The Day the Appliances Stood Still

I'm trying very hard, now that I'm home, to meal plan better and make healthier, heartier meals. Yeah. Not-so-easy (not that I expected it to be).

So the other night I decided to make a ham since I know that at least Keith and Izzy love it and will gobble it up without complaint (Mary is still wishy-washy about it, but can't please everyone, right?).

With the ham, I decided to bake some sweet potatoes (favorite of Keith, Mary is so-so--she prefers "white" potatoes, but Izzy doesn't like). And steamed broccoli and cauliflower (Mary loves broccoli, Keith and Izzy will eat one "stem", Izzy will usually eat cauliflower). See where I'm going here? A meal where at least ONE item will be eaten by ONE kid???

So, I decide to "really" bake the potatoes since, hello! I'm home now and actually have TIME to do it instead of just sticking them in the microwave oven--and I was going to have the oven on anyway to heat up the ham. The potatoes turned out beautifully--except for the sweet potato "slurp" that ended up on the bottom of my oven. Oh yeah--forgot about that. What the heck, after the ham's done, I'll use the self-cleaning option on my oven (not used since we've moved in over a year ago).

Now, while all this is going on, I set up the steamer. Maybe ten minutes later when I check on the food, I notice that the steamer isn't steaming. The counter is counting down, but the steamer isn't even warm--and no tell-tale sign of misty steaminess. Uh oh. So I throw the broccoli and cauliflower in a pan and boil it up (turned out great anyway, thank you). But what the heck is wrong with the steamer?

After the ham is done, and we're getting ready to eat, I turn on the self-cleaner for the oven and enjoy my almost-no-whining-from-the-kids meal. About twenty minutes into it, the oven starts beeping frantically. Wha??? I know it's not done cleaning YET!

NO, there is an "F2" error flashing. Crap. I don't know what that means, but I know it CAN'T be good. After fiddling with the buttons, and hurriedly finding the oven manual (can you believe I could FIND it at that moment?), and fiddling with more of the same buttons, we still couldn't get the darn thing to STOP BEEPING. Not even knowing how a built-in oven is plugged in, John finally pulled the circuit.

After the oven cooled off, John flipped the circuit back on--and the oven was all fine and happy again.

THEN John says to me, "Do you maybe remember the previous owners telling us NOT to use the self-cleaner on the oven?" No--oh, wait--is that a really, really foggy memory of us and them in the kitchen while they told us that? Or is that now an "imagined--this-must-be-what-happened" thought that's been implanted in my head?

Whatever--now I know that it's only Easy-Off for OUR oven.

But what about the steamer? What happened THERE?

Two days later, I'm trying to make a phone call, but all the phones in the house claim "extension in use." Huh? What the freak is wrong with the phone?

Then it clicks. SOMETIMES the plug-in with phone will trip, and we have to reset it.

Guess which plug-in I used for our steamer. Yeah--the same one the phone is on.

My steamer is fine.

SO, Easy-off for my oven--and line the bottom with foil (or just use the @#$% microwave!). Use different plug for my steamer. And MAYBE then the plug to the phone won't trip.

Or maybe sandwich night every night is BACK ON.