Little Changes, Self Cleaning Ovens that Can't, and What's Making Noise in My Kitchen??

It's time to move the furniture around again...

and let's see how I do or don't like the new web palette and graphics. The header's from a favorite pic of a peacock that I played with in the photo program a bit.

It's been a long week, and we're both tired and soooo glad to be together again tonight. I'm refreshing a few things in the house and getting some simple food together before we crash -- I want to have everything nice when Jack gets off work.

I've heard something lurking in the kitchen...or pantry...or...somewhere. It sounds bigger than a beetle. Maybe a mouse? If so, it's a first.

But I can deal with a mouse.

But if it's a snake, you can find me back in Tennessee, and making the commute from Florida to there in record time. We have a lot of choices of unwanted visitors here in Florida, and insects or mice I can deal with. But snakes...BELONG OUTSIDE.

Maybe it's a bunny? A possum? (I know, here we go, I'm in total denial) A raccoon? (nah, I know what they sound like, with that little "chirrrrrr" sound) A little lost kitten??

This means only one thing...spring cleaning must commence. But not till "It" has been found.

This means the stove must be unplugged, carted outside, plugged into an extension cord, and put on Self Clean till it's pristine on the inside. Why? (What do you mean, isn't this how EVERYone cleans their ovens?? haha!)

Well a certain SOMEone who helped (term loosely interpreted) when selecting the oven for this house, decided to buy a self-cleaning oven. Normally, that would be delightful, and handy. Normal meaning if you have a full wall, not a half wall. Or 3/4 wall or whatever it's called when you have a wall that doesn't go all the way to the ceiling because it's supposed to help make the area look open so it only goes up to about 2 feet from the ceiling, for decorative purposes. Therefore, if you put an OVEN on that wall, you cannot VENT it through the wall upwards through the ceiling (unless you want the pipe to show). So you get this vent thingy that circulates the oven air through the vent thingy that goes right over your stovetop, through a carbon filter. HOWEVER, do not test the limits of the carbon filter-thingy by trying to vent an entire self-cleaning oven cycle of fumes through it. It will not like it, and will protest by filling your house with roiling clouds of acrid smoke you will only brave long enough to turn the oven OFF and run like heck with a towel over your face to the great outdoors, kicking yourself all along that you forgot all about the fact it DOESNT VENT THROUGH THE ROOF like NORMAL ovens.

And you ponder the mysteries and ironies of life, such as the fact that it's commonly supposed that if you just went ahead and cleaned the inside of your self-cleaning oven the CONVENTIONAL way (by hand) it supposedly is bad for self-cleaning ovens and "ruins them."

And THAT is why you can choose to baffle and amaze your neighbors by running an extension cord to the driveway and getting a dolly and maneuvering your self-cleaning oven out for all to see, in full view, AND call the fire department to let them know not to worry if they happen to get any strange calls about somebody's oven sitting in front of a house smoking for about an hour.

Better yet, maybe I can charge admission...? :)

I dare not think of what lurks under that stove. I am now approaching the kitchen to find whatever lurks. No worries...I'm armed with a broom and one of Jack's steel-toed work boots. I hope it's a runaway kitten, lost puppy, a hamster making The Incredible Journey, or just my goldfish having learned how to throw gravel against his fish bowl.

Because if it's something slithery, or a palmetto bug that thinks it's a pony.....Tennessee, here I come!!