Dinner Diasters (yes, plural)

I decided to try a new recipe tonight. It did not go well. The recipe sounded delicious and was easy enough to make. However, when it came time to eat it, it was apparent that the amount of onion in the recipe needed to be drastically reduced. We're talking eye-watering onion here, folks. Husband woke up with a slight cold this morning, and after one bite of dinner he stated that his sinuses had cleared! He wasn't joking. Tossing that dinner in the trash, with the determination to try it again in a few weeks (with less onion), we decided to pop a frozen pizza in the oven. After the suggested cooking time, the pizza crust was still slightly doughy. I had already turned off the oven, but we put the pizza back in, figuring that the heat in the oven would cook the dough. We set a timer and sat down to watch some TV. A couple of minutes later, Husband exclaimed "I smell burning!" I smelled the burning as well, and we both sprinted to the kitchen where our pizza was now a blackened mess. It turns out that I did not turn the oven OFF, but had, in fact, turned the oven to broil. Oops! After opening every window in the house--and praying that the smoke detector would stay silent--I scrounged around for something suitable for dinner. Since it was 8:00pm and Husband had banned me from cooking anything else, I pulled out the peanut butter and jelly. Thankfully, my third attempt at dinner went off without a hitch! 

Bottom Creek Gorge

With the end of summer looming (boo!), Husband and I decided to go explore nature. We headed out to Bottom Creek Gorge to hike to a waterfall (hiking to waterfalls seems to be our thing here in Virginia). It was a perfect day weather-wise with the temperature around 75*F (about 25*C), and we enjoyed a fairly easy hike as the trail wound its way through trees and meadows. If you ever find yourself near Bent Mountain, Virginia, check this place out. It's a little hard to find and out of the way, but I think it's worth the effort.

A puzzling situation

At the beginning of the summer, I thought it would be fun to put a puzzle together. We bought a puzzle from the Dollar Store (because that is where we were when I had the idea). Over the past few weeks, we have been working bit by bit on the puzzle. Today, we finished it! Hooray! After the first step of assembling the borders, we realized that we were missing a piece. We had hoped that it would be found by the time the puzzle was completed. However, much to our frustration, the missing piece did not make an appearance. We have a sneaking suspicion that whoever boxed the puzzle left the piece out intentionally. That's what I would do if I was a puzzle boxer!