The Fun Just Keeps Coming

I have mentioned once or a thousand times during the course of this year about my issues with home appliances.  It seems as if every time I turn around something else decides to die a horrible electrical death.  Recently the refrigerator bled out (oh it was only water) all over the kitchen and into the dining room (I hate GE Profile so much).  Prior to that the oven had given up and we were reduced to using the microwave (which wasn’t bad really). At the time I had an injured shoulder and couldn’t pick up anything to get it into an oven anyway.  The air conditioning went out during a very hot spell (naturally) and to get the best deal and the energy tax rebates we went ahead and replaced the furnace (it was a disaster waiting to happen anyway).  Today I actually made the final payment on the furnace/air conditioning.

I was feeling so good about not having that high amount of debt for the furnace/ air conditioning hanging over my head that to celebrate (I know, I’m strange)  I decided to help Devoted Spouse by taking my turn at doing a few loads of laundry.  He was busy with other home maintenance issues and I didn’t want to bother him.  I can get the laundry baskets bounced down two flights of stairs without spilling much more than an errant washcloth and errant washcloths are a favorite of EmmaLou so everyone is happy.

After 3 loads of laundry and the associated trips up and down two flights of stairs, I was really feeling my oats, so to speak.  I got a little too excited – laundry-wise – and decided it was time to wash the coverlet off our bed.  Now this is not a heavy comforter, just a lightweight cover, but it is somewhat large.   Went through the wash cycle with no problem.  Went through the dry cycle with no problem… sort of.

I went down to the basement to check on whether or not the coverlet was dry and at the foot of the stairs I smelled something burning.  Oh crap – I’ve smelled that aroma before — it’s a burned out motor and it had to be coming from either the washer or dryer.  Crap, crap, crap.  I got to the laundry area and the washer was just humming along doing its thing happily unaware that right next to it, its mate was dying a horrible slow death.  I unplugged the dryer and called to Devoted Spouse.

He came downstairs with appropriate dryer tools in hand.  He pulled the dryer away from the wall, took off some of the back panels, rummaged around a bit, and the smell was still that of burning machinery.  I decided then and there I didn’t want him to try and fix it – it needed a decent burial; it was 12 years old and had fought the good fight.

So off to the Big Orange Box of Toys (Home Depot) we went and being the smart consumer I am, I did a pre-emptive strike and bought not just a dryer but its matching washer, too.  These aren’t the big hummers you see advertised on tv — we don’t generate that much laundry, and frankly I don’t need a steam function on my dryer.  That’s why God made Dry Cleaners.  But they still run about $800 each.  Crap.  There goes that Mac I wanted to buy.

What irks me is while these are high energy machines, we don’t qualify for the tax credit because the state of Ohio is just now dickering around with the paperwork with the Federal Government to figure out how to go about this process.  So we get the energy benefits, but no tax credits.  Grrrr…stupid bureaucracy.

So, let’s tally this up for 2009 – a new furnace, new air conditioning, a new water softener, a new stove/oven, new refrigerator, new washer, and a new dryer (we bought a new dishwasher in late 2008 so that doesn’t qualify even though it was pricey).  All told, almost $12,000.  That’s alot of money for one year.  But the good news is I won’t have to put out that kind of dough again for a long time hopefully.

On the other hand, there is a hot water heater lurking in the basement and I can hear it whispering and plotting…it’s up to no good…I just know one of these days I will wake up to cold water coming from the bathroom shower and a flooded basement and realize I should have replaced that water heater the day before…sigh…

Appliances…can’t live without ‘em…can’t find a trebuchet large enough to fling them where the sun don’t shine…

Friday Free For All

This is my Friday free for all posting  or what I like to call my posting mish mash – I’m going to ramble for awhile and make no real sense at all.  So just enjoy the fact that you can read this and feel superior to me in your capacity to think and act as a rational normal functioning adult human being (probably).

For those of you who are employed, Yippee Skippee it’s Friday and it’s a holiday weekend.  For my friend, Chris, Yippee Skippee, he’s on leave Friday and then goes on vacation for 2 weeks.  For the rest of us slobs – retired, unemployed, or whatever the alternate choice may be, it’s just another day in Paradise.

