Remember how two weeks ago I spent the weekend in College Station and got to go behind the scenes at SEC Nation and meet Tim Tebow? This weekend was just like that except that, instead of being in College Station and meeting Tim Tebow, I watched Caroline play soccer in 104 degree heat and cleaned my oven.
I know. It was all I dreamed it might be.
The truth is I was so glad when Friday got here that I didn’t really care if we had one thing planned and, fortunately, that’s just about how the weekend looked. On Friday night, P grilled burgers and we just hung out and watched the movie Bernie starring Jack Black. I can’t recommend it enough. It’s hilarious.
Saturday, Caroline had a soccer game at 1:00 which was perfect because we were able to enjoy our Saturday morning complete with flipping back and forth between Gameday and SEC Nation before heading out to her game. Apparently fall hasn’t gotten the memo that it’s time to show up and is passed out drunk somewhere because it was approximately 142 degrees outside. All the parents stayed under out tents and umbrellas on the sidelines while yelling at our girls to “RUN FASTER!” and asking “HOW BAD DO YOU WANT IT?” while we took another sip of our ice cold water and complained about the heat.
After the game, we came home and showered and rested up before it was time to go to Gulley’s house to watch the A&M vs. Auburn game. Spoiler alert: THE AGGIES WON.
But let’s talk about the most important thing, cleaning my ovens.
I’m just going to go ahead and confess that I can’t remember the last time I cleaned them but I know it’s been more than several years. They have a self-cleaning function on them which I’ve used before but then I read some article or somebody told me (I can’t remember and yet somehow I deemed this source highly reliable) that it’s not good to use the self-cleaning function because it can burn up your heating element or put a hole in the ozone or cause your kitchen cabinets to spontaneously combust.
Now I’m wondering why I decided that this person and/or article was the gospel truth considering how little I remember about the source and the actual information.
Anyway, I would occasionally think about cleaning my ovens but then something better would always come up, like pushing back my cuticles or sitting on the couch doing nothing. But then a couple of weeks ago, I cooked some jalapeño poppers in the top oven and the bacon grease dripped and I quit using the top oven because every time it heated up, the entire house would smell like burned bacon.
(I know you’re finding my oven issues fascinating and I just want to encourage you to stick around because I’m going to the dentist on Tuesday and maybe I’ll write all about that later in the week.)
P kept mentioning that the oven needed to be cleaned and I kept putting it off because, you know, that would involve cleaning the oven. But I finally decided this weekend was the opportune time and so I found an oven-cleaning tip I’d pinned on Pinterest along with eleven million other ideas that sound good in theory but will probably never actually be executed within the walls of my home.
This article said that you just combine Dawn dish soap (that seemed legit because we all know Dawn cuts grease out of your way), lemon juice, vinegar, water and all your hopes and dreams for an oven that doesn’t make your house smell like burned bacon. You spray this mixture all over the inside of your oven, let it sit overnight and then all that baked on grease and grime just wipes right off with a soft cloth the next morning.
LIES. ALL LIES.
I made the mixture, sprayed it liberally all over the inside of the top oven on Friday afternoon, sprayed even more for good measure before I went to bed on Friday night, and then opened the oven on Saturday afternoon armed with a damp cloth and the steely belief that I was about to see a cleaning miracle unfold.
Nope.
As I began to wipe with a damp cloth, it became evident that a large portion of the grease and grime was going nowhere. It’s had a good life in my top oven and wasn’t ready to let go. I put on rubber gloves and began to scrub with a scrub brush which helped a little but not much. So I went to go consult another article I’d found on Pinterest that suggested making a paste of baking soda, vinegar and lemon juice. I felt good about this because baking soda and vinegar are how you make a science fair volcano explode.
Sure enough, the baking soda paste began to fizz and foam and, if nothing else, looked fairly impressive. I rubbed the paste mixture all over the sides and bottom of the oven and inside the door then closed it up to let it sit AGAIN over night. On Sunday after church, I optimistically donned my rubber gloves yet again and proceeded to attempt to wipe my oven sparkling clean just like I’d read about on Pinterest. And, here’s what I learned, Pinterest continues to be the place that offers you a 100% chance of feeling like a failure while giving you only a 35% chance of actually discovering a good recipe/craft/cleaning technique that translates to real life.
So I did the only thing left to be done, I wiped that stupid paste mixture out of my oven and then hit the SELF-CLEAN button on both the top and bottom ovens so fast that it would make your head spin. And six hours and 950 degrees later, my ovens are sparkling clean save for the ash at the bottom that I’ll wipe out tomorrow morning.
I’m not sure what the takeaway is here, but I’m going to go with I’d rather risk burning my oven up than to smell a combination of Dawn, lemon juice and vinegar ever again. Also, oven-cleaning technology is your friend. Embrace it.