The Trouble with Refrigerators.

So we got a new fridge. Actually we bought a new fridge. It's a first for us in almost thirty one years of marriage. But first a little backstory on how that came about. Let's go way way back to the first fridge we had when we came to Texas. We had been married almost ten years, and obviously we had had several fridges but none of them were ours. They all came with the apartment or house. We had never owned one. When we came to Texas we became, by default, the proud owners of an avocado green leftover-from-the-sixties refrigerator. I'm not complaining, My grandparents had passed away and my dad needed someone to take care of the house they lived in, fridge included. I was happy to do it. So we moved in and moved all of our things alongside all the things that had belonged to my grandparents. 

That fridge was a beast. Roomy and greener than green, it was really all we needed. We took it with us when Dad sold that house and we moved into our own place. It sat in the corner for a year and did a marvelous job of taking care of our food for us. 

And then it died. And we had no money. My wonderful in laws took us to Sams's and bought us a new one that we would pay them back for over time. I must have had a bad day, that day, because I distinctly remember not being thankful about it for about a week. It wasn't the one I really wanted. I embarrassed my family. I embarrassed myself. To this day I am ashamed. I don't know what was wrong with me. Selfish much? Spoiled much? Ungrateful much? I eventually got over myself, and loved the fridge until the day I moved into my new house. And there it was. The fridge of my dreams. It was tall and white. It had ice and water in the door. It was a side by side. It wasn't new but it was beautiful to me. 

The old fridge, which was probably newer than the new fridge, went into the garage. Sometime later someone offered to buy it from me for a ridiculous amount of money, so I sold it to him. And that was the end of that. 

The new fridge, the one that came with the house served us well. But I noticed something. As the years went by and our family and food needs grew, it seemed to get smaller and smaller. Then one day, disaster! The water stopped coming out and we could never figure out why. Maybe because we never in almost fifteen years changed the filter. Hmmm. Then the cover that keeps the ice from flying all over the room broke off. Then we started having gasket problems. I would come downstairs in the morning and take the melted butter out of the fridge for toast and yell at the kids for not double shutting the door. And I never noticed before how quickly white gets dirty. It was difficult to keep clean. 

One day about three years ago I was at the Habitat Rehab store nearby when I spotted a very large black refrigerator. I walked over and took a look. Maytag. It was so shiny. And clean. And large. And the freezer was on the bottom, a new concept for me. It didn't have water or ice in the door, but it did have an ice maker inside. I asked how much and although 300 dollars was a lot of money for me, I bit. I hesitated, but I bit. I knew this was about a two thousand dollar fridge. I couldn't believe I was getting it so cheap. I really should have known. *Facepalm*. I REALLY.should.have.known. 

I talked them into delivering, which is not typical for them, and we were all set. Our friend, who sometimes did work for us around the house, would help install it and take the old one off of our hands. 

The day came for delivery, and I was so excited. The guy was here to install, and the delivery, although late because their truck had broken down halfway here (I REALLY should have known!) was enroute. 

So they got it here, and had to take the doors off, it was so big. And really. It was so.so.big. Very large. And very dark. It dominated the kitchen. Especially since the previous owners had built an elevated stand to put it on. It had been large in the store. It was three inches larger, here in my kitchen. But I loved it. For about one day. Then we began to notice water coming from the back and soaking through the adjacent cabinets. And mold. Upon investigation we realized that the water line was not hooked up correctly. It was leaking. We called the installation guy. He couldn't figure it out. We never did figure it out. We just unhooked the water line and turned off the water to the fridge. The whole three years we had it we had to buy ice for our drinks. Which I really didn't mind...except that about a month later I noticed I was having trouble with the freezer door. It wouldn't shut. Upon investigation I saw that there was about two inches of ice build up on the bottom of the freezer. I began to have misgivings about this fridge, this "deal" of the century. I googled it, of course. I found out what the problem was. I watched some Youtube videos. And realized right away it was out of my league. This was going to take a professional. So I called our appliance guy, who has always been fantastic about helping us keep our appliances maintained. I wished I had called him about my white side by side instead of getting in a hurry to get a new one. By the way, that white side by side came to a bad end. They install guy who took it home laid it down in the back of his truck to get it to his house and it never worked again. That was the end of that. 

So I called the guy and when he heard what the problem was he all but declined to fix it. He hemmed and hawed and wouldn't set a date to look at it. He didn't outright say it but the message was clear. Better buy a new one cause I ain't comin' out. Only, once again, because the Mr. had fallen gravely ill and wasn't working, we had no money for that. I would just have to deal with my "deal" of a fridge until we could get a new one.

So every month like clockwork the ice built up and I chipped it out. It wasn't difficult, just awkward because of the basket drawers that had to be removed first, and the frozen food, and it was messy. It was so, so, messy. 

Eventually the door wouldn't shut right anymore and it started leaking. I noticed the floor was wet. I cleaned it up and chipped out the ice and it was all right for a few weeks. From then on when the floor got wet I got to work chipping ice.  Then one day about a week after an ice chipping incident, I came into the kitchen to find water pooling on the floor. Literally running out. I looked in the freezer and sure enough, there was a lot of ice. It seemed that the ice problem was accelerating. I cleaned up the water and chipped out the ice and hoped it would be awhile before it happened again but that was not to be.  A week later, the same scenario. And now I was noticing the floor had begun to deteriorate around the fridge. So I put my foot down. Now that the Mr. was recovering well, and our finances were back in order, we needed to get a fridge. A new one. Never again a used one with no warranty. So we went shopping. After looking for months and months online at the cost of  new fridge, I wasn't shocked at the price. In fact, we got an ok deal, not great, just ok. A LOT more than three hundred dollars. With a warranty. And American made. And delivered and set up by a professional. 

