Lasagna saves the day.... or the lack thereof.

Allow me to share my lasagna story with you. Monday morning I got up ready.. fresh tomatoes from the garden, all peeled and diced. (not my garden). All the ingredients were ready to go. Everything was set. Lasagna! I have been wanting to make my homemade lasagna for weeks.

There are three meals I love to make: lasagna, spaghetti with meatballs, and spinach and ricotta stuffed shells with meatballs. Yes, I love Italian food, and I'm a recipe junkie. (I need to blog more about food.)

Back to the house fire... oh, I mean lasagna.

So, I take my recipe book out of my office and opened it to the page that has seen much love to take out the note card filled with information that would transform diced tomatoes into a little bit of heaven. Wait... what? The lasagna card was missing. Come on!

I remembered that not long ago I had typed the recipe for a few friends. It had to be on my desk. (Fail.) Well, those messages had long since been deleted along with the recipes. However, having such fabulous friends I sent messages asking if any of them could email me the recipe because mine was misplaced. Me... misplace something? (Epidemic.) I waited. I told my mom I was waiting on a response. She suggested calling. (We really wanted lasagna.) No word from anyone. Lasagna was a lost cause and I had 6 cups of diced tomatoes waiting in the refrigerator.

I decided to go with spaghetti and meatballs.... and yes, mine is fabulous. I had to add a little here and there.... I had lasagna ingredients... the same... but different. Into the lasagna pot and on the stove to simmer forever.  (I DO call it my lasagna pot and I ONLY stir the sauce with my spaghetti spoon.) There were several trips to my mom's to get a few things I needed to complete the sauce, but we managed. (I love cooking for my mom.)

Here's the exciting part of the story, so get ready. Mom STILL has clean-up in her yard from the tornado of 4/27, as do most people in this area, so she is usually quite tired by dinner time. Lasagna would have been taken to her house, but spaghetti and meatballs is not exactly the meal that travels. She came here when I called to say it was finished. We ate. A LOT. A thunderstorm was rolling in as we were finishing. The kitchen was such a mess and now we couldn't wash the dishes. Lightning popped all around.

Thunder boomed and lightning struck the side of my house. I saw it. I saw the flash of light and sparks flew out in all directions. I ran outside in the rain to check the house and saw the flames. I ran back in and told mom and the kids to get out, the house was on fire. Mom went to the side and was using the water hose on the fire. I took the hose from her and asked her to go be with the kids while I gave my address to the emergency dispatch. Poor woman... the lightning struck close again and I hit the ground with a fantastic scream right in the phone. (I did apologize there.)

Fire trucks filled my front lawn. I dropped the hose. Soaked with no shoes (who had time for shoes.) I went to stand with the fabulous four and hugged them all.

After a thorough check by the firefighters we were safe to stay in the house. Half the power is gone for now, and my phone was toast, but our house is fine. (A special thanks to the men and women of our local fire departments.)

So there you have it. If anyone had returned that email with my lasagna recipe I would have taken dinner to my mom's and my house just might be gone. Even if it had burned to the ground, all would not be lost. No, everything in my life that matters would still be held in a hug.