New Appliances

I've known this day would come. We had been talking about since we bought our condo last October. Sooner or later the appliances would need to be replaced. For Rebecca that day could not come soon enough. For myself, 'if its not broke, don't fix it.' Well, the oven finally broke. I'm still not convinced Rebecca didn't sabotage it somehow. It was a good ship though. I think it was original to when the building was constructed. A nice tan color with an analog clock. Since one bit the dust we decided to go ahead and replace all four. Rebecca enticed me with a "buy all four appliances, get 20% off sale." So it was goodbye to the white refrigerator, black microwave, and doesn't clean so well dishwasher.

Our kitchen is pretty small to begin with so we knew things were going to be a tight fit. Getting a decent size fridge with a water/ice dispenser in the door was my one request. Measuring the fridge in the store, we realized it was going to be a 1/4" taller and 2" wider than our opening. So rather than go smaller, we decided to make it fit. I took out a small portion of the countertop between the oven and the pantry so I could slide the oven over about 3 inches. I then moved the small cabinet over so our space was now wide enough. I then had to remove the above cabinet and sawed off about a 1/2" to make vertical clearance. The cabinet had a large lip on it, so its hard to notice anything's been removed.

The oven was the easiest install of the four. For the oven I had to rotate the outlet 180 degrees so it would fit in the opening of the new oven.

For the dishwasher I learned that the water valve under the sink does not turn off all the way leaving a constant drip. So I just let the new water line run back into the sink until the new dishwasher arrived. However, the drain pipe for the dishwasher was still connected to the clogged disposal in the sink. So one night when Rebecca was hand washing dishes, the disposal clogged up and water began to come out of the dishwasher drain pipe onto the floor. The noise of the water prevented her from hearing anything until she went into the garage and noticed the wet floor. So after I let things dry overnight, I was able to finally get the dishwasher in.

Today we finally had time for the microwave. I only messed up on one of the mounting holes. So after a couple of attempts we got it hung.

Our kitchen looks a lot different and I have my water/ice dispenser.

July 4th Weekend

The long weekend started out kind of rough for Rebecca and I. She got a cold somewhere between here and Utah and in turn passed it on to me. The worst of my symptoms hit on Friday. Dad had planned a big work weekend at a Tornado house, owned by Cornelius. I attempted to go work, but had to tap out early. I came home, took a long nap, and felt much better. I returned to the house on Saturday and helped with repairs. A massive oak tree fell on the middle of his house so the goal for the weekend was to build a new roof.

Rebecca's parents came in town for the weekend. So after church on Sunday we all went to Cornelius' house. About mid afternoon Dad gets a call from Matt. He and Loren were on their way to Memphis on I-22 when his back left tire popped. The civic spun off the road and slid into an embankment. Fortunately they went off the road at the perfect spot and only received damage to one additional tire. Much like Rebecca and my wreck several years ago, they were very fortunate. Playing the "what-if" game can get quite scary. Mr. Chip and I went as the rescue team and pulled them out of the ditch. The donut tire got them to Wal-Mart as we caught the tire guys right before closing time.

On Monday we took Rebecca's parents on a drive around town showing them some of our different photo venues. About the time they headed out, the rain settled in and stayed through the evening. It stopped just in time for Thunder on the Mountain. The wet weather kept the early crowds away so we were able to get a fairly good spot without getting there real early. The rain cooled the air off just enough to make it quite pleasant outside.