I Don't Dance

...or bake.

Whenever I cook the following things happen:
-food burns
-smoke alarms go off
-an extreme mess is made
-cute fireman rookies get a call from my address
-I scream
-Will retreats to the living room to drown out the moans and agony with Madden

Tonight was no different. There is a good story circulating the youth group about the one time I baked....yes baked slice and bake cookies. And by baked, I mean completely destroyed and burned. This evening in particular at small groups last year I was baking cookies for the teens that occupied my house. After serving them a delicious meal I popped in a few slice and bake cookies, turned on the oven and left the kitchen. I went into the office and began to get sucked into the cyber world of facebook or wedding blogs or something blackholish like that. All of the sudden, I smell something and came darting out of the office, around the teenagers and leap toward the oven to be greeted by smoke and charcoal. I have unfortunetly burned the teens' dessert. But have no fear, we had more left. So I pop those in, return to my computer and do THE EXACT SAME THING. In about 16 minutes I leap out of my chair, out the double doors into the living room shouting "DANG IT!"as I hurdle over feet, chairs and cups into the kitchen to have burnt the second batch. I now have a very bad reputation with the teens for anything of the bakery persuasion.

Tonight, March 16th was no different. See baking and I are like sewing and I or snowboarding and I. There are few things in life that I forget the pain of their occurance and continually retry them. Thinking that by some miracle my skills with these particular activities will improve. Snowboarding is one of them. It always looks so fun. I always remember it being fun. But by the time I get the boots on, the board on my foot, up the ski lift, off the ski lift, other boot in the binding and down about two feet until my first fall do I remember the actual pain that it is and how unenjoyable it really is to snowboard. So I pathetically slide on my rump all the way down the slope enviously looking at all the happy skiers going swiftly past me. Sewing is another one of these. Each time I step foot into JoAnns I think, I could do that. I can make that skirt. I shall try. And then it turns out disasterous and I cry. The seams don't turn out right, the zippers dont match, I didn't buy enough fabric, etc. Baking is among these activities...example...tonight.

I had successfully baked a batch of brownies for my cast a few weeks ago and got rave reviews on my good friend Betty Crocker. We are getting ready to leave for competition so I decided to create goodie bags for them.

example:

I wanted to add some home made treats for them for the road. So tonight after church I decided to make cookies and brownies for them to put in their tins. I get out all of my ingredients. I choose the chocolate chip cookies first. How hard is that to screw up? I crack my egg, I get a bowl out to melt my butter. I place a half stick of butter in the small bowl and microwave it approx. 20-30 seconds. I open up the microwave and grab the bowl. HOLY SHOOT A MONKEY it was hot. So at this precise moment I touch it, scream, the door opens, a mom from church walks in, I drop the bowl, melted butter goes EVERYWHERE...on the floor, cabinet fronts, cabinet tops, my favorite pair of jeans and around the corner sprints Wanda tenderly yelling "ARE YOU OK!?!?" By this point I am laughing hestarically. Mostly because I am very embarassed. She walks around and sees that I have put a metal..yes metal dish in the microwave. Apparently when you do that your dish gets beyond hot and cracks. She then says "Babe, you put a metal dish in the microwave...what are you trying to do?" I reply meekly "bake cookies." So through many giggles she helps me clean the excessive amounts of butter that now covers the kitchen floor and I get a glass dish to restart my baking with. EMBARRASING! So not only have I given proof to the teens of my inability to cook, I now have shown the parents as well. Great. Oh and did I mention my kitchen looked like this when she walked in. 

Also, did I mention I'm like backed up completely to the other side of the kitchen to get the severity of the mess. I successfully bake these cookies and brownies. 

I hope we break a leg and they better fully enjoy every inch of those cookies and brownies. 

And please do not comment on the amount of misspelled words there are. It is late, I've had a very hard day baking and I can not figure out how to get my spell check to work. Nor do I care to. Good Night.