Thanksgiving

Because no holiday celebration is complete without a visit from the neighborhood fire department...



So around 10:00 this morning I preheated the oven to bake the pan de mie. I had already baked the pie, so I raised the temperature a little bit and then waited for the beep to tell me it was tie to put the bread in. It finally reached temperature, so I grabbed the pan and opened the oven door and OMFG! It was like the fourth of july in there - sparks flying and flames shooting all over the place. I slammed the door, started herding Toddler Charlie and Grandma out of the house, and called to Charlie to help me assess the situation. He grabbed the baking soda and poured it over the mess, yelled at me to call 911, and then ran to the basement to cut the power. His quick thinking probably saved our house. The fire department came, and of course they had the siren on, so the nosy subdivision neighbors up and down the street had to come out and see what was going on. They took a look around, checked the wires, checked the wall, and condemned our stove.

So there we were, 6 hours away from thanksgiving dinner and no stove. Visions of thanksgiving dinner at IHOP started to spin in my head. But no fear, I married a brilliant engineer who has all kinds of tools and tricks up his sleeve. So we made the best of it, prepping and cooking on his ceramic hot plate from the basement workshop, borrowing our neighbors' oven for 45 minutes, and grilling the roast. In the rain. Good thing we weren't planning on a big turkey.









I'm just sorry that I didn't get a good picture of the roast or the pie. Pie was amazing. We tried to grill the pan de mie, but it just tasted like smoke. Thanksgiving is not the time to experiment with new cooking techniques.

All in all, it was an exciting day, and of course today I'm thankful that we didn't lose our house in a fire. Does this story sound familiar? If so, it's because we narrowly avoided another electrical fire just last December.

Today I'm thankful for my amazing husband and sweet toddler boy. I'm also thankful for a loving family and great friends, one of whom I'm looking forward to de-stressing with tomorrow over an adult beverage (or two... or three). It was great to see my dad and grandma this holiday, but I'm really, really, really missing my brother and sister right now, so badly that it makes my heart hurt and my eyes sting with tears. Can't wait for christmas when we'll all be together again!

I'm also thankful for a J-E-T-S win tonight, because if they had lost to the bengals I would never live it down ;)