Two New Family Members

Two new members of the family moved in yesterday afternoon.  The first one's name is Henry.  He's not very exciting, but he's very essential.

Henry is a water heater. 

Remember a month or two ago when I was complaining about having to buy a new water heater?  Well, our old one quieted down after that and started behaving itself, so Lance and I decided that we would wait a few months to get a new one.  But last week our old one started making that screeching noise again (the bearings in the motor were wearing out), only this time it was worse than ever.  And of course the pipes that carry the noise run right through Tess's room.  So that, coupled with the fact that we will have a house full of guests over Christmas, kinda forced the issue.

So last week I went out and bought the water heater.  And instead of installing it ourselves, Lance and I decided to give each other the gift of installation for Christmas.  Romantic, I know.  That, and we didn't have a clear Saturday for the next 5 weeks.

Anywho, the guys came to install it only to let me know that Lowe's had sold me the wrong water heater.  I had bought a regular gas water heater and what I needed was a forced vent water heater.

Of course.

So I had to go back to Lowe's and get it all taken care of.  I will say this for Lowe's - they have great customer service.  They really took care of everything and made sure I knew they were sorry about this whole thing. (Although technically it was really my fault, although in this case I didn't know what I didn't know.)  So anywho, I bought a forced vent water heater.  Which was, of course, $200 more than the original one I bought.  Of course.  They tried to make me feel better by explaining that forced vent ones are way more efficient, but it didn't really take out the sting considering this was the 4th major appliance I had purchased in the last 6 months.  This number impressed the sales guy, and I have to admit that did make me feel a little better.

Yesterday afternoon the nice plumbers took out the old, stupid water heater and installed Henry.  And, gratifyingly, they had to do a LOT of magical plumbing work to get him installed.  Lance and I figure that with the parts and tools we would have had to buy to install Henry ourselves we would have spent as least as much money as we paid for professionals to do it, not to mention how much grief the whole process would have brought us.  For all we know those plumbers just saved our marriage.

So.  Now we have quiet hot water, thanks to Henry.

Oh, and just in case you're interested, here's who's keeping Henry company down in the utility closet.

K-9, our brand new water softener.  (What?  I think it looks like K-9 from Dr. Who.)  (Who are you calling a geek?!?!)

And Tony, the sewer pump.  (Okay, you can't really see him because he's under that brand new $50 sewer pump cover that Lance had to replace last week because the old one was rusting away and Cole stepped through it and almost killed himself on Thanksgiving day.) 

Wait - who's Tony?  That's the name of the original homeowner, and the person I blame for all of the junky appliances and problems with the house.  Why?  Because I need a scapegoat. Plus, who puts a metal cover over the sewer pump?  I mean, seriously.


The second new family member is not essential at all but very, very exciting.

This is... um... well, I haven't come up with a name for her yet.  But isn't she pretty?  That's a 6 quart professional KitchenAid stand mixer, baby!  Bigger!  More powerful!  Red!!!!

This beauty is the product of an offer I couldn't refuse.  Back in October when my family came out for the doughnut party, my dad realized that my regular mixer just wasn't big enough for the batches of doughnuts I had to make.  And then he heard me complaining about how it was often too small for the batches of cookies or bread dough I wanted to make.  And then he realized that he wanted a mixer to make his own doughnuts.  So he offered to buy me a new one if I gave him my old one.  One cannot refuse a generous offer like this, especially from the Capo di Tutti Capi himself.

So I watched the sales and rebate offers and got his lovely for 48% off the original price.  Happy birthday to me!


So, those are two new family members.  Hopefully any others who will be joining us soon will be in the non-essential-but-exciting category.  (Like a new camera.  My old one's getting worse, dang it.)  But I'm not holding my breath.  My oven has been acting up lately.