Tuesday, December 25, 2018

Remembering my Grandma on Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!


Homeowner chaos has continued here at chez Cat. It's been a whirlwind of broken appliances, idiot repair men, clogged drains, and many, MANY trips to the "home improvement" store - which I'm sort of thinking is a bit of a misnomer, at least in my case... It's more like the "home just-trying-to-get-things-back-to-where-they-were-a-month-ago" store. Seriously folks, I've had issues and problems with, literally, every single major appliance in the past month.



To be fair, the fridge issues actually would qualify as improvements, since they stemmed from the plumbers adding a new water line behind it, so I can now use the icemaker for the first time ever. It's wonderful to have ice on demand, but I did have to install a filter on the line and order a few parts to make it all work.

And I suppose the dryer problems could also sorta be considered an upgrade. That too was fallout from the plumbers since they managed to punch a hole in the duct pipe - which had apparently been installed incorrectly - so I had to spend 3 days with my head stuck in a hole in the basement ceiling trying to get that sorted out. I now know more about dryer ducts than I ever wanted to.


And the washing machine and dishwasher are both intact - I just couldn't use them for a few weeks - first because there was no incoming water, and later because the drain pipe in the floor got clogged and they couldn't drain. Still not sure if the drain clogging is somehow related to the plumbers installing new pipes, but I sorta doubt it since they only replaced the incoming pipes not the outgoing ones.


And then there's the saga of the oven. The day after the water finally got turned back on I went to cook CatMan a nice birthday dinner. I filled the oven with a lasagna, some veggies to roast, and a pie - came back half an hour later to check on it, and it was all still cold. UG! I'll spare you the details of the idiot repair people, but suffice it to say, a new range will be arriving on Thursday - along with a new freezer to replace the one that died earlier this fall.

You know, It's not that you don't expect this sort of thing as a homeowner, you just don't expect it all to happen simultaneously! Clearly, I have offended the gods.


But hey, looking on the bright side. I now have new pipes and fixtures throughout the house, a new hot water heater, a better dryer duct, a functioning ice maker in the fridge, a clear drain pipe (with improved strainers and lint catchers on the way for every drain in the house,) a filter on the bathroom sink (did I mention the water from the new pipes tasted horrible, so I had to install filters everywhere?) and a new oven/range and freezer arriving the day after tomorrow.



Whew! I won't bore you with the story of the bank freezing my business account and impounding the money because I supposedly hadn't used it enough. But if anyone out there is still using Wells Fargo, I'd move your money if I was you.

Well ANYWAY, I'm heading over to my dad's house for Christmas dinner later today, and I really hate to arrive empty handed. Since there hasn't exactly been a lot of time for shopping this season I was sitting there yesterday wondering what I could do. Normally I'd bake something, but since I don't have a functioning oven...

Then suddenly it occurred to me that somewhere in the chaos that is my basement (things are still not quite put back together after all of the repair jobs down there) I still have my grandmother's pizzelle iron. It only took a small bit of digging and, voila!


The thing is probably over 75 years old by now, but amazingly enough it still works fine. Now, THERE's an appliance that was built to last!

If you're not familiar with pizzelle, it's a traditional Italian Christmas cookie, and my grandma used to make them every year. This is my favorite photo of her.


So I spent the evening last night making pizzelle and thinking about my grandmother. She was always a calming influence in my life, and honestly, with the way things have been going lately, I could use a bit of calming! Besides, I'm sure my dad will appreciate the reminder of his mother much more than he would some store bought basket of goodies.



So I guess every cloud does indeed have a silver lining.


Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!