Tag: OrangeDoor

As mentioned before, the new stove has a cooktop I’m not looking forward to keep looking nice. I brainstormed with Graham and Julie about what type of cover would be best (Graham voted for butcher block and Julie voted for a nice thick plastic cutting-board type.) But then Julie pointed out that it was a fairly large space and I might find myself not putting the cover back on because it was too heavy and hard to move. She suggested having a placeholder for a while until I was sure I wanted to haul the cover back and forth.

Et voilia!

I asked my brother if he could cut me a scrap of plywood down to 32″ by 22″ did just that. It was also my birthday present.

He said it was scrap wood from The Emerson School, where I used to work. I wonder about that though, because TES didn’t celebrate holidays, so there wouldn’t have been an advent calendar section of shelving. But it might be left over from when the Montessori school was in the building.

Matt’s been working for many months to encourage voters to go to the polls this November. Here is all his hard work in one pile before he heads to the post office to send them.

Hopefully his efforts motivated more than a few people to vote.

We had our choice of two stoves in stock and this was the winner. We’ve got a ceramic cooktop and no more burners to clean out. I think keeping that black surface clean is going to get really old really fast, but we shall see.

At least there was something for us to buy, and we have a working stove again.

Matt’s mom Linda bought us this couch in 2007 and it’s been showing its age for some years now. The cushions are shot and the covers don’t come off anymore so I can’t wash them, and I’m ready for a new couch. Happily, my friend has one to give me. Now just to get rid of the current couch.

I put it on NextDoor and eventually on the Buy Nothing group. Even at the cool price of free, I worried that it wasn’t going to move. But it did! A woman came by to grab it for her kids’ room and I helped her load it into her minivan.

While we wait for the weekend when we will help get the couch, I moved the chairs over so we had something to sit in while we watch TV.

Back in 2010, we went to Colorado for Matt’s brother’s Thad’s wedding. With that trip came a visit to the beautiful (and wonderfully organized) Rocky Mountain National Park and a day of hiking that included Bear Lake. I bought this magnet to commemorate it. (There’s a picture of me from that trip being the bear at bear lake that I’ve always enjoyed.)

But the Bear Lake magnet does not want to stick to its front. I’ve tried the glue gun approach, and that worked for a time, but even the glue gun glue has given up its grip.

So it’s goodbye to this souvenir.

I did a big clean of the outside of the stove, and the cleaning itself went well, but the stove gave off ominous smoke when I turned on the oven light, and then the oven light wouldn’t turn off. Slightly worried, I pulled out the stove and unplugged it. When I plugged it back in, there was another, more ominous, pop and more smoke. I unplugged it and called it a day.

We could have called for a repair, but it’s already been repaired once and we seem to be in the phase of the repair people coming out and telling us we’re better off buying a new unit. I’d rather skip the $150 charge to learn that.

We went to purchase a new oven and were greeted with the question, “Is this an oven you need now, or one that can arrive in two-to-four months?” With our pretty-much-now timeline, we had two choices. After picking one, we also bought a microwave/hood combo to go in the space where it always has seemed like there should be one, and we also bought a new dishwasher.

The new stove is coming in a few days, the new microwave/hood is coming in 1-2 months, and the new dishwasher is coming in four months.

I think it’s pretty great that I made it to my mid-40s without ever experiencing supply chain issues (other than Cabbage Patch Kids).