I tried something new yesterday - I made a vegetarian pizza from a magazine recipe I happened to stumble upon months ago. Making the pizza was an interesting experience. I had just moved to my basement apartment about a month ago and had never used the oven until yesterday [yeah, that is kinda lame] but you gotta start somewhere.
Anyway, I was following the instructions and began to preheat the oven. Funny thing is, it took me awhile to figure out how to even do that since it was an updated model from what I'm used to. It actually says hello and goodbye. Once I figured that out, I began chopping up the toppings and started to get into the rhythm of cooking. I was on a roll baby! I popped the pizza in the oven once it was ready to go, turned on the oven fan, and began to clean up the mess. Ten minutes later, the smoke detector goes off. Oh boy. I went to go check to see if anything was burning - nope. Meanwhile, the detector is still beeping so I go to fan it off with a magazine. After a few seconds it finally shut off. However, I had this happen 3 more times, so I actually had to remove the fire detector from the room. At least I know the damn thing works. Anyway, my pizza turned out fabulously and I was quite pleased with myself. Yay.
It's funny how accustomed you get to a certain mode of living. It becomes so comfortable that you don't realize that everything is automatic. Normally, I don't take the time to cook a real meal because I'm so mentally fixated on doing other things and rely on my old habits, but looking back in retrospect, it was a nice break from my daily schedule. In a way, what was so invigorating about my experience was the different emotions and feelings I encountered - from enjoying my time cooking to the adrenaline rush and the frustration I felt with the smoke detectoring beeping.