For me, it’s going to be a day of mostly studying with the exception of a quick run to Omaha Steaks because they had a special one-day-only 50% off sale on Wed and the nice manager told me since my refrigerator died, he would honor my coupon on Fri.  Note to world:  Omaha Steaks rocks – I will NEVER buy a steak from a grocery store again.  Truly.   Back to school — while I received an A my first week of class, and in the middle of my second week, I received an email from my Professor telling me he was impressed with my homework submission and that I was doing excellent work, I’m falling behind in my reading and I haven’t even started working on my source material for my research paper (which is due in Week 7 and that’s just right around the corner).

I’m behind because of the nightmare of the broken refrigerator.  Now, I’ve twittered about it, I’ve written about it on my other Blog (shameless plug) and of course, I posted a note on this blog.  But, it’s amazing to me how totally upside down your world can become when a major appliance decides to commit hari-kari in the middle of the night, especially when this appliance is hooked up to a water line and decides to “pee” everywhere.  Thank goodness I already take blood pressure medicine, or I probably would have reached stroke level by now.  The new refrigerator is in; it’s very nice and I’m happy with it, even if it is taking some getting used to since it’s so different from the type of refrigerator I had before.

Speaking of things breaking…well more like breaking down, as in holey moley Batman, when did I get so flippin’ old?  Devoted Spouse and I were watching Discovery Science the other night and they were talking about gravity.  Plus they were discussing colonizing Mars.  I said, “If we lived on Mars at least my tits would point up.”  Devoted Spouse thought that was really funny but I was serious.  Somewhere between just the other day and today gravity has just wreaked havoc on my body. Each picture of me lately shows either this tremendous turkey neck or 37 chins.  I toyed with the idea of duct taping my neck so it would tighten the skin, but then I’d have to do an amazing job of getting my hair to cover it and there’s that pesky problem of getting the duct tape back off my skin (ouch), so I put that idea in the “don’t try” category.  That’s why I pose with something in front of my neck usually — like a book, a flower, or the dog even.    Almost overnight I have become a perfect candidate for that commercial on tv for the Lifestyle Lift – the one where women my age who look like they’re 127 have some type of procedure done on their jowls (I hate that word; it sounds like the pieces parts you cut off chickens before you cook them) and neck and suddenly look twenty years younger.  As much as I hate the thought of any type of plastic surgery, I want that procedure.  I want it now.  With my luck, the doctor will sneeze, and I’ll end up looking like the Joker.  You know my life – one Murphy’s Law day after another.

My best girlfriend is twenty years older than me (and I thought I was old – LOL).  I used to look at the skin on her arms and think, “Am I ever glad MY arms don’t look like that!”  Well, guess what?  Crapola, now they do – it’s as if suddenly God reached down and pushed my arms together to make the skin wrinkly and it’s really starting to get on my last nerve.  And then there’s the issue with my back  and leg not healing like I thought they would and being in pain and limping and running out of physical therapy appointments next week!  It just sucks.  I broke down the other day and used a cane because it just hurt too much to walk without its support.  That was the day I realized I was my grandmother and I was five minutes away from living in one of those weirdly-flowered house dresses.  Gah…

But it beats the alternative and I’m truly grateful every day I wake up on the right side of the grass.  So what if my boobies are sort of falling down – they’re just in a race to match my butt which is also lowering for some reason.  Life means looking like you are in your mid-50′s on the outside while feeling like you’re in your mid-twenties on the inside.  (Yes I know celebrities like Susan Lucci are in their 60′s and look like 20, but they’ve been carved more times than a  Thanksgiving Turkey.)   Cruel, but true.   Basically, I just need to grow about 3 inches in length and everything would even out again.  I’ll keep blowing out birthday candles (and yes, we always keep the fire extinguisher handy) and wishing for my youth to return, but it will never happen.  I’m told, wisdom takes its place.  I haven’t found that either – - maybe I’ll find it when I get to Mars and get my tits pointing in the right direction.  You’ll be the first to know, trust me.

I Never Learn, Do I?

