Josh•Karee•Ellie•Alexis

Yesterday started out great and ended great, but the middle part was a litttttttle rough.

I woke up and got ready for church abnormally fast today, so I decided to figure out what I was going to make for dinner. I found a crock pot recipe earlier in the week that I wanted to try, so I decided that would be it. Unfortunately, we only had half the chicken the recipe called for, but that was no big deal, I'd just cut the recipe in half. It said it needed to cook for 4 hours, which was perfect because it'd be done around the time we got home.

At church, Josh and I went to a strengthening marriage and family class instead of regular Sunday school and the topic was "Responding to Challenges in Marriage". We talked about how when challenges arise, we can make a conscience effort to maintain our happiness instead of getting angry and causing contention. We read a talk about Agency and Anger by Elder Lynn G. Robbins of the Seventy. In one part of it he mentioned how its interesting that we seldom lose control when we are frustrated by our boss, but often times we get annoyed by our close friends or family. We choose to be angry, to act or to react to any situation. I laughed when I read that because at work this summer, I would have never yelled or been visually angry at my boss or coworkers for doing something that annoyed me, but I can count multiple times I've done that to my brothers, parents, friends, and Josh. However, I should treat the ones I love with more respect. Leaving that class, I decided I would take better control of myself and try to never get angry.

An hour later, Josh and I arrived back at our apartment and Josh said something like, "I'm starving, I'm glad you already made dinner." And I said something like, "Let's just hope its good!" As we walked in the door we both smelled smoke. I raced over to the crock pot and the entire thing was a crunchy, nasty mess except for a tiny bit in the middle. I turned it off and realized that when I halved the recipe, I also should have adjusted the cooking time. This is the first meal since we've been married that I have burned and I thought I was a fabulous chef. wrongo!

I was frustrated and angry. Everything I'd resolved to do during church was already out the window. Josh calmly just started to make spaghetti instead. So I decided to stop being angry and help. I pulled out a pot, filled it with water and turned a burner on to boil it. I went to get the spaghetti noodles from our pantry and when I turned around, I saw smoke. A little rubber thing on the bottom of the crock pot was melting to the back burner. I turned on the wrong burner! I grabbed the crock pot off the stove and Josh made room for it on our 12 inch wide counter. As I pushed it out of the way even more, I turned off the burner, turned on the right one, and smelled burning rubber once again. Horrified I looked down to see our favorite Christmas present burning. Yes, our Vitamix cord was melting to the burner. I grabbed it put it on our kitchen table and sat down and started crying.

If this was happening to anyone else, I would have laughed. In fact, I'm laughing about it now because it was just one bad thing happening after another and another and another. Josh did laugh a little bit, and that small little chuckle turned me into an angry woman. I got mad at Josh for laughing at me, I got mad at our apartment complex for making apartments with no counter space, I got mad at myself for ruining dinner, I got mad at Josh because he put the Vitamix on our teeny tiny counter, and I got mad at myself for getting mad and ruining my goal to control my anger.

The good news is that our spaghetti dinner tasted awesome, the small bit of crock pot dinner we ate was really good, and our beloved Vitamix is ok! I just melted a bit of the black coating, but its thick coating and no wires were even exposed. Whew, thank goodness! After watching the CES fireside by Elder Christofferson and eating some brownies, yesterday turned out much better!