I have this idea that I will post something everyday this week and was coming up blank for today until I remembered it was Five Favorites day!  Then I sat down to write and I am still coming up blank.

Which is ridiculous.  I have so many favorites.  All week long I will look at something and say, "I should put this in a Five Favorites post."  Then the time comes and I can't remember a single thing.

And I certainly can't think of a group of things all in one category.

So, I decided to pick a random room of the house and find five things I love.

I went into the kitchen, piled together all my favorite things and soon found myself having to select the top five of all the things I had gathered.  Guess this wasn't so hard after all.

Five Favorite things that make life easier in the kitchen.

My organized coupon filing system.  Why the puzzle?  No idea.

My bookshelves even have piles.

It was trying to be a stack.  Really it was.  I don't do stacks well.  They always turn into piles.

But if there were one pile in my house that would outdo every other pile it would be the outgrown clothes pile.  See it started as a bag.  A system of bags.  In the beginning I would sort through the clothes before bagging them up.  Get rid of any worn out clothes.  Clothes they had never worn.  Anything I did not want to absolutely save for when/if we have more children.  Outgrown clothes were sorted into large ziplocks with the size and gender marked on each.  Then the bags found a home in a bin.  One bin for girl clothes and one bin for boy clothes.

True to form I am writing about Thanksgiving almost a week late.  Would you expect anything less?

Despite the fact that I do not clean and can not cook, we always host holidays at our house.  Because it wouldn't be a holiday without all the running around shoving things into boxes and trying to cram those boxes under tables that are already overflowing with boxes crammed with stuff from the last holiday, all while screaming at each other to clean up this or move that and swearing that it will never get this bad again.  Right?

It also wouldn't be a holiday without a visit from our friends the Pipe Gremlins now would it?

Less than a week before Thanksgiving day the kid's bedroom flooded.  Again.
I called my husband to give him the bad news and then I ran outside expecting to see the spinning of the dial on the water meter.  No spinning.  What?  No spinning?  This is new.  Where did all this water come from?  If it's not another slab leak what could it be?

My husband came home and we took most of the furniture back out of the kid's room
and pulled the floor up to let the concrete dry.
Then we attempted to solve the mystery of the source of all the water.

I had just given my daughter a bath.  So we decided to test the bath tub.  We filled a bucket with water and dumped it down the drain.  No leak while we were filling the bucket but the minute we dumped it we had water.  So, this time it is the drain from the bathtub.  You know, one of the very few pipes left in this whole house that hasn't been replaced (drain line from house to street and fresh water leading from street to house) or recoated (all fresh water pipes inside house) or capped off (gas line) or something.  Good thing our house has two bathrooms.  I guess we will just have to redo the other half of the bathroom...

With all this going on and all the furniture scattered about the house, kids camping out in the living room on their mattress on the floor, pieces of floor everywhere, and the rest of the mess in the house,
I was tempted to cancel Thanksgiving.  Not the actual holiday because I don't have that kind of power or anything, just our own little celebration.

Then I found out that several of our guests would be unable to make it because seasonal illnesses.  I came very close to opting for all going out to eat somewhere.

Instead I decided to cheat.

Now I am not going to pretend I haven't cheated in the past.  In fact I have always cheated at least a little bit.  I have only ever cooked one Turkey.  It was a very interesting process involving many various kitchen instruments (I don't touch raw meat) and took about 11 hours in the oven waiting for the thermometer to pop before we gave up and ate it anyway.  It looked and tasted cooked!

I should be doing the dishes.  They have piled up again.  Instead I stare at the massive crusty pile and wish them away. But they stubbornly refuse to clean themselves.

I should be cleaning the living room.  It has been overrun with all the things that belong somewhere else but somehow creep back in when I'm not looking.  Then I turn around and am greeted with a scene from a horror movie.  I should be putting all the things back where they belong.  I should be scolding my children and making them put the things back where they belong.  But I lack the energy to follow them around pointing out each item and explaining in detail how and where it should be.  Instead I watch and listen to my children blissfully playing. Totally unaware of the chaos that surrounds them.

I should be writing a blog post.  Something insightful, or eventful, or charming, or witty.  Instead I stare at a blank screen as the words refuse to form themselves.  My head swirls with tiny snippets of thought that flee like butterflies from my net.

There are just some things I am not cut out for.

Cleaning.

Cooking.

Organization.

Potty Training.

Guess what I have been doing this week??

If you guessed all of the above you get the cheesecake.  No seriously, I made cheesecake yesterday.  Like crushed up graham crackers for the crust, and used my spring foam pan, that was a wedding present, and had never even been opened.  Even though I did want it, and registered for it, and was so excited when I got it.  I just finally got around to using it.

This week I have been cooking.  Like real cooking from recipes.  With ingredients and pans.

What I have discovered?

Every time I try to cook something I end up with a disaster.  I am seriously skilled at the destruction of recipes.  Don't believe me?  Think it's just an excuse?

Check this out.

The other day I attempted to cook some chicken.  I was just going to "brown" the chicken in a pan on the stove top.  See how I used a fancy cooking term there?  You might be fooled into thinking I know what I was talking about.  That is the correct term, right?

So, I set the pan on the burner and turned it on, waiting for it to heat up.

A second later the smell of something burning wafted up to greet me.  Now you might think I would be alarmed.  No, this is expected.  I usually have dripped or splashed something on the burners.  The next time I cook the remaining crud from the previous cooking attempt usually burns right off.


I turned on the fan.

Then the smell got stronger.

And more intense.

That doesn't really smell like burnt food.

It smells more like . . .

melted plastic!

Sure enough I had turned the wrong burner on and managed to melt the bottom out of a cup and the handle of the can opener.

When I picked it up I got some of that melted plastic on my finger.  Ouch!

Melted Zoo Cup

Some of you might be confused.

Why was there a cup on the stove?

See when you have limited counter space, do dishes infrequently, don't use the stove often, or only use one burner, all that extra space is a valuable commodity.  What else would I use it for?  Clearly it is just begging to serve as dirty dish overflow/stuff I don't want to bother to put away holder.

Lesson learned.  Shouldn't cook.

Now, you might think I have learned the lesson not to put stuff on the stove.  This assumption may stem from the fact that you clearly assume this is the first time I have done something so foolish as to turn on the wrong burner and melt something to the stove.  You know what they say about assumptions?  They make an @$$ out of you and mption! ;)

No, clearly this is not the first time I have done this.  I have a melted blender in a box in the garage somewhere to prove that.  Really should get rid of that . . .

Usually I only melt things like bread wrappers.  Or, I get lucky and there is a dirty pan sitting on the other burner so I just burn the stuff inside.  A month or so soaking in the sink takes care of that problem.

Of course, with that big pot soaking in the sink I don't have much room for other dirty dishes.

I guess I'll just have to put them on the stove!