Picture this:

I get home from work on Tuesday evening and begin cleaning the house. I then start the organization for a meal that I hoped would be something different. See, yesterday marked the beginning of our third year in the house. On the 14th of April 2008, two major things happened that changed things for the better. First, after three months of hard work, we moved into the house. The place wasn’t finished yet, the living room was still a building sight, there were still tools everywhere, our bedroom was just about finished, The spare room hadn’t been touched yet, my computer / music room still needed furniture and there was still a whole in the floor in Emma’s sowing room where the builder had sunk the pipes that had been surface mounted by the previous owner. Still though, we were too relieved to have the main work done to care about the work that was yet to do. We’d installed a new heating system, replaced all the windows and internal doors, fitted new floors into five rooms, blocked up a fire place and dozens of other jobs.

The second thing was me starting my new job with Fujitsu who were contracted by the houses of the Oireachtas. For the non-Irish people who read this, the Oireachtas is the main government office. It is where the government chamber is where parliament meets. The job description was specific but actually not entirely accurate. What I thought was a sideways move was actually a nice step up. The employer I worked for before was terrible. I can definitely say, the best move I ever made was away from that last company. I had a lot of accessibility challenges at the start but they got sorted out as time went on.

So, I wanted to celebrate our mutual success yesterday.

After cleaning the house, I set about preparing the food for yesterday. I marinated some vegetables with some mixed herbs, and I peeled potatoes. Everything was going well. I’d even bought a new table cloth so it would look a little different.

Yesterday, I made sure I got home early and I roasted the chicken, flavoured the potatoes with other herbs and roasted them too after partially boiling them before hand. I also did some mash potato as well. For starters, I did Chicken and vegetable soup and for desert, I picked up her favourite as well.

I tell you all this to make you hungry. hahahaha. Oh, and to explain that I put a lot of thought and work into it. I probably don’t do it as much as I should so I’d some brownie points to score. hahahahaha.

Right. So everything was going well.

Emma got home and I had everything ready right on time. I mean, everything was sitting ready. It was perfect timing.

I sat her down at the table, pored her drink and went to serve the soup.

Here’s when things began to go very wrong.

I touched off a glass on the table and sent liquid everywhere. Ok, not everywhere, it wasn’t a very big glass but you know what I mean. It wasn’t the best start.

No. It gets worse!

After the starter, I heated up some sauce for over the chicken.

It was some weird stuff. I don’t even remember what flavour it was. It probably would have been very nice though.

Most of these packets are microwaveable.

I even got someone to read out the preparation instructions before I used it.

Not once did they tell me that this packet cannot be put into a microwave.

Most packets like this can so I hardly gave it a second thought.

I put it in and turned on the microwave.

Bangs, cracks and pops could be heard from it.

Emma said there were blue and white sparks lighting up the kitchen.

No, not really a good sign. Is it?

I could possibly have just turned it off from the switch but there was so much noise coming from it I thought it would be safer to do it from the trip switch instead.

So, that’s what we did.

Have you ever smelled slightly singed microwave?

It’s not as nice as roasted chicken.

But it’s certainly stronger.

Hahahaha. All I can do now is laugh.

It didn’t ruin things though. We had another sauce that was used in its place. You know, one spare just in case I decided to try blow up the house or something like that.

She still enjoyed it. Even though I almost ended our second year by ending the house.

Ha. Why she puts up with me I’ll never know.

Maybe it’s the dramas from time to time?

So, here’s to another two years.