Just before the holidays, I start to notice things around the house that are not as clean as they should be.
I apparently do not notice these areas except when I realize the house is about to be visited by family. Although I do realize they are visiting to see us and not the house, I still cannot help trying to get the house cleaner than it normally is.
Those of you who have ever had small children in the house know just how hard that can be. I will busily work my way through the house cleaning. Only to turn around a few minutes later and discover it doesn’t even look like I cleaned anything because my two-year-old and four-year-old have undone everything I just did, which is why I have secretly named them the human tornados.
“See, this is why I shouldn’t even bother cleaning,” I say to myself.
Yet, I go back and wipe their finger prints off the windows and fireplace glass for a third time that day.
This year, I got the bright idea to clean the oven because that is definitely where company will look. Silly me.
I admit. It was pretty dirty because I had a couple of pies that decided to overflow on me; and it just so happened to be the couple of times I forgot to put a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil underneath it.
I had never used the self-clean oven option before, but I thought how awesome would that be. I could go around the house doing other cleaning, while the oven was cleaning itself.
So, I did it. I pushed the button, made sure the oven was locked and set off to do some other cleaning.
A little while later, I noticed a horrid smell coming from the oven.
What is going on? Is this normal? To top it off I start to feel nauseated.
So, I start looking for information on the Internet about odd orders coming from the oven while cleaning. I quickly find out that this is normal and the smell should resemble that off a new iron or curling iron being used for the first time. The article is right. That is exactly what the smell is. Next, I try to figure out what I can do to make it stop. Unfortunately, I find nothing helpful. I am supposed to wait until the oven is done cleaning or open some windows or doors.
Of course, I decided to do this on one of the coldest days of the year, but I cannot take it anymore. I open the front and back doors of the house to get some airflow going. The heater kicks in. Great, now I am wasting money because I’m heating my house and the yard as well.
I close the doors and realize it did help a lot, but the smell is still coming from the oven. I decide to override the self-cleaning cycle, but it wouldn’t let me. Luckily, the oven had already stopped the self-cleaning cycle and I just didn’t notice. After the oven cooled down, I looked in to see if it was in fact clean; and it was. However, I am not sure if I will ever use the self-clean option again because the smell was so horrible that I think oven cleaning chemicals are less potent.
Regardless, I have to decide which to use since I once again forgot to put a baking sheet with aluminum foil underneath my pecan pie for Thanksgiving and the oven is all dirty again. To top it off I feel like all that nauseating cleaning was for nothing since I think it was only clean for a week.
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