Ever have a to do which you’d do anything to avoid doing or procrastinate or make excuses to not do?   No, I’m sure I’m all alone in that wonderful trait.   But just in case…  

For most of my life, I have not cooked.  I didn’t enjoy cooking.  I didn’t like spending time cooking. Why couldn’t fun, delicious food appear from nowhere?   Then I started Hello Fresh and attempted to become a vegan (still a work in progress), so I started cooking.  I’ve learned to make many interesting and fun dishes.   

You know what happens when you cook, when you actually turn the oven on from time to time?   I’m told you’re supposed to clean it periodically.  What?!  Yes, it’s true.   Here is an embarrassing fact.  In all the time we’ve lived here, ahem years, the oven has never been cleaned, not one time. Last time I used it, smoke came out.  It was just like when smoke comes out of the toaster oven when you’ve left crumbs on the bottom, so I knew just what it was.  

But I don’t want to clean the oven!   I don’t wanna.  Do I need Oven Off?   I did think about just getting a new oven for a bit.  The oven is entering it’s golden years. Surely it will need to be replaced soon anyway.  I realize that is ridiculous.  I can’t do that just because I throw out the $35 toaster oven when it gets too dirty.  Oh, the oven is self-cleaning!  Excellent.  Then I read the instructions. The oven will go up to 1000 degrees and it takes hours.  Frankly, that sounds terrifying.  Also, I want to make baked sweet potato fries.  I don’t want to wait.  Ok, Scrub Daddy, you and me… we’re going in.  

To my amazement, the black stuff came right off.   Super easy.  Wo!  Victory!   Sure, I probably need to give it a more substantial cleaning at some point, but things will work out fine for today.   There was no reason to be so intimidated of cleaning the oven.  

Lesson:  sometimes the things you just don’t want to are the exact things that you really need to do.  It’s entirely possible it won’t be as bad as you think and you will feel fantastic when you’re done, not to mention enjoying yummy sweet potato fries!