I went home from the store a lot poorer, but happy that we would finally be done with the hulking black monster, as I called the one from the Habitat. 

But first I would need to do some prep. I asked my son in law to help me move my old fridge, the hulking monster, off of the pedestal the previous owners had built and down onto the floor. He was happy to help. After it was down I took a look around and realized how shabby everything was looking in the kitchen. It shouldn't take much to throw some touch up paint on and spruce up the trim. And maybe get some new tiles for the floor where the old ones were coming up. And paint the mudroom while I was at it, which was long overdue for a makeover. 

So I jumped into what seemed like a small project, forgetting that not only am I old now, but for the last two years I have been mostly sitting, both at hospital and at home, while the Mr. was ill, and in keeping my eye on him in his recovery. I got out the paint and slopped it on, which was not my intention. I had also forgotten that I really can't see well anymore. Mistake after mistake after mistake had to be cleaned up. I became frustrated with myself. And exhausted, as day after day I spent hours on the ladder trying to put lipstick on this old tired pig. At one point I lost my mind. I think I scared the Mr. I think I scared myself. I yelled at the Mr. and then I burst into tears. Then I took myself off of the ladder and took my tired, dirty, sweaty self to the shower and to bed. Next morning I apologized profusely to the Mr. And went to the Lord. What on earth is wrong with me? I'm snapping at everybody, on edge, tired...and exhausted. And although I didn't hear him say it, I understood that I needed to put down the paintbrush and just rest for awhile. Rest. I thought back to the beginning of the week. Sunday morning I always make a point to spend the first part of the day of the first part of the week with the Lord. I sit in my garden, I pray, I read my Bible. This is actually something I do every day, but Sunday I also attend church, usually a livestream. I know that isn't really "attending" but when the Mr. had his transplant the liver doctors told him he needed to be careful about being in large crowds. Every time he has been in a crowd he has come down with something. So we are careful. But if he feels good, occasionally we will actually go to a church down the street. He wasn't feeling good last Sunday, and I should have been in my garden talking with the Master, however I decided instead, in a break from my norm, to mow the lawn instead. I struggled with myself the whole time I was mowing, because I was missing out on my time with the Lord. The first fruit of both the day and the week. And it set the tone for the whole week. I realized I had, over the coarse of the last few days become frenetic about work. All I did was work, and worry about work, and think about work, and fret about work that was done and work that had to be redone. I was in a turbulent spin cycle, with no end in sight. For me a lesson learned. It wasn't that mowing the lawn on a Sunday was wrong, I have spent many a Sunday afternoon doing yard work. But not during the time I should have given to the Lord. Not a big deal, maybe for anyone else, but it threw me off track. 

So I put away the paint and brushes and just rested this week. Once or twice I looked at them there, waiting for me to get on with the job, but I passed them resolutely by. 

The new fridge arrived on Thursday and now takes up the space formerly owned by the Maytag. And it's MARVELOUS. Water and ice at the touch of a button. It's so clean and pretty. Stainless and shiny. Roomy without hulking over the room. And it doesn't leak. I had hoped we would be done with the old one, but The Mr. wants, after all, to keep it. So the guys left it and I can't get it out the door to the garage where it will eventually go. Now it sits empty in my mudroom, hogging up all the space.  As a parting gift, it leaked for the entire week on the floor, as all the ice in the bottom melted and ran out the freezer door. What a peach, that fridge.  

Sunday morning we actually made it to an actual church with actual people. It was nice to hear a live sermon. Not that the livestreams are bad, they are actually very, very good. But it's good to be with community sometimes. To know that we don't live on an island revolving only around ourselves. We had lunch and coffee afterwards and then went to the grocery store. The Mr. bought me some fall Mums to plant and we finally pulled into the driveway at about three in the afternoon. I edged my way around the hulking monster by the back door and put away the groceries and then straightened the house. I went outside and planted the mums and watered the garden. It has been a dry, dry year. It has been difficult keeping the plants alive. The Cannas look terrible but everything else looks amazing. I sat down in the garden and just looked around at everything. I was suddenly overcome with so much gratitude at what God has done for me this year. For us. The yard...the house....all the outbuildings...The new fridge...I used to sit outside and pray that God would provide a way for us to get all the outbuildings fixed...the garage, shed, and hot tub room, as well as the house itself were falling apart. There was so much rot. So much that one year, when the tax man raised our house taxes substantially due to "improvements", I appealed with photos of all of the rot and won my case with no trouble. And we had no money to fix any of it. The Mr. had been unemployed off and on for several years and it seemed we were always trying to play catch up with the bills. The house and especially the outbuildings showed it. 

Now I was looking at every building fixed and painted. A beautiful new deck. A new roof. Flowers everywhere. Cheery lights overhead, swinging gently in the evening breeze. It was truly a miracle. And the Mr. himself...only one year ago staring death straight in the face. Now very much alive and well.

Truly truly a living, walking, talking, breathing miracle. I close my eyes and 

I feel that breeze on my face, in my hair. I feel the change of seasons in the air. I know the year is coming to an end and it makes me a little sad. Soon I will be caught up in getting the house and yard ready for the first frost. Putting summer things away and battening down the hatches for winter. This has been a wonderful year. I hate to see it end. 

The Mr. needing his dinner, I leave the garden and head into the house with all these thoughts still in my head. As I near the door I hear a raucous noise overhead, the unmistakable sound of geese making their way south. I can't see them at first and then they break into my sight, five or six of them, their loud honking an exclamation mark to the thoughts I have just been thinking. 

What a wonderful way to end a wonderful day. Marvelous.