Reading the smoke signals.

  

If you popped into my house 

for a little visit today,

you might wonder what the Hinckleys 

were up to over the weekend . . .

 

It smells EXACTLY like we had a whole troop of cub scouts 

practicing building campfires.

In the living room.

The towel I used for my shower this morning?  

Smelled like I wrapped myself in it and sat around a bonfire on the beach singing songs 

until 10 minutes before I had to use it to dry off from my shower . . .

(and my shower was all the way UPSTAIRS)!

A result of my own stupidity, of course.

When I attempted to make Aunt Lillie's scalloped potatoes for Sunday dinner, I should have paid attention to the part that said "put a cookie sheet under the casserole" before putting it in the oven.  Instead I surveyed the situation and decided it wasn't necessary.  WRONG.

Then I got busy doing a Jillian Michaels workout and couldn't be bothered to stop and figure out why it smelled like the house was on fire. 

Probably not the only advice of Aunt Lillie's 

that I should have heeded but didn't.

Besides that, the potatoes were a gluey, sticky gray mess.  I made the recipe many times as a young bride, but hadn't bothered with them for about 25 years.  Then I got a hankering yesterday when we stuck a good old-fashioned roast in the oven.  I thought I made them the same way I used to, but ICK.

And with the smoke smell on top of it?  DOUBLE ICK.

Now we have TRIPLE ICK, because I went to the store to get some kind of air freshener so I could stand to live here and couldn't find anything that was unscented.  So I chose Febreze "Linen & Sky."  Cooper slunk from room to room giving me a death-glare as I followed him spewing the sickeningly sweet solution.




I don't know what "Linen & Sky" smells like.  It seems like linen would smell like fabric of some kind (which I should like) -- and sky . . . I have no idea whatsoever, but I don't think sky smells like this.

Now the house smells a little like Aunt Lillie got  too close to the campfire while wearing a whole bottle of exceptionally flowery old-lady perfume and unwittingly participated in a burnt-flower chemistry experiment of some sort . . .

Or like someone is smoking surreptitiously in the next stall in a public restroom that uses a REALLY-UNFORTUNATE-SMELLING deodorizer.

 

I think you should wait a day or two 
before coming to visit.

I'll let you know when it's safe.  And I'll even bake you something.

But not those potatoes.  It may be 25 years before I make those again, and of course in 25 years I will have forgotten that I need to do the cookie sheet thing, and then I'll survey the situation and decide I'm smarter than Aunt Lillie and pop the casserole in the oven . . . . but surely I won't be doing a Jillian Michaels workout in 25 years, so I'll smell the problem immediately and fix it before it becomes critical . . . right?

We 
can 
only 
hope.