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After a rather stressful day for my husband, and a usual half lazy/half productive day for me, it was time to eat.

Remember, we’re 2nd shift, and so our big meal of the day is “lunch” at about 7pm, and sadly heated in the microwave. For our 3rd meal of the day, we usually do our own thing (usually eggs for him, and leftovers for me), though I do sometimes cook.

So, still stressed out, hubs starts preparing to cook his dinner as I’m reheating a lovely grass fed burger and some green beans in my cast iron skillet, and starts complaining that he can’t find his tortillas AGAIN. This would be because he insists that all of his items be in the front and easy to access while everything I cook with gets shoved to the back. When I cook, I don’t care and shove things in wherever they fit.

So, being the loving wife that I am (ok, just irritated because he’s whiny in the kitchen) I shooed him out of the way, lifted up the plate of leftover pancakes and pulled out his tortillas. I did notice that they dripped a bit as I put them onto the counter, but just assumed it was condensation from one of the many stupid things that we keep in the fridge and hoped he wouldn’t even notice it.

Unfortunately, he not only noticed it, but he noticed that it was milk.

Milk? Impossible. I’ve been buying milk in glass bottles, and glass doesn’t just develop a leak! Maybe I didn’t put the lid on tight and milk that was under the lid dripped out?

I started checking all of the milk bottles that I’d opened (raw for me, pasteurized for him, chocolate for us), and none of them were dripping. And then, through the clear glass of a half empty milk bottle, I saw an unattractive thick yellow smear. Surrounded by clear glass.

The bottle in the back had not only cracked, the entire front was shattered. And there was about 1/2 inch of milk left in the bottom. A half gallon of milk (my precious raw milk at that!) was gone. Literally gone. As in, maybe a quarter cup was scattered over items in the lower two shelves.

Well, I’ve been meaning to clean the refrigerator anyway…

Our fridge is kept ice cold. Milk kept in the back ALWAYS freezes. Always. And I know this. But when I was putting the groceries away, our fridge was already packed full to the gills (it’s a cheap, small fridge provided by our apartment complex management). I’m still not sure if it froze and burst the glass, or if it was from other glass bottles being shoved against it repeatedly.

I did pretty well, too. I only got stuck with a glass shard once, and it only took a few minutes to clean off the food and shelves (despite my husband’s dire predictions of how the fridge would reek of spoiled milk- raw milk doesn’t really spoil, it sours, and the beneficial bacteria in there more or less just gave our entire food supply a healthy dose of probiotics… assuming that any of it got into the food itself).

Problem is… where did the rest of it go?

There’s a kind of grating in the back on the bottom shelf, which I’d always assumed led straight into the bottom drawer. With a sick feeling, I pulled the drawer out, expecting our produce and deli meat to be swimming in milk- only to find it dry as a bone.

The thing is, that drawer broke within weeks of us moving in, so as I pulled it out, it came out. I mean, really came OUT. And that’s when I found out where all the milk (and some crumbs) had gone.

I used up almost a whole roll of paper towels, knowing that hubs would not want me to run a pile of laundry, and me being unable to find the worthless towels anyway since hubs always insists on hovering exactly in my way when in the kitchen. Not really a problem except…

The bottom of the drawer had been sitting in the milk and was now sitting on the space carpet. And, as I was swishing around in there, a bunch of milk swooshed out and ran under the fridge. I think I got it all…

So while I didn’t cry, I think I finally, finally understand where the saying “No use crying over spilled milk” comes from. You just get on your knees, mop it up, regret the loss of $4 worth of milk plus the $2.50 deposit for the bottle, and realize that you’ll have to go milk-less for a few days.

I’m also more determined than ever that when we’re able to buy a house, that it will have TWO kitchens. One for him, and one for me.

BTW- if you want to know about the real food that I cooked this weekend, go ahead and click that link.

So, as is my usual habit, I started the dishwasher just before heading to bed. Hubs and I were laying in bed, reading our books (him- Birnbaum’s Guide to Walt Disney World, me- a chick lit by Kristin Billerbeck), and just drowsing to the point we were about to switch off the lights.

All of a sudden, hubs starts sniffing the air (sounded more like snorting, but, whatever) and then says “do you smell something?”. I do. “Smells like steak” I said. “Smells like steak on the grill” he said. I shrugged and went back to reading my book. After all, if we’re weird enough to be up at 3:30 am, why wouldn’t someone else be weird enough to grill a steak at 3:30 am? I would, if I had a grill.

But this is not enough for hubs, he heads downstairs. I head to the upstairs window to see if I can find said griller so I can invite myself over for a late night snack. I can’t see them, so I assume they must be on our side of the building, and therefore hidden from my view.

But hubs is still downstairs.

So I head on down, and as I hit the ground floor, the smell of steak just slaps me in the face. Weirdly- the smell of steak grilling in the rain (our family did this often). I walk towards hubs, who’s standing in the middle of the kitchen, sniffing in circles and we converge right next to the dishwasher, which is halfway through the cycle.

“Did you forget to wash off the plates before you loaded the dishwasher?” he demands asks. “No” say I. “Well it’s coming from the dishwasher” says he. He then promptly opens the dishwasher, mid-cycle.

Out wooshes the smell of steak on the grill, and what we took to be smoke at first, but surely was just steam?

Well, after several opening and shuttings and hearing the hiss of water dripping on the heating elements, and finally noticing that the white mineral build up on same elements had turned brown… we shut it down for the night. Also, apparently, I’ve kept the washing cyle on high heat for the past four years. Who knew that would be an issue?

In either case, we don’t seem to be having a problem with the dishwasher as long as I turn off the high heat setting, and with every load  the steak smell fades away.

To be honest, I kinda miss it.

I don’t know if it’s because Christmas is coming up, because I’ve been exceptionally tired lately (sadly, NOT an indication of pregnancy), or what, but I have been feeling so unmotivated! I’m not even interested in playing my FaceBook games right now, though I do because I’m also bored.

Periodically, I get the urge to work on my novel- which is also about the time that I remember something that actually has to get done. Most of the time, I ponder which of my many sites I have to work on while I’m busy feeding virtual fish.

Last week, my friends convinced me to finally write a PLR pack like I’ve been talking about for the past 3 or 4 years. I keep meaning to, just never get around to it. But guess what? They pushed me, I did it and… Now I’m putting off learning how to list it so that it gets automatically delivered, and knowing that I’ll actually have to post it up for sale. Personally, I think sales pitches are stupid, so I probably won’t bother doing that at all, but I then worry that if I don’t do a sales pitch, will I not actually sell the pack?

And then I think, “I should do an e-book!” But what on? I know Walt Disney World better than almost anyone who hasn’t worked there for 5 or more years (seriously, I’ve met lifers there who barely know how to do more than ring up a sale). And should I really be spending my time on an ebook when I won’t even go do the link building for the sites that are already earning me money?

I know, I need to just suck it up and do it. Focus. The problem is, what on?