I told myself I would NEVER buy another GE Profile refrigerator.  But what did I do 6 years ago when we moved into this house?  Yup – I bought another GE Profile refrigerator.  Idiot.  I never learn from past mistakes.

The above refrig/freezer side-by-side is a bit hard to see (white on white background) but it’s what died on me sometime last night and left my kitchen a sopping mess and ruined lots of food…grrrr… When it died, it was only 6 years old and had a 5-year extended warranty – of course – my luck you know.  Let me reiterate that this is a GE Profile.  This is the second meltdown we’ve had with this one but the first time wasn’t its fault – it was because our power was out from the remnants of Hurricane Ike for 4 days and of course we had a wet, sopping mess and ruined food then, too.  BUT, this is the second GE Profile that has broken — I bought one when I had my prior house – same type- side by side and it had a defect that GE knew about but told all retail centers NOT to fix until it broke – ours broke, the freezer stopped working and that time I lost about $1,000 worth of food.  Insurance maintained it was an Act of God.  I kid you not.  I figured God owed me about a thousand bucks worth of food.  This is so not fun.

So the moral of the story comes early in this story – stay away from GE Profile anything.  My last stove (came with the house) also was a GE Profile and the oven stopped working last January — I have since replaced it with a Jenn-Air.

The dishwasher was replaced last year and it’s a GE but not a Profile and I have my fingers crossed.  We also just replaced the furnace and air conditioner. Those are Maytags (and the ac broke down the first week).   In other words, I’m running out of money because everything in this house is breaking within a one year time frame.

The only thing we haven’t replaced is the water heater and I just told Devoted Spouse that within the next couple of months I’m performing a pre-emptive strike – I’m going to replace a perfectly working water heater because I cannot live with the thought each night as I go to bed that the next morning I might find a flooded basement.  The water heater came with the house — I don’t care how long they’re supposed to last — we are investing in a new one soon.  Then and only then will I be able to rest easy at night – knowing all appliances are relatively new and under warranty.  By that time we’ll probably lose the house to a unexpected earthquake with my luck.

There’s still that little pesky problem of the water stain on the living room ceiling which hints at a roof issue – but since it hasn’t actually started to physically leak, I’m going to let that go a little longer.  I’m not wealthy, nor am I employed.

Now I have to decide should I take the vacation in October to Savannah GA (potential retirement site) or pay my tuition?  I’m thinking I’ll skip this next round of classes and go relax in Savannah for awhile. 

I couldn’t find a picture of the exact model but the above is representative of what I bought this morning – a black Kenmore French Door fridge/freezer – the bottom is the freezer so the top both sides open up and that is the fridge part and that part is big enough for trays and nice long items.  There’s a water dispenser but it’s inside the door not on the outside and the icemaker is below not on the door.  I have no problem with that – this actually has more usable room for both refrigerator and freezer than my side-by-side which is chopped up space.  It still set me back $2,000 even with sales, and discounts – thank goodness for 12 months-same-as-cash offers!!  Yikes  – is nothing a reasonable price anymore in this country?  Plus I couldn’t even take advantage of the upcoming Government Rebate offer since I need it NOW. We have what we were able to salvage stuffed into two coolers.   Crapola.

I really need to win the lottery – oh yeah I bought a ticket for Tuesday’s drawing and haven’t looked at it yet.  Maybe I have a winner.  Yeah, and maybe my water heater will actually last another two months…

Danger Will Robinson, Danger!

We all have to follow directions and we are often warned of consequences should we not follow those instructions. For example my new stove/oven came with some good warnings that I plan to heed:

• In case of fire, turn off appliance
• Never open the oven door and use as a step to reach something
• Never heat an unopened can of food as the pressure build-up could result in serious personal injury
• Keep pet birds out of kitchen when engaging self-cleaning option as a small amount of carbon monoxide might be released during the cleaning cycle and birds have sensitive respiratory systems. (I’m not making this up.)

On a bottle of shampoo for my dog it warns:  The contents of this bottle should not be fed to fish.  Huh?

My new remote control for the cable upgrade states it’s not dishwasher safe.  Well, so much for that idea.

