I am not having a good housekeeping kind of morning. William and I made cookies, and they were supposed to be Choc-Oat Chip, but when I went to get out the baking cocoa, there were only scraps in the bottom of the container. Paul went to the grocery store last, so I asked him about the baking cocoa that had been on the list. He said, “Oh, yeah. I didn’t know what baking cocoa was.” O. Kay. No, don’t ask a clerk, or call me on your cell phone, or look in the baking aisle and see if anything is labeled “baking cocoa”–please, don’t trouble yourself.
So William and I made Oat Chip, no Choc. And the cookies came out all flat and greasy-looking, which is mystifying to me because I can be depended on to make cookies successfully: it is very unusual for me to be shaking my head at a cookie sheet and thinking, “What has occurred here?” They taste good, but scraping them off the cookie sheet was like trying to remove dried melted slug from the sidewalk, not that I have ever attempted such a thing, so I suppose what I mean is that it was like I would imagine such a task to be like, not that I have spent much time imagining it, either.
While the second batch was in the oven, the dryer buzzer buzzed. I went down to get a load of clothes, and discovered that they had purple marks all over them from some mystery source. I got increasingly frantic and tense as I took each item of baby clothing out of the basket (the rugby shirt I bought Edward yesterday, which he hasn’t even worn yet; Elizabeth’s favorite kitty shirt; the blue shirt with white sleeves I never know if I should put it in with whites or with colors), seeing which had been possibly ruined and wondering why why WHY?
I assumed that at some point I would discover the culprit item that had stained everything, and that it would be an item that would allow me to put the blame for this disaster firmly on some other member of my household–ideally Paul, who could be berated and made to feel my pain, rather than one of the children, who would have to be patiently instructed and educated. But nothing ever turned up: I put away the whole load of clothes, and there was no crayon, no skein of embroidery floss, no marker, nothing. And now my mind turns to the load of white laundry currently in the dryer. Oh, no no no no no.
Also, I need a good reliable recipe for oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies. Anyone got one? Email to swistle at gmail dot com, and maybe I’ll post them and we can have a little bake-off.
My cookies ALWAYS turn out like flat greasy slugs, no matter what I do! Please, if you ever figure out the secret to stop that from happening, do share! =)
So sorry about the laundry disaster. I hate when that happens, that there’s no apparent source of the weird marks. This happens to me quite frequently, and as Addy doesn’t even use crayons or markers yet, and neither Jim nor I is the type to carry around pens in our shirt pockets, it is always mystifying. WHY is everything weirdly tie-dyed with a sort of pale navy color? I think my dryer is demon possessed.
Oh, horror. Maybe a very small piece of crayon that has now melted into everything… all I can think of.
That’s as bad as the load of laundry we had stolen from our apt laundromat because husband got locked out while it was running and we had no key.
That has happened to me before – mystery laundry staining is no good. Especially when you can’t figure out what it came from. Speaking of laundry incidents, I kept hearing a thump thump thump coming from my dryer the other night – only to finally discover a AAA battery that my husband evidently had in the pocket of his shirt (Why? Who knows.). Safety first at our place for sure.
Oh man. I hope that you’re able to get the stains out of your laundry. We have a product that works great for getting stains out. I’ve used it on things that got ruined in the dryer. It’s called “Awesome”. It’s a yellow liquid in a spray bottle. Around here we get it at the Dollar Tree. If you can find some, I’d highly recommend it. It may help. My mil got some for us when we got married. We use it all the time. It’s even gotten wax out of carpet for us. I gave some to my sister when she got married. Her husband owns a pizza shop, and he dumped pizza sauce all down his favorite shirt one day. He was shouting and stomping about it. He tried rinsing it immediately, but it was already setting in the stain. Rachel told him to try the “Awesome” that I swear by. He did, and it got the red sauce out completely. I hope you can find some.
And I hate when things like that happen. Actually I had a dream a few months ago about something staining a whole load of baby clothes (which we all know aren’t cheap). Scary that I dream about things like that and cringe.
I’m a fan of the oxyclean, myself. I’ve even gotten haircolor out of my carpet with it. I put a scoop in with all of Maddie’s laundry. It really helps with the “pukey” smell that seems to permeate everything she owns.
I can’t help with the cookies, tho. I’m only good at the “break and bake” kind. I’m not the
“good cook” kind of stay at home mom. But my house is pretty clean. Does that even out or do I still get points off?
Meanwhile, notice how many quotation marks I used? That’s cuz I’m super cool.
If you used the recipe for the choc. oat chip, and just left out the baking chocolate, then it probably needed a little additional flour. As for the purple laundry problem, we had mysterious red streaks on a load of pinks and purples – I never did find the culprit, but stain stick for about the next 4 washes helped.