My New Toy!

I have a new toy!

Okay, it’s not really a toy – it’s a microwave. I’m excited about it, though. The counter top microwave that we got for our wedding nearly six years ago started sparking and buzzing every time I used it last week and the old, brown microwave above our stove has never worked as long as we’ve owned our house. Dale came over yesterday afternoon so the guys installed it with a little help from my brother-in-law, Nic.

I was in the middle of making turkey for supper when the guys came back and decided they should install it right away. So, we pulled the stove away from the wall and I ended up making the potatoes, peas, and stuffing in the middle of the kitchen. The new microwave is the same brand as the convection oven that Seth bought for me last year to replace the mustard yellow one that died while cooking a turkey (coincidence?) and they match perfectly. The only problem is that they show how yellow the white paint on our cupboards has become. The cupboards were originally a dark brown and we painted them white after we bought the house, but the paint has started to chip and two of the drawers are broken.

We also removed a cabinet to make room for the new dishwasher. Now that I have a dishwasher, I seriously have no idea how I even functioned without one. I could do without the gaping hole next to it, though.

So, now I just need to figure out a way to kill our cream/brown refrigerator, talk Seth into a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, and convince him that we need new (non-white) cupboards.

Something tells me it will probably involve turkey…

Waste Management is Messing With My Head!

I think Waste Management is messing with my head. Seriously. Every time the weather is bad on garbage day, I get an automated phone call saying that our pickup has been moved to the next day. So, being the lazy girl that I am, I leave our garbage can out by the road all day instead of pulling it back to the house. Here’s where it starts to get fishy. I get another phone call the next day, but this time it’s not an automated voice. It’s a recording of a woman’s voice. I’m pretty sure that it’s not even a recording. I seriously think some one is calling me and pretending to be a recording just to mess with my head. The “recording” says that my garbage pickup has been canceled for the week due to the weather and will resume next week on the normal day when they will pick up two trash cans worth of garbage instead of one. The recording also says that they will still pick up trash on paved roads. Gravel and dirt road customers are on their own. We live on a gravel road, so I take that to mean that our garbage will not be picked up.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m very lazy, so I usually decide to leave the garbage can out by the road until the mail comes so that I don’t have to walk out to the road TWICE. That would require more effort than I’m willing to give. Anyway, each time this has happened the trash can has still been out by the road and about 15 minutes after that “recording” calls me, the garbage truck drive up and empties my trash can! Hmmmm.

Well, this week it rained and then froze, so I wasn’t too surprised to get a phone call on Tuesday (after I had “skated” out to the road with the garbage can) that Waste Management would be picking up my garbage on Wednesday instead. Yep. You guessed it. I left the can out there and on Wednesday morning the “recording” called me. It just so happened that I had something to put in the mail, so on my way back to the house I brought the garbage can with me. 15 minutes later I was in the kitchen and heard a truck honking. It was the Waste Management truck. As I struggled to pull my heaping trash can across the ice I yelled to the driver that I got a phone call saying he wasn’t coming. He said: “What? We’re picking up every one’s garbage today.”

Now I know some one is messing with me. Or, maybe I just have an extra dedicated garbage man. He has even driven into our yard a couple of times when I have forgotten that it’s garbage day and gotten out of his truck to get the garbage. Now that I think about it, I probably should have given him something for Christmas. I should have at least given him some Christmas cookies…