A Sorrowful Tale

Where oh where do I begin this sorrowful tale...

I'll start here:

That was cinnamon roll disaster #3, by the way.

Our youth group is having a bake sale on Saturday.  I need to contribute.  You have to understand that baking is not a natural activity for me.  I'm not ashamed to brag say that I make delicious cinnamon rolls.  But it is not second nature for me and it is a big day in the Hochstedler household when the cinnamon rolls come out of the oven.

Last week I had a beautiful batch of cinnamon rolls risen and was ready to turn on the oven.  Then the hydro (that's what we call electricity) went out.  What?!  I called Kendall.  "Oh yeah," he said, "There was a scheduled power outage planned."  I may have ranted and raved.  He suggested I run the risen rolls to someone else's house to bake.  Well, Lydia had just gone down for a nap and our closest neighbors also had a power outage.  I called a couple people to get advice.  Unfortunately, no matter how you look at it, over-risen rolls just fail.  It took me awhile to get over that one.

So I was going to bake yesterday.  Glenda even lent me her Bosch so that I could do more than 3 pans at a time.  Well, yesterday I woke up sick enough to die.  (Not really, but I nearly passed out when I first got out of bed and depending how I would have fallen, I could have hit my head just right and...you know...)  I wasn't surprised that I was sick, since I felt it coming on and the boys both came home from school the day before with stomach aches.  Kendall stayed home from work and I slept.  A lot.  I let go of the baking idea.  Until last night.  The baking was nagging at me.  I had a few things in the freezer from last week, but not enough.  So last night I did a batch.  Like always, it was more work than I planned.  But there were 7 beautiful pans of rolls.

This morning, Kendall was in the kitchen first.  He came and very kindly warned me, "I think you're going to be disappointed when you see the rolls."  I was.  Every single pan had fallen!  Under-baked!

So today the boys are home sick and Lydia seems to be feeling under the weather too.  I feel much better, but still not so great.  I was considering letting the cinnamon rolls go.  I even got some very kind motherly advice from one of the 5 or so people who were unfortunate enough to call or run in to me today.  (I say they were unfortunate because I took every possible opportunity to unabashedly unload my sorrowful tale, a.k.a. complain.)  This friend advised me to let go of the cinnamon rolls if my kids and I weren't feeling well.  I appreciated her advice and considered taking it.  I laid down for a nap when Lydia did, but couldn't sleep.  So what did I do?  I got up and started a batch of cinnamon rolls. 

Hahahahahahahahahaha!  (maniacal laughter)  (Evan just looked over my shoulder and kindly suggested, "Mom, I think there has to be spaces between the ha ha's."  No, not this kind of laughter.  I demonstrated maniacal laughter and he was convinced.  Or scared into silence.)

Bad idea!  Listen to your elders!  19 pans of failed cinnamon rolls!  All from the person who barely gets 19 pans of rolls baked in an entire year!

I laughed and laughed.  I may have yelled too.  Something like, "I want my mom!  Or my mother-in-law!  Heeeeelllllpppp!"  Lydia thought it was great fun and added her little yell with her arm waving around.

Evan has been trying to be very kind and helpful to his maniacal mother.  He said, "You'll just use the rolls you can and then leave it, right?" and "I think if you bake more, you should do something other than cinnamon rolls."  Then he asked, "Can I make cookies now?"  I can't remember for sure, but I think I said something about killing anyone who talks about baking.