House a-fire! Well, almost.

I was going to bake some cookies today, and as standard when baking, I turned on the oven to preheat to 375.

I was getting the dough all mixed up and had just put it in the fridge to chill for a few minutes. I was putting things away, wiping up around the stove, when the oven beeped at me. I glanced up, and it had turned itself off. I thought maybe I had accidentally bumped the buttons when I was wiping, so I turned it back on -- same thing happened again.

I opened the oven -- it was SO FREAKIN HOT. Had to be at least 500+ degrees. The element was glowing super-bright orange, and it was smoking. It was almost like it was on the auto-clean mode.

At this point, I was in a bit of a panic, and I went and retrieved Jon to come have a look. He was as baffled as I was, and despite the fact that the oven was OFF, it really seemed like it was getting hotter and hotter. It certainly wasn't cooling down any at this point.

We weren't sure how we were going to manage this, and I finally remembered -- the breaker! So Jon went out and flipped the breaker to cut the power to the oven, and it finally went off. It took a really long time to cool down and stop smoking, though.

Needless to say, I'm a little freaked out about using the oven now. We're going to get someone out to look at it, but I've got no idea when that might be, and I've got to bake for Ella's b-day party next weekend...UGH.