Hello, gorgeous!

If you've sold a home in the last 10 or 20 years, you know that the realtors encourage the seller to include a Home Protection Plan as part of the sale. It tells any potential buyers that the major systems like the furnace, heat pump, plumbing and electricity are warrantied against failure for one year from the time you buy the house. It gives the buyer some peace of mind and the seller pays about $200 to provide this secure feeling. In principle, it sounds good. I provided it to the family that bought my house in California and our Texas house came with a 12 month warranty.

A couple months after we moved in, we noticed that the dishwasher seemed didn't always drain all the water out after load. The gasket inside seemed to be coming apart in a couple places. Then I came home one day and found a wet kitchen floor. I cleaned up and manually sopped the water out of the dishwasher. It was a chore. My son noticed that the dishwasher was not plumbed correctly. He could fix it. It went on the "to do" list with several other things that needed time and attention.

In December, I noticed that my dinner rolls were not getting done in the normal time. I figured that I had not set the timer correctly. I decided to try a new recipe for rib roast that I had seen on Pinterest. You note the weight of the roast and multiply the weight by 7 minutes to determine the cooking time. So a 4 pound roast would bake for 28 minutes and then the oven is turned off. The trick is, you must not open the oven for 1.5 hours. In the meantime, the rest of the dinner, like the vegetables, salad, rolls, etc are prepared awaiting the the roast. Everything is ready and the 1.5 hours have passed. I opened the oven and the oven was cold, the temperature of the roast is 93 degrees, no where near the required 145 degrees for medium rare. The roast is supposed to be cooked to perfection. Dinner was ruined. And then we realized that the oven needed to be repaired more than the dishwasher.

I contacted the Home Warranty people. The dead oven clock started ticking. At dead plus 13 days, the home warranty repairman came to check the oven. Yup, it is 50 degrees off temp. He needs to notify the home warranty company before ordering a new board for the oven. At dead plus 32 days the repair man replaced the part and the oven works.

'A week later, my son told me that he had fixed the problem with the dishwasher 3 weeks ago. So why is the dishwasher still not draining properly? So, now we call the Home Warranty people again??

No! Sears was having an appliance sale. I found a beautiful stainless steel KitchenAid dishwasher on Sunday. It was installed 4 days later. It's a beauty. too. So quiet and no more pre-wash before we load it. It is gorgeous.

Take that, Home Warranty company. I can't wait another month to get another appliance. I imagine that they count on that to some extent.

Somebody is 8 years old today

My grand daughter turned eight years old.

It really came as no surprise since she had been giving us countdown updates several times day for the last week or so. She is not excited about the party or gifts she will receive, She is excited that according to Texas law, she will not need to sit in a child safety seat.

She is 4'2" so there is much discussion about the Texas regulations. The law recommends, no mandates, that children over 8 years who are less than 4'9" continue to use a child safety seat.

My only input to this is -- my car, my rules. Here's your safety seat.

Rainy Day Turns to Game NIght

The rain finally stopped. We were just cleaning up after dinner when the electricity went out. Power outages are the single most frustrating part of our new life here in Texas. It has happened maybe a dozen times since September. In fact, on the Columbus Day school holiday on October 13th, the power went out a lot. We were all figuring out what we were going to do for this day off with the kids when the lights went off. It was 10: 03 A.M. We ran around and turned off and unplugged all our computers and televisions. The electricity flashed back on a few minutes later. And so it went all day long. The electricity went off an incredible 51 times.

Calls to the trouble desk informed us that the lights would be back on by 8 PM, in an hour and half. So we got some games out. We played Pictionary an UNO by emergency lantern. The electricity came back on after four hours. I had already gone to bed. I think we need to check out the purchase an emergency generator.