Housebound and happy

 

After the drama of the past weeks, I’m thrilled to report that today is delightfully dull. No weird texts, no inroads into the bank account, no frantic calls from the credit card people, and nowhere in particular to go. Bliss. We have dinner tonight our friends’ house to look forward to, but in the meantime I’m staying here in my sweatshirt and socks.

 The ducks are traveling in flotillas, the sky is gray, the ground is sodden from overnight rain, and the temperature is in the 40s. Not exactly the tropical paradise people picture when they think of Florida, but it beats this morning’s -9 back in my Massachusetts town.

There’s a loaf of blueberry bread in the oven, making the house smell wonderful. In fact, I believe that will be my lunch. If it turns out okay, that is.

The first thing making that chancy is the oven. It’s what’s know as “builder’s grade” – an appliance slapped in by the construction company. After a few mishaps I took myself to the Ace hardware and bought an oven thermometer. As in today, when I turned on the stove, set it at 350 degrees. Ten minutes later it merrily dinged to announce that it was ready and waiting. Except the independent thermometer I’d placed on the oven rack read 225. Another 15 minutes and we were at 350. Since we’ve just sprung for a new dryer and HVAC system, I think I can live with a slow pre-heat time.

The second thing is when I made a loaf a week ago, it had the same heft and solidity of the cinder blocks holding up this condo. I wanted to blame it on the oven, but later realized that it’s probably not the best idea to expect much from baking powder that had expired over a year before.

 

Success!