A Southern Delicacy

So last Wed I was enjoying not having to do too many of my daily chores as my house was still clean from the homeschool mom's meeting on Sunday. I decided to boil some peanuts for Sam to thank him for spending the next day (his only day off) picking up and setting up a bed I bought off Craigslist.  I have never boiled peanuts but Googled it and looked at All Recipes and thought I had it figured out. 

Rinse, salt and boil for 4-9 hours.

So I put them on to boil and went outside to weed the back yard.

I put them to boil on high, on my high output burner.

An hour later, my neighbor reports to me that she hears a strange noise coming from her monitor in which she can see the boys' room (we have the same video monitor and can see each others kids' rooms). 

I open the basement door and hear the smoke alarm, smell the smoke.

I run.

I am panicked.

I hit the door at the top of the basement stairs, sure that I am going to see my kitchen on fire.

I can barely see anything for the smoke, but there is no fire.  Throw the pot out on the deck, holler at my neighbor that my house is filled with smoke and start opening windows and doors.

All the things they told you in school about smoke is true.  I was coughing and choking, eyes burning.  It was so thick upstairs I could barely see.

It was scary.

I was also pretty scared about what my hubby was going to say about all this.

Do you know what he said?

He said that it would have been better if I HAD caught the kitchen on fire so we could have at least gotten a new kitchen out of it.

Go figure.

So I spent the next 4 days washing curtains, shower curtains, clothes, sofa cushion covers, bedding, dusting ceiling fans (is that soot or just 5 years of dust?) wiping cabinets, boiling vinegar and lemons and lighting candles.

I used a gallon of vinegar, a bag of lemons, a box of Swiffers and a container of carpet deodorizer.

My house still smells like smoke.

Next week I am renting an ozone machine.

In the meantime my mom spent this week with us, we went to the aquarium and celebrated a niece and nephew birthday.

More on those later.