Appliance Mutiny

It seems that once a year, the appliances in my house decide to mutiny.  They have chosen this week.

My router died on Monday.  Not a good thing when I work from home and need my computers to do my job.

On Tuesday, I was making a pan of brownies when I noticed an odd glow from the oven.  The heating element/coil/hot thing on the bottom of the oven was glowing and sparking in one spot.  Even after turning off the oven, the light show continued and eventually burnt completely through a piece of the (whatever that thing is that gets hot).  I’m on a mad internet hunt for a replacement part.  We have a house full of relatives this week and not being able to use the oven ranks high in the near-catastrophe column.

Today, Wednesday, I was doing a load of laundry and the washer decided to act up again.  This is a sporadic problem so not entirely new this week.  The door (front-loading washer) doesn’t latch … or maybe it does latch but the washer just doesn’t think it’s latched … so the washer won’t start.  We have had the repair person here to fix the issue while the washer was still under warranty.  His “fix” was warrantied for 60 days.  On the 64th day, the problem reoccurred.  This time we ordered the supposedly faulty part from Sears Parts Direct and Mike replaced it .  It worked for a while and then began acting up again. 

Finally, we discovered that if the washer doesn’t lock, we just have to lift up the front of the washer slightly and then drop it.  Viola!  The door lock clicks and the laundry begins washing.  This is such a redneck fix but it is the only thing we’ve found that actually works.  Although I don’t think this is necessarily any more redneck than the first time the issue occurred and Mike broke the lock mechanism in his attempt to fix the problem.  His interim fix was to affix a neon orange ratchet strap around the washer to keep the door closed during the wash cycle.  Yes … that was definitely more redneck.

Who knew there was a house behind all those bushes?

I have been sitting in my home office all day listening to the sounds of the landscapers hard at work rediscovering our once beautiful landscaping.  My feelings alternate between joy in the realization that soon the overgrown mess we used to call landscaping will, indeed, be true beautiful landscaping and then panic that tomorrow afternoon when they’re finished I will have to write a check for an amount that I am too embarassed to mention to pay for this revitalization.

In defense of the landscaper, he and his team are doing a great job and likely well worth the amount they’re charging.  However, I hate to write that check for something that I feel we could have done ourselves.  I know it would have taken us all summer and innumerable arguments to get through it ourselves … hmm … well maybe two days of hard work on their part is worth it after all.

We bought our home in November.  I had no idea what the landscaping would look like given that it was nearly winter.  When the spring came and the bushes and flowers bloomed, I was in awe of the beauty in our yard.  As it progresses into summer and then fall, I continued to be amazed at the thought that went into the landscape design.  It seemed as soon as one flower died, another bloomed.

This beauty lasted for about two years.  It did get a bit overgrown, but Mike bought an electric hedge trimmer and kept most of the bushes trimmed.  Until he somehow managed to cut the cord of the hedge trimmer with the hedge trimmer itself.  That initiated the “wild, overgrown bushes” look.

We weeded … sometimes … and it looked nice when we did.  Apparently Mike got tired of weeding because he had the grand idea of spraying weed killer on most of the planting beds to kill the weeds.  Why he thought the flowers would live through an overabundant shower of weed killer, I have no idea.  We lost the irises, some roses and some other beautiful flowers that I cannot even begin to name.  The weeds, however, were not deterred.

There were other landscaping mishaps along the way but these were the two big ones that led us to the OMG-its-going-to-cost-us-HOW-much?!?! date with the landscaper this week.  Mr. Landscaper assured me that we could have the bushes and plants maintained twice a year for about one sixth of the cost of this current affair and then we’d never get ourselves into this situation again.  I think maybe I should just keep the weed killer away from my husband … and invest in a gas powered hedge trimmer.