On the Home Front...

Owning a home can be both maddening and exciting. The past two weeks have been a prime example of this dichotomy. Cara and I had a blast hosting her sister (Megan) and adorable niece (Becca) a week and a half ago (see Megan’s blogs here, here, here and here for deets). A big part of the fun was showing off OUR house and all the work we’ve done since Cara moved here last October: new paint, new carpet, new kitchen table, rearranging the rooms, etc. etc. However, during Megan’s visit we had two major appliance blowouts illustrating the maddening flipside of the home-ownership coin. First, we were doing laundry and I went downstairs to change loads only to find the floor soaking wet. Ugh! Broken washing machine?!? The verdict is still out, but I’ve done a couple of small loads since and I’m fairly certain it was more of an overload flood, than a leaky or malfunctioning washing machine kind of flood. So, I think we’re safe there. Whew!

Little did we know, we could have used all of that excess water a few days later when our oven nearly started an electrical fire! We had just cooked up a delicious baked macaroni and cheese casserole and were sitting down to eat at the dining table when we all heard an odd crackling sound. I got up to check the office, where we all believed the sound to be coming from. Once there, I quickly realized it was the kitchen and opened the oven (which we had forgotten to turn off) to find it glowing from within. The crackling sound was the baking element which had broken and was arcing electricity. It looked like a welder’s torch! I couldn’t take my eyes off of it and probably burned out a few retina cells as I tried to figure out what to do. Turning off the oven didn’t work and so we sent Megan downstairs (Cara still being hobbled from her knee surgery) to grab the extinguisher (just in case) and to flip off the breaker (Cara’s great idea). The breaker shut-off did the trick and we were officially without a working oven.

So, the next step when you’re a home owner (of course) is to fix the problems. And that’s where the costs start adding up. Cara and I had a few other “fix-its” around the house, so I set out to tackle the stove and the garage door (which has been out of commission with a dead garage door opener since late last summer). So, off I went to Sears and $850 later we had a new garage door opener and a new stove purchased and ready to be installed. The garage door opener installation was scheduled yesterday. As it turns out…I’m an idiot. The installation contractors got here and quickly determined a late summer electrical storm had flipped the breaker on the grounded outlet sourcing the garage door opener. The original one wasn’t dead afterall and the installation (and new opener) weren’t needed! So, they instead – to make the service call money worthwhile – installed a bar along the top of the garage to keep it from buckling over time and I got to return the opener and have the full price (and installation) refunded! Whoop whoop!

The new range was installed just this afternoon and it looks great. It’s nice to have a shiny new oven in place and this one has even got a utility drawer underneath which gives us much needed additional storage space in our tiny kitchen! After doing the self-clean all afternoon – and nearly dying from the fumes of all the oils that coated our new range burning off – we are now ready for cooking action once again! Oh, and while all this madness was going on…we bought an indoor plant as well. It really ties the room together. It’s a Schefflera Arboricola or “Dwarf Umbrella Tree”. Suh-weet!