Third time's a charm?

Tell me one thing.  What does this photo look like to you?

I have been in baking H. E. L. L.  The whole mess started on Thursday night.  We went shopping for hours for Chad and Tree's housewarming party, and I still had a batch of pumpkin scones to make when we got home.  Needless to say, the recipe turned out to be a low-fat one, and the scones were so disgusting I'm struggling for words to explain.  I am now a firm believer that scones require gobs of butter, sugar, and fat, and that they are no longer a healthful breakfast option.  The whole batch went straight into the trash, and I was left with no head start on my baking (and there's tons of it, mind you).

Fast forward to Friday night, where, after a loooooooong day of school, Nate and I ended up shopping for hours again, after which I was supposed to do a ton of baking.  I was tired, irritable, and ended up stressed about money and baking and life in general...

I spent a good thirty minutes or so trying to roll out some sugar cookie dough for little musical note and guitar-shaped cookies.  Why on earth didn't anyone warn me that the darn dough would stick to everything, including, but not limited to, my counter, the rolling pin, my hands, the wax paper, and the cookie cutter?

I finally threw the cookies into the oven and began gathering supplies for some orange muffins.  After a few minutes, I realized that the kitchen smelled like it was on fire, and I opened the oven door to a.) a giant cloud of smoke, b.) some sort of leak in the oven that was filling the bottom with a white substance, and c.) penis cookies.  Some evil gnome must have sneaked into my oven when I wasn't looking and switched out all those adorable little guitars I had worked so hard cutting out with phallic symbols.  Now tell me what you would do?  (hint: I'm pregnant, so you can imagine how I responded...)

After I pulled out the cookies and screamed for Nate, he realized that I had left the sugar tub on top of the one burner on the stovetop that has a pipe straight into the oven (And why on earth would someone set a sugar tub on the stovetop in the first place?  Again, I'm pregnant...).  The tub had melted, leaking plastic and tons of sugar straight into the stove.  Needless to say, after we turned off the oven and cleared out the smoke, I promptly sat in the middle of the kitchen floor and began to sob (I'm sure you guessed already).  In the meantime, Nate had spotted the cookies and proceeded to laugh for at least 30 minutes straight, snapping photos and sending them to all his guy friends.

After locking myself in the bathroom to weep it out, I finally just gave up.  I mixed up my orange muffin mix, threw it in the fridge, and went to bed.  And here I sit on a Saturday morning, after trying for 45 minutes to clean out my oven, with a mountain of baking to do and no oven in which to bake it.  Because, that's right, most of that sugar melted to the bottom of my oven and has now become one with it.

I guess that will teach me to assume that I should be the official baker for any sort of party, although I'm hoping this whole experience is earning me bonus points in heaven.  It surely isn't helping me win any favor with Nate.

And it will definitely teach me about making guitar cookies...  Just a word of advice - I'd skip the guitar-shaped cookie cutter.  Unless you're baking for a bachelorette party.