pull up a chair and get ready for the ride

It has been, as I am sure for most, a very chaotic past week. I was going to blog Saturday morning about the woes of my previous week but the death of our stove quickly obliterated that free time. Looking back, there were subtle cues that the appliance’s health was fading; it was taking longer to cook pizzas (our staple dinner), it took forever to warm up and anytime we used the stove, it inevitably set of the smoke alarm. It also did not cook the brownies I brought to my company Christmas party last Friday and when I cut into the middle, the uncooked dough oozed from the sides. Thankfully there were plenty of pomegranate martinis going around and no one noticed. Our stove was only seven years old and I think it died a premature death, maybe even foul play. Growing up we had the same stove. My parents got a new stove after 30 years because they needed to upgrade the kitchen before they put it on the market. Why did ours have to die? And WHY did it have to die right before Christmas?? After a bit of research and some online shopping my husband found the stove he wanted. After a break down at the kitchen table Saturday morning over the fact that I need to physically “see” the stove before we bought it, we were off to the store. Of course, none of the stoves were available for pick-up, except those in the $1500+ range and even then, who could pick up those behemoth things? The earliest we could get our new stove was December28th, a week from that day. BUT, if we paid an up charge we could get our new family member the next day. Interesting and yet very, very shady. It would then cost us an additional charge to pick up the dead stove and of course, there is a delivery fee for the new one. Obviously this salesman, Jim, was out to screw us everyway he could. Nothing like sharing the holiday spirit! I was at the point of “whatever”, paid the extra fees and demanded a Starbucks coffee to sooth my pains. On a good note, our new edition is fitting in nicely and was in full force yesterday for Christmas dinner. Let’s just hope we don’t have to go down this road again anytime soon.