The instructions for Devoted Spouse’s lawnmower state:  Do not attempt to change blade while lawnmower is running.

My Rowenta iron instruction booklet actually says:  Never iron clothes on the body.

My blow dryer instructions warn not to use this appliance while sleeping.

A bottle of Windex in my kitchen honestly warns you not to spray in eyes.

I was fixing a microwave meal not long ago and the instructions on how to heat it are on the bottom of the package.  So I turned the package over and there alongside the instructions was the following warning:  Do not turn box upside down.  So next time I’ll just hold it up in the air above my head to read the instructions.  Gah…

I could go on and on about things like medicine – sleeping meds that tell you they might make you drowsy – well I sure hope so!!

The point I’m trying to get to is we should all follow instructions – I think the vast majority of us have enough common sense not to do the above-listed things.  But many times we don’t read instructions or directions — we simply dive in.

That’s what I did tonight as I turned in my first homework assignment – I just dove in and did it the way I’ve done it for the past 3 classes.  Then later as I was perusing my folder I found an email from the Professor stating how HE wanted these questions to be posted and guess what?  It’s an entirely different process – yes, I had made my first major screw-up on my first assignment.  Holey crapoli Batman, now what do I do?

I wrote a kind email to the Professor (okay I fell on my sword) explained to him it’s been a rough few weeks between not feeling good from my injury and losing my mom and I simply wasn’t paying correct attention.  Would he please allow me to re-post my assignment and I promised I would not make that mistake again.  I figured he’d blow me off (it’s happened before believe me) and much to my surprise I got the nicest email – in fact it brought tears to my eyes.  Turns out he recently lost his 48-year old brother and he totally understands that the combination of stress and not feeling well can easily get in the way of instructions.  He gave me permission to re-post, said he was praying for me, and that if there was ever anything he could do to help me, all I had to do was email him.   Wow – what a total God-moment  that email was.

So, the moral of this long story is always follow directions unless they are so stupid as to possibly cause harm – like blowdrying your hair while sleeping.

One last note and I’ll leave you alone — you will find fewer blog postings in the next 7 to 8 weeks as I work very hard on this class.  I’m also trying to break my addiction to Twitter – today was my first Twitter-free day and I almost made it.  I hit the Twitter around supper time I think. But I made a new Twitter avatar!  Woot!  So go look and you’ll actually see me instead of EmmaLou – Devoted Spouse was taking the picture and EmmaLou was in it and she took off right when he got ready to snap – and then my camera battery died – so it’s just plain old me.   I put a couple of the pics on my Meet the Crone page for you, too.

Anyway, I’ll post as often as I can; it just may not be daily – so don’t stop visiting!!!

Oh – did I mention I need Repair Service on my brand new $2,000 Jenn Air stove/oven???  Unbelievable.  But that’s another story for another post.  Cya l8r gang.  Love ya, mean it!

Home on the the Range Which is out of My Range…

pic from localism.com/.../906341/Credit-Your-Best-Friend

Yes, it’s finally true.  I went to Sears Wednesday and took advantage of a sale and bought a new Jenn-Air range/oven to replace the piece of crap GE Profile that had been in the house since it was built and which died a horrible death last January, the same day I had my accident.  It was an eerie coincidence.  I fell, and the oven went Tango Uniform.   This is what the old piece of crap looks like: notice the ugly burners – ugh!

El piece 'o crap

Here is El Piece o’ Crap’s  entirely too expensive replacement.  The only difference is I ordered it in black, but could only find a picture of the stainless steel.  Use your imagination.    Suffice to say it has a nice clear cooktop and a convection oven and it’s reeeeeel purteeee.  The good part is I get 12 whole months to pay it off – and I’m going to need every one of them!

Many of the Jenn Airs you see advertised have the cute little grill on one side, but I just wanted burners – we grill outside or use our George Foreman grill inside.   Still it cost  a small fortune even with various sales and discounts.  It about killed me to have to do this, but being without an oven for almost 6 months now is long enough.  And the biggest issue is this appliance has to have its own downdraft system because it sits in the middle of the room with no overhead vent.  Had I thought about this at the time I bought this house, I might not have bought this house for just that reason.  Downdraft oven/ranges are not cheap.  In fact this is probably the most money I’ve ever spent on an appliance in my life..oh yeah there was that weird night I couldn’t sleep and ended up with a Montel Williams emulsion blender – but that’s merely a minor aberration on my part and it didn’t cost that much (really).

