Why is cooking so hard?

It's been a long day here, friends.  Cold, rainy, grey and generally yucky -- and then there was work on top of that.  By the time I got home I was not feeling the love of having to cook dinner.  I had to make something, so I decided on spaghetti and meatballs.  Pretty basic and should be easy.  Unless you screw it up, like I managed to do.

I'm not totally challenged in the kitchen.  I am an awesome baker, if I do say so myself.  I make cupcakes as a way to relax.  It's that whole making-an-actual-meal thing that has me flummoxed.   You have different parts that all have to be done at the same time or else some part is cold by the time the other part is done.  It's stressful!  Plus, I'm only cooking for myself.    If I screw it up no one else is going to know...unless I post it on here.  I end up eating in what I like to call "courses" quite often.  I don't mean on purpose, like at a fancy dinner.  This is more "Oops! I cooked the brussels sprouts too soon, and the chicken is no where near done" type of courses.  This kind of thing is at least salvageable because you can still eat all of it, just in a unique order.

Tonight's mistake was not able to be saved. 

I bet you think it was the meatballs I messed up, right?  You have to put seasoning and stuff in them, then roll them into balls of approximately the same size.  There's a lot of steps to potentially screw up there.  I can see why you thought it was the meatballs.    Plus, any moron can boil water and cook pasta, right?


Wrong!

 This moron managed to screw up the pasta part.  Oh yeah, I'm that talented.  The meatballs are delicious!  Of course I didn't screw that part up because it is baking.  I'm not kidding about being awesome at baking.

See, the meatballs have to bake for a while.  I put the water on to boil, like normal, because it will take a bit to heat up.  Water is boiling, so I drop the pasta in and give it a stir.  So the pasta is cooking, and that will take a few minutes, and the meatballs have to cook a while longer.  It's all going swimmingly.  Then I made my crucial error.  Since everything is going to take a few minutes, I decided to hop on ye old internet.

....And then I kind of forgot about the pasta I was cooking.

By the time I remembered to check on it, convinced it had only been a few minutes, I found a boiling pot of the mushiest, nastiest noodles I have ever encountered.  I have never seen pasta in this condition before.  I thought it was going to dissolve into glue.  The meatballs, on the other hand, were perfectly done.  So I had salad and meatballs for dinner. 

When I have a little cooking disaster like this (and it happens more often than I would like to admit), I like to cheer myself up by watching an episode of My Drunk Kitchen.  Hannah Hart cracks me up!  If you are not familiar with the wonderful My Drunk Kitchen and Hannah Hart (do you live under an internet rock?), allow me to introduce you. 

I should probably warn you here that there is some cursing in the video, some f-bombs will be dropped.  If this bothers you, I advise you don't watch it, okay?

I highly recommend that you watch all of her videos.   Episode 7: Tacos is one of my favorites.  Not that you have to watch it, but if you are bored then take it as a suggestion.