Starting off with a Bang

Well we appear to be starting 2008 off with a bang! Last night as B and I were coming back from doing a run to Graybil I called the Stretch and Squirrel to ask them to put a pot of water on the stove top to heat - warning them to make sure the slow cooker was out of the way. A few minutes later I received a frantic phone call - "help there's a fire on the stove-top! What do we do?" I could hear the smoke alarm going off in the background. I advised Squirrel to go ahead and try to get it out and if not to evacuate the house. We were at this point about 5 minutes from home anyway so I wasn't in a huge hurry to panic. Stretch threw water on it and that got it out before we got home. End result was a mess, a shattered crock pot (not the one I had supper in), a destroyed high quality spatula, a smelly house and one rather upset son. (Dipstick was at Jay's where he had spent the afternoon). That area of the kitchen is now cleaned up with no evidence of that excitement. As far as I know the burner on the cook top (which is one of those flat ceramic ones) will still work.

As I was doing that clean-up B was showing the boys the new live animal trap we had purchased while we were out - we know we've had a possum around. The three of them were able to adjust the trap and test it out on our outside cats to verify it worked. They rebaited it and set it out on the sidewalk beside the house. Around 9:30 last night Sally dog went nuts barking so I suspected it had worked. Sure enough this morning there is a live possum frantically attempting to get out of the trap and the boys are eagerly anticipating being allowed to dispose of it tonight! Ugh!

In the meantime...for about the last month not only have we not been able to get water out of our fridge we've not been able to get ice either. (It's one of those fancy ones with the dispenser in the door). So at 4:00 am this morning Squirrel wakes me up..."Mom there's a scary noise coming from the hall". I had to get up and go investigate it - to find that it was the freezer in the fridge making the noise. This morning we've determined that it's leaking water - it looks like I will have to have some drywall replaced, possibly sub-flooring and will have to repaint. In the meantime the fridge is pulled way out, the microwave cart is pulled way out and the currently unused house humidifier is moved into a different room. Stretch figures that we are undergoing a "cascade failure" of appliances and pipes due to the water softener being down. Should be interesting figuring out priorities for repair.

On that note...it's time to go check the laundry, look for a different phone call to have someone come look at the fridge and try to figure out how to function in the kitchen with the fridge in the middle of the floor. (and I will attempt to add pictures to this later)