Rabbit Girl

I've probably mentioned it, but I hate the traditional interpretation of the moral of the tortoise and the hare, that the tortoise's plodding way is somehow superior to racing ahead in fits and starts with naps along the way. The way I prefer to interpret it is that there are many ways of getting the finish line, none of which are superior or inferior to the others. Probably this is because I'm the hare in this fable. (Coincidentally, I moved to Rabbit Valley.) I work at things in one big obsessive push, then ignore them for weeks. It's why I'm really bad at paying bills, and why online automatic bill pay saves my credit rating. So I spent some money this week that won't require bill paying because, for better or worse, I used my debit card and paid in full.

The stove I've been planning on getting, the double oven Maytag standalone I posted about a while back, can be purchased at Sears, and the same or similar from Home Depot. Both places have been running 10% off sales most of this year. Sometimes there would also be an offer for even more off if you bought more appliances, usually as a rebate. (I hate rebates too, mostly because they find excuses not to send you them.) Yesterday, Sears had a flat 15% off all appliances, with a rebate only on the delivery fee so I took that as a sign and went in to spend money. (Plus I just cashed my fridge delivery fee rebate last week, so I have hope on that.) My stove came to $849 before taxes... and there were none available. Crap!

They offered me the next model up, but even with the discount it was over $1000, which was my sticking point. Plus, I don't care about bigger oven windows. However, the upgraded stove goes from 4 to 5 burners and one of the burners can be set to a 9" or 12" diameter. (For an additional $600 I can get convection which I covet but can live without for now.) I told them I wasn't willing to go over a thousand and they offered it to me at $949 and I bit. It's still 5% off what I was planning to buy and I'm pretty happy about that. It's nice to buy big ticket items in a down economy. I was happy enough to go upstairs to the women's clothing and buy a dozen things for 50% off the lowest markdown price. For less than what I spent to insure the stove, I got more than a week's worth of work shirts, a couple of date/fun shirts, some loaf around the house shirts, and some replacement pants for the ones that ripped up the back on thursday. And my stove will show up in 2 weeks to replace my cruddy, not level, rickety, wrong temperature stove. It's all good.

Today, though, was about the cabinet install. In order to get the height I want, I need to move or rotate the outlet for the microwave. I had to dig into the wall a bit to undo the outlet box that was secured better than For.t K.nox. I thought it might work better if I bought a new mounting box, and I realized I needed 20A GFCI outlets, not 15A, so off to HD. (And a little detour to work.) Since I'm also debating splitting the outlet in two for one below and one above the cabinet bottom, when I ran into an electrician, he offered to give me a free estimate for the work. I'm not sure if this is because he usually offers free estimates or because I was wearing a new shirt that shows off the tattoo. Either way, I have a giant hole in my wall. (I am taking pictures. Soon. Soon.) To make myself feel better about my progress, I drilled the holes I need to mount the cabinet hanging rail, then filled the rest of the woodpecker holes, tested the spray texturizer, and painted the wall. Rabbit style.