I Should Be Proud, Right?

For the past couple of weeks, life decided to send me a a big bunch of stressful things ... one right after the other ... rather than spread them out over a few months or even a few years.  A lot of pesky little gnat-type things.  I rolled with the punches ... sometimes being knocked down but never knocked out.  Then today something occurred & I am just so proud of myself!!!

First, a little backstory.  I went to bed last night with a blanket!!!  Yes, a blanket!!!  What a wonderful word!  Ranks right up there with sweatshirt, mittens, & the Holy Grail of them all ... snow pants.  When I woke up this morning, the sky was gray & cloudy.  Leaves were blowing past the window.  A truly beautiful morning promising a truly beautiful day.  John stated that he was planning to head to the mall.  I said that I would come along.

We got to the mall just as it opened.  I stopped by the Godiva counter to treat myself to an open oyster freebie.  I paused in front of a few clothing stores, eyeing the wooly fall fashions, then not being able to eye my feet because of my belly being in the way, then eyeing the half-eaten open oyster freebie in my hand, then popping the rest of it into my mouth & moving on.  Of course I had to visit Williams-Sonoma.  Such a fun store!  I came home with a pasta pot.  Always wanted one of those, & how fortuitous!  I planned to make pasta today!

When we arrived home, I washed & readied my pasta pot, then started warming up the pasta sauce (yes, homemade ... by me) that had been thawing in the refrigerator.  I prepared some garlic bread to toast in the oven.  The sky was still gray & cloudy.  The leaves were still blowing past the window.  I thought about what a wonderful wife & person I am ... making my own pasta sauce, making my own garlic bread, buying a pasta pot. Then things started to head south.  Never having used the pasta pot before, I didn't know how long it would take for it to boil, or really how much water to put into it without running the risk of it boiling out all over the top of the stove when I added the pasta.  When the water finally did boil & I placed the pasta insert inside the pot, the water barely covered the pasta.  Not wanting to add more water & thereby wreak havoc with the delicate balance of boiling vs. nonboiling temperature, I stood at the pot with a wooden spoon, kind of tossing the pasta every which way through the breaking bubbles of water with the hope of getting it all to cook evenly.  Meanwhile, the sauce was bubbling up & escaping out of the tiny crack I had left between the lid & the pot, flinging itself onto the stove top & nearby counter. I discovered that it had also flung itself onto the floor when I stepped in something hot & wet that traveled through my sock to the bottom of my left foot.  At that point, the phone rang.  I looked at the Caller ID & saw that it was our son, Matt.  I thought about not answering it ... about how I could tell him next time "Oh, you called on Saturday afternoon?  We mustn't have been home!"  Then I thought about burning in hell & I picked up the phone.  John joined us on the extension upstairs.  I was chatty & upbeat ... an all around wonderful mother that any son would be delighted to have a conversation with on a Saturday afternoon ... all the while balancing the phone receiver on my shoulder, keeping an eye on the not-so-much-doneness of the pasta in the pasta pot & the ever escaping sauce in the sauce pot.  Our conversation ended & I placed the garlic bread in the oven.

I always bake my garlic bread slices for a few minutes, then crisp them under the broiler.  Today is the first day I used the broiler in this oven that is ours for the next 10 months.  Turns out half of it heats to a high degree, the other half to a lesser degree.  The only thing I could do at this point was reach into the oven to turn the pan around so the slices of garlic bread on the not-so-hot side would be on the hot side for their turn & all would be well with the world.  When I did this, I inadvertently twisted the Reynolds Wrap Heavy-Duty Tin Foil layer I always place on the bottom of ovens to help keep them clean.  Not being able to ignore much of anything askew, I reached back into the oven with the potholder to put the tin foil layer back in its place, at which time the skin of my left forearm met with the 425-plus degree metal oven shelf.  A long stripe of searing pain resulted.

I called John, mentioned that I had burned myself (he said something helpful like "you should be more careful"), removed the garlic bread from the oven, warmed the plates, rinsed the pasta, stirred the sauce, & we had a surprisingly delicious dinner!

After washing the dishes, I thought "I should probably put something on this burn."  I had some medicinal wash, but no burn ointment that I could see.  I did find some herbal cream which was indicated to be "soothing for burns."  The directions said to wash the area, apply the cream, & then cover with gauze.  I was pretty sure that we didn't have any gauze, & I was right. No first aid tape either.  The Band-Aids remaining in the box were too small.  Then Ingenuity entered the day!  I spied my box of Always Panti-Liners. Snipping off a bit of an end, I applied it over my wound & secured it with 3 of the too-small Band-Aids, & voila!