My secret ingredient is resentment.

R's real birthday was Wednesday and since I was off I asked her what she wanted to for breakfast and told her I would make it the night before. She's a big fan of morning carbs like pancakes and waffles. She asked for muffins so I agreed.

However,

I haven't bakes in ages.

Ages.

Once our top oven crapped out for good I pretty much quit baking.

No, I did stop baking.

I haven't made bread, cake or muffins in a few months.

The bottom oven turns on, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it works. I don't know if it's too hot or not steady or both but everything comes out too dry or too flat or too mushy in the middle and black on the outside. It's just not worth the wasted ingredients.

But R asked for muffins.

So I made muffins.

I made a simple batter and pulled out two scoops for banana, two chocolate, two blueberry lemon and two plain bran muffins stuffed with Nutella.

I left on Wednesday and didn't get to sample until yesterday.

They sucked. The chocolate ones were gone and so were the Nutella delights, but the ones I tried were awful and I was ashamed of them. I tossed them before anyone else could eat anymore and vowed to never bake in this cursed oven again.

Today I was mostly off duty since I am working the night shift. T made dinner and E complained it was no good. He complained politely so she didn't seem to care, but I felt better about my catastrophic muffins because I have been cooking Shabbat dinners lately and he always says they're good. T does too, actually.

The parents are out for a Neil Diamond concert tonight and R is at a sleepover, so I put the boys to bed at 7 and hit the wine that I was ordered to polish off.

Our troubled refrigerator saw the repairman again today. He replaced five parts and wiped up with, I am assuming, vinegar, since that's what the entire kitchen smells like. An hour after he left, things started freezing again. When is GE going to admit that their appliance is garbage and stop trying to repair it?

Whatever.

The repairman who has come the last few times is pretty cute so I guess I can take one for the team, drink the wine and call GE again in the morning.

I better go, because the baby is asleep on his stomach across my lap and I am typing on top of him and I feel like that is probably wrong. I mean, my computer is tiny, but still...

I'm sure there's a law about this somewhere.