest Pyrex casserole dish. David got to the kitchen first, picked up the flaming pan with the help of a dish towel and headed for the sliding door in the dining room that leads out to the deck. Before he tossed the pan into the snow he hesitated, knowing that it would shatter in the icy conditions. It did just as he suspected and then he buried the embers in the snow. Our house was unbelievably smoky. We banished the kids to our room and David kept his face covered with a dish towel and we both gasped as we tried to air out our still-new house. With the outside temperature literally zero degrees, we had the sliding door open, the front door open, two front windows open, and the bathroom window open. My clothes and jacket were so stinky that when I walked into Enrichment (on time) an older woman said “something is burning” to which I replied, “no, it’s just me”. This morning I (reluctantly) lit some candles to help with the stinky smoke that was still lingering. I hope to find even more improvement when I get home after work tonight. Yes, I blew out the candles. PS When I dropped off the kids at school this morning it was a whopping -5 degrees.