The oven and I are BACK!

Guess what arrived in the mail today??

Yep! A new element for our oven from GE.

It was easy to install, after much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and two trips to Home Depot.

Guess what's in my oven right now?

Chocolate chip cookies.

Through this trying ordeal, I have learned a lot about myself. I've learned that apparently, I can't blog unless my oven is in order. I'm sure my schedule had nothing to do with it, or the fact that we went to Coronado, or that Adam, Lizzie and Ivy were sick or that I am feverishly trying to prepare for this concert...it was all because of the oven.

The universe is aligned once again. Bloggers beware.

A special THANK YOU to the many kind readers who posted non-oven chocolate desserts!! Some of you even went so far in your sympathy as to bring us baked goods. Truly, you kept us going. How could I ever thank you? And, Leslie, how did I forget about Scotcheroos??!! Shocking, to say the least.

I have to go now. The oven timer is ringing, and the smell of warm chocolate is in the air. :)

Coronado, 2010

Click on the picture to see a whole album! :)

I'm on a Diet

The name of my diet is the No-Baked Goods Diet. And I am an unwilling participant.

Our oven broke three weeks ago (the bottom heating element cracked into two!) and neither Adam nor I have been able to bake anything since. The oven is fixable, but things have been rather crazy at our house, and fixing the oven has been put on the back burner. ;) It's not too big of a problem for dinners - we have the grill, the crockpot, the stove-top. But it's wreaked havoc on our desserts. Ice cream is a popular option with the kids, but unless I'm pregnant, I really don't care for cold creamy desserts. I like my desserts hot and chocolatey.

The first week was the hardest. Every evening after the kids were in bed, I would stare vacantly into the pantry. Ah, me. No chocolate, no warmness, no nothing. We did have some unbaked cookie dough in the refrigerator, though, looking forlorn with no hope of being baked. What was I to do? I took care of that cookie dough within a few days.

But after that dough was gone, it seemed gluttunous to make a batch of cookies that would never see the heat of the oven. I resisted the urge.

So here I am three weeks later. I made a chocoate pudding pie last week. It was fine, but cold. :( I've polished off any extra Easter candy, but you know it's mostly the waxy chocolate and it's kinda gross. Tonight, there is just nothing nothing nothing yummy for dessert.

Ho hum. Boohoo. I guess I'm on a diet.

Cousin!

Hi there, sorry it's been awhile since I've posted...I was knocked flat with a flu for several days, and it's been catch-up ever since!! Anyway, here's my darling cousin Tamara who I got to see for a few fun hours last Thursday. Just wish she lived closer - we had so much fun and probably fit in more words per minute than is humanly possible.