We were long  overdue to fix this problem so I sucked it up and turned over my Sears charge card and shivered with fear.    As you can deduce by the first picture next we will have to replace the countertops on the island and throughout the kitchen.  More money I don’t have going into this money pit so I can sell it one of these days, if the housing market ever improves, and move into something smaller and in a more southerly location.

I’m a tad worried about this entire transaction.  First of all the man in the appliance section didn’t smell too nice.  His Right Guard had given out on him; although he was a nice enough gentleman.  I didn’t have the heart to tell him not to raise that arm.  He was a considerably older gentleman and I felt bad because he said he had retired and then come back to work and would probably work till he died.  What a sad commentary on today.

Lest I get too far off subject and all maudlin on you about various economic woes…what worried me most about this was that it was too easy.  I did a little internet research, found what I wanted, took a picture of what we currently have, Devoted Spouse took all appropriate  measurements, we marched into Sears and 15 minutes later I was signing the bill and had delivery and installation all set up.  It was entirely too easy.

The last time something was this easy the wrong couch was delivered – but I liked the color better so I never told the store they had made a mistake.   This time we have to wait for a call from the installer who is a contractor of Sears, probably named Bubba and has interchangeable magnetic signs for the side of his panel truck depending on what he’s doing on any given day.   He’ll give us details of exactly when he’ll be here  to deliver and install.  Now, we’re getting ready to run away for a few days so I’m sure Bubba will call while we’re gone, we won’t answer or return his call, and he’ll cross us off his list only to tell us when we return that he can’t possibly install this until April of 2010 because he’s booked up. Of course by then Sears will no longer carry this model and I’ll just have to give up on having an oven at all.  That would be my luck you know.  You know the crap that follows me around.  I’m telling you, I’m uneasy about this purchase and my blood pressure won’t settle down until that oven/range is in, installed, and working correctly.  In the meantime, while I wait, I’m supposed to go to the country for a few days of relaxation.  I will no doubt spend those days pacing and worrying about coming home to find a range/oven just sitting out in my driveway on some wooden pallet in the rain and some strange guy with a bad comb-over and those wide suspenders peeling out of my driveway in his panel truck with the bald tires squealing.    Gah…..

Okay – back to the store — While I’m making all these arrangements, Devoted Spouse notices a sign on the oven/range that states “Take this home today.”  He says, “Honey, we can just take this home with us.”   I envisioned him trying to get that oven into my car, let alone trying to get the old one out of the kitchen and hook up the new one.   I can hardly walk and he thinks he can simply take this oven home with us.  I was successful in stifling the hysterical laughter that threatened to come out of my open mouth and simply gave him “the look.”    He somewhat meekly walked back to my side while I finished the transaction.  Good man.  Don’t make me end up in the Heart hospital today with pains running down my arm; our vacation is paid for and it’s right around the corner.

Anyway, the nice, but fragrant, man at Sears also told me something slightly suspicious.  He said if our electric is not up to code the installer may have to charge us additionally to fix the problem.  Huh?  Why would a house built in the early 1990s  not be up to code?  That really bothered me, but not as much as when the Sears man quickly amended that statement to include the fact that this rarely happens.  Again, he doesn’t know my life, does he?  Now I have to sleep at night wondering if my house is up to code.  Ackkkk.

I’m having visions of the oven not fitting through the door, the delivery/installer ripping my floor or destroying my cabinets, or any other of a thousand things that could happen.  What if it is installed and the next day Gretchen the Housecleaner Extraordinairre decides to clean the cooktop with Comet.  Oh, the scenarios in my head are getting uglier by the moment.    I just want this over with.  Then again, maybe they’ll bring the wrong model and it will be nicer and I’ll just have to overlook that it’s the wrong one… Nah.

Oh sweet merciful heavens this means I have to cook again.  I wonder if I can cancel the order…