Close, but No Fire Trucks!

Okay, so the fire department has been to my house twice since July because I burned hummingbird food and the toaster nearly caught fire. We were very fortunate both times because the only damage we had was smoke and a bad smell. Needless to say, my children are very sensitive to smells now. I even have this sign over my stove:

Well, every time I turn on my stove, smoke gathers inside the oven and pours out when I open it. I can't figure out why this happens. So, I figured I would try the oven cleaning setting on the stove. When you move the lever across the front of the stove, it locks the oven, turns the heat on as hot as it will go, and cooks the crap out of any spills inside for 4 hours and 20 minutes.

About 20 minutes into the "cleaning", Will hollered down the stairs, "Did you start a fire in the fireplace?" Nope. "Something is burning! What's that smell?" I filled him in on my plans to clean the oven today in the hopes that smoke will no longer waft from my oven when I open it.

He came downstairs to inspect and was met by a wall of smoke in the kitchen. I hadn't noticed the smoke pouring into the living room because I was playing on my computer...reading ya'lls blogs!

"Mom! The alarm is going to go off!" This caught my attention. In less than a minute, my computer was cast aside, I had windows and doors open and a fan sucking out the smoke. This seemed to work. After about an hour, the oven no longer produced smoke, just a whole lot of heat!

I was so relieved when the 4 hours and 20 minutes was over.

You know, once you've been tagged as a woman who burns dinner, the water boils out of the artichokes and the lingering smell of smoke disguises the burning pot. I just added some more water to the charred pot and kept cooking. Smoked artichokes aren't bad. Will did ask, "What are these black flecks on the artichokes?" He didn't believe me when I said "burnt water."