Stove Hood Part Deux

The course of home improvement projects never did run smooth . . .

We tried to believe that after all that work, the new stove hood would somehow be okay—but it wasn’t. There were many minor things wrong with it, that we could have lived with, but the big thing was that the fan was unbalanced and as a result, it rattled loudly every time we turned it on. This was not something we could live with, and indeed it would no doubt have greatly shortened the life of the fan.

So we looked into returning it, and discovered there was a 48-hour time window after which it couldn’t be returned. So it had to be removed (after all that work!) and returned today if we wanted our money back—which we did.

Meanwhile, I had my weekly pilgrimage to Aldi to manage, and a long list of kitchen tasks. I chopped veggies and used them to make sweet and sour meatballs for tomorrow’s dinner. Just as I needed the stove to make sauce, Walter had to pull it out to work on removing the hood. Fortunately I have an electric hot plate that I could easily access. I have so many alternative cooking methods available to me that I can’t imagine us ever going hungry as long as there’s food in the house.

Once I had the meatballs simmering in the slow cooker, I made a cake and later iced it. I also boiled a dozen good farm eggs from my friend Kim and then made them into egg salad. And I slow-baked a bunch of bacon so I’ll have purse bacon for tomorrow.

The upshot of all that was that I didn’t even get into my sewing room until after supper. I thought I could get at least one bag done this evening, and I came close! But then my sewing machine began to malfunction. I can see what the problem is. I just don’t know how to fix it. And I have no hope of taking it in before Tuesday, and the likelihood of it getting fixed in time for me to finish my projects is very low. I am praying that a solution will present itself.

Tomorrow I’ll be at a writers’ conference all day—thus the need to prepare tomorrow’s dinner ahead of time and arm myself with bacon. It should be a nice break in my routine.

Also, today is the summer solstice, a very happy day for me. Because it means that now the days will be getting shorter, and three months from now perhaps the temperatures will get a little cooler. Meanwhile I’m eagerly looking forward to cool winter nights in Africa! 16 days from now!

Note: our stove is currently hoodless, which limits what I can make for the next few days.

Parting Shot:

The caladiums we planted weeks ago have finally emerged! Doing everything I can think of to beautify that stump.