The Cheerio Mess

This time I can't blame my wonderful little trouble-maker, Skittles, for the mess on the kitchen floor the other day. I have no one to blame but myself.

Part of the problem was that I was trying to do too many things at one time. But after all, I can't just do one thing at a time!!! :)

Actually I was making chex mix, baking brownies, doing laundry and researching computers on the Internet when the mess happened. And I know, just know, you are wondering how in the world can you do all those things at the same time? Well, thank you for asking!

It's actually very easy. Start the laundry in the washer, start heating the oven for brownies, start measuring ingredients for chex mix and leave my laptop on the kitchen table to glance at in between dumping chex cereal and peanuts in the mixing bowl. Oh, and the laptop also serves as the source for Christmas music.

When I have this many things going on, the goal is to keep up with each thing when waiting for the other task to be complete. So, I can be mixing the batch of brownies while a batch of chex mix is cooking while the laundry is washing and waiting for my computer to go to the next webpage.

While the brownies are cooking, I start another batch of chex mix in the microwave while I'm putting clothes in the dryer. Glancing at my computer and surfing the net are just for those times, that my eyes don't have to be somewhere else! Get the idea?!

Can you perhaps see how the box of cheerios happened to be dumped on the floor?

I was mixing together a second batch of chex mix (I needed some for us and also some for kid's club at church) as I had a pan full cooking in the microwave. All of a sudden the box of cheerios slipped from my fingers and of course landed on the floor topside down.

At the same time, I could smell something burning in the direction of the microwave...the chex mix! With the pan I was using, I had to take the out turn-around-thing (yeah, I know, real technical, but you know what I'm talking about!) that lets the food circulate as it's cooking to prevent hot spots. Therefore, I can only microwave it for about 30 seconds before I have to stir the mix.

Well, let's just say that it had been over 30 seconds.

As I was pulling the mix out of the microwave, in walks Dad. He had been carrying wood onto the porch and I was hoping to get the burnt cereal out of the microwave and scattered cheerios off the floor before he came in.

Needless to say, that didn't happen.

And I am standing in the middle of the kitchen floor covered with cheerios, a pan in one hand with smoke curling upward (ok, maybe just a tiny trail) and a spoon in the other hand, getting ready to dump some mix in the trash all the while enjoying the wonderful smell of burning cereal!

If only I could have found a way to have a camera in my hand to snap Dad's expression on his face!