Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Dinner Anyone?

It's 11:00 pm and you're hurrying to get to bed....then you realize you're COMPLETELY out of dog food. You check the container again just to make sure. Then you check the shelf to see if there is any canned food left. Then in an act of desperation, you open the fridge.


You see a  container of leftover plain pasta.


You see some roasted chicken you bought because it was on sale.

You dump it in a dirty dog bowl.

Then you use real silverware to mix it all together. (only if you're a man)

Then you gag and add "buy dog food" to your list of must-dos for the next day. 

Friday, May 7, 2010

Re-Arranged

We've been doing some re-arranging around here. Over the last week we've given away a sofa, sold an entertainment center, gotten a piano, bought new couches, and moved a bookcase. 

It all started with a piano. Scott's life-long dream was to own a baby grand. We discussed the possibilities and had decided that an upright piano was best for our house and our situation. So he began searching for a piano that was affordable and good quality....which don't always go hand-in-hand when it comes to pianos. He found a few possibilities but we weren't crazy about any of them. Not wanting him to settle for one piano when he really wanted another, I told him awhile ago that he could get a baby grand. We could make it work. We would have to move stuff around, clear out the office, etc., but we could make it happen. 

Last week Scott calls me. Our conversation begins with, "So, you know how you said I could get a baby grand......"

I panicked a little. Yes, I had said he could get a baby grand. BUT have I mentioned that we still haven't sold our old house? We're paying two mortgages. There is NO WAY we can afford a baby grand right now.

He continues, "........Well, what if we got one for free?" 

Scott found a lady on Craigslist selling a baby grand for a very low price, and to make a long story short, with our administrative pastors approval, this lady donated the piano to the church and received a tax deduction for her donation. The church in turn donated it to Scott and we got a baby grand piano....for NO out-of-pocket cost. What a blessing! (Thank you Pastor G!) 

This was very exciting but left us 2 days to figure out where we were going to put it in the office. An entertainment center that we were using for storage/desk area had to go into our dutch barn until we could sell it. Everything had to be taken out of it and it was (still) all piled in the dining room.


I am not looking forward to cleaning and organizing this mess. BUT the piano was delivered, it fits wonderfully in the office and we still have room for the desk, the bookshelf, and a love seat/sleeper sofa for company. Whew. I'll post pictures once everything has been cleaned and organized....it might take me awhile. 

In the meantime, we're working on a collage for a blank wall in the living room. We had gotten several frames for wedding gifts, most of them still unused, so we decided to use what we already had (there you go, Dave Ramsey!). I used coupons to Michaels to get the few frames to complete it and although it's not on the wall yet, I think it will look better than any of the collage sets we looked at buying. And the satisfaction of knowing we spent very little on the project makes it even better. 

He takes his projects very seriously. :)

We laid out paper the exact width of the wall, I placed the frames in the basic order, and Scott painstakingly measured and placed each frame and marked each nail hole. He'll tape the paper on the wall and drill through his pre-marked nail holes. Brillant. He was wonderful...it would have taken me hours but he did a fabulous job in very little time. 

You might notice the Coke Zero in the background and the TV tray out....see my sink? Gross. The mess is because in the midst of our furniture re-arranging extravaganza, my kitchen had an emotional breakdown. 


First, the garbage disposal breaks. Not a big deal. We lived with it til my dad came at Easter and he gave it his best shot but said the motor in it was burned out. Still not a big deal. We kind of forgot it was broken till the sink started doing this last week....



It stopped draining. Both sides.  You could wash your hands for 10 seconds and the water would sit for hours in the sink. When it finally did drain, it would leave goop and gunk the garbage disposal spat up. It was disgusting.


So we carried all the dirty dished to the bathroom. Thank goodness the previous owners were clever enough to install a kitchen sink in the hall bathroom (it's right next to the kitchen). I was so thankful for that in the midst of migrating all the dishes back and forth. 

Then the oven...


...did this. 

I pre-heated the oven and when I went to set the timer, it displayed that lovely message. That's not a good sign. 

Then it would display the timer and beep incessantly. We called Whirlpool and they gave us the bad news. We needed a new circuit board. 


We had to go to the breaker box and turn off the power to the stove or it wouldn't stop beeping and we had to turn it back on when we needed to cook on stovetop.....then carry all the dirty dished to the hall bath. Needless to say I didn't do much cooking last week. 

The night before the repairman was going to come, we turned the oven on to use the stovetop, and it the oven started working! The repairman came, fixed the garbage disposal and our sink issues. He said our home warranty wouldn't allow him to order a new part for the oven if it seemed to be working fine. Then I remembered I'd taken a picture of the error message for the blog. Scott showed him the picture of the stove and the repairman said since he could "see" that the oven wasn't working properly, he could repair it. What a nice guy! 

And the last thing....I came home from church Wednesday and saw that our stop sign had been knocked down.  

Guess who the culprit was?