It was our fifth day to feed the YC ladies soccer team. Everything had gone as perfectly as it could possibly go when feeding 30+ people dinner night after night.

I had planned Italian chicken, baked potatoes, and some veggies – and by 1:00 in the afternoon, we had the chicken in one big roaster oven and a bunch of potatoes in the other. So as to avoid heating up our house, we put both roasters outside, plugged into an outlet right by our storage room.

The storage room holds our freezers. Two freezers. Two big, full of meat, full of vegetables and fruit, full of all the food I had recently prepared ahead for busy days freezers. You can probably see where this story is going.

Around 3:00, I went and checked on the chicken and potatoes to see how they were coming along. As it turned out, they weren’t coming along at all. The roasters had both stopped working. Raw potatoes anyone?

We’ve had trouble with those outlets before, so without thinking about any other option, I blamed the issue on the outlets and had Asa help me get those heavy roasters full of food into the kitchen so that our house would be a pleasant 400° by the time a bunch of already sweaty soccer girls came for dinner. Hey, at least the food would be ready. I was so thankful I had discovered that the plug wasn’t working in time to crank up the roasters and get the food cooked.

One would think that I would have considered that a fuse had been blown. But what can I say? I had been feeding lots of people lots of food for lots of days. All I was thinking about was successfully getting through that night’s meal.

From 3:10 on, all roasters, potatoes, and chickens cooperated just fine. Dinner went great, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Fast-forward to the next morning. I decided that I would treat my family to bacon. This rarely happens, and I knew the aroma would help everyone get out of bed cheerfully.

We shall always be grateful for this random bacon desire. It was as I went into the storage room to grab said bacon from the freezer that I noticed the light didn’t turn on. Burned out bulb? Maybe. I tried the light on the other side of the room. Nope, that didn’t work either.

And then a big ball of panic hit me in the gut. Not only were the lights not working, but the freezers were not humming. “Hum, freezers, hum!” I screamed to the silent white boxes. I opened the freezers. Nothing but icy cold silence.

This was not a pleasant way to begin my day.

I ran to the basement, looked for the offending fuse, found it, switched it, and prayed for humming freezers. Back upstairs and into the storage room – the lights went on and the beautiful chorus of freezer music greeted me.

All was saved – the freezers had kept our food frozen solid all night long. But I tell you what – this freezer alarm is looking mighty good.

Relief. Gratitude. Bacon.

Do you have a freezer alarm? When I shared this on facebook, many shared that they wished they did since they had lost freezers full of food! Any thoughts on whether this cheap one will do, or if we should spend a little more for a wireless one?

As I have been talking a lot about making muffins this week, many are curious about what paper liners I use, or if I skip these and just grease my muffin tins.

I almost always use paper liners. Why?

• For easy clean up.  I find that it’s worth spending a little on paper liners to save me much time in the long run scrubbing muffin tins.
• To protect my food.  My muffin pans are either aluminum or Teflon, and I don’t love either of those touching our food.

What paper liners to I use?

Sometimes I buy cute ones from the store, just because it’s fun. Usually though, I use If You Care brand paper liners that I buy in bulk from Amazon or Vitacost.

What about you? Do you use paper liners for your muffins?

If there is an item that will help me in the kitchen, make my life easier, save me money, and bless my efforts to put good food on the table for my family efficiently, I am all over it. And of course, if I ever discover something new that I feel will bless you too, I’m sure to share the information with you.

No need to thank me. It’s what I’m here for. And that, my dear friends, is why I am so happy to introduce to you the latest addition to my kitchen:

No, not the toaster oven. You already knew I had that.  I’m talking about the ten pound dumbbell.  Ain’t she a beauty?

You see, after many uses, our toaster oven door decided not to close all the way by itself. Our food wouldn’t heat well, we were wasting energy, and something just had to give. That’s when my husband came up with the genius idea to bring down the dumbbell from our collection of weights. When placed against the door handle of the toaster oven, the door stays closed, and our food is heated properly.

I’m thinking I should paint it yellow to match the buttery color of my walls. What do you think?