The Refrigerator

If you believe my husband, “My wife works me so hard.” And if you believe his status from yesterday, “My wife just took me shopping ....... she spent Alllllllllll my money!!”

Here’s the real story. The photo is our “old” refrigerator. I bought it in 1999 when I sold my empty nest and moved into my bachelorette pad. It has a capacity of 20.7 cu. ft. and still works fine. When hubby and I got married, we bought a new house, and took the then 3-year-old refrigerator with us. The old refrigerator doesn’t fill out the space between the cabinets.


Notice the magnets...you can’t miss them. That’s his collection, running out of space. Magnets are his favorite travel souvenir – inexpensive, don’t take up much space in the luggage. You’ll find at least one from every place we have been in the last seven years. Everywhere from Maui to Sydney to Kusadasi to Banff.

About a year ago, he started talking about a new refrigerator. He hangs out at Sears, and keeps track of the new TVs, gadgets, and appliances. He fell in love with the refrigerator with the double doors and the freezing compartment on the bottom. Capacity is 24.9 cu. ft. So I made a deal. “You’ll have to find another place for the magnets.”

So he hatched his plan and has been working that plan ever since. He could put the “old” refrigerator in the garage, but he would have to move his workbench to the tool shed. That didn’t take long. Then he started watching the price drop on the new one. It hit the magic number last week, so we went shopping.

When it gets delivered we’ll be a two-person household with 2 refrigerators (oops, make that 2 ½ counting his little one in the bonus room), and a standing freezer. We won’t even start counting televisions for two people, and our humongous carbon footprint.

Now I'll never convince him we don't live in Mayberry

When hubby and I married (it will be seven years this month), he moved to North Carolina from the DC area to live with me. We bought a house, where he realized his dream of moving to "the country" where he could have a big back yard with space for a garden and fruit trees.

I remember the first time I got really pissed with him. I came home from my part-time real estate work to find the garage open, the door unlocked, and no hubby in sight. I closed the doors, looked everywhere inside, called all over the yard, and finally locked myself in. Then he came home grinning that he could see me all the time, from his perch on the lot down the street where another house was under construction.

I tried my best to convince him that there had been burglaries in the neighborhood, most often by way of open garages and unlocked doors. He grinned and mumbled something about Sheriff Taylor. He did get start locking the door at night, probably just to appease me.

It's been seven years now, and we haven't had a break-in, but I make sure he sees the neighborhood watch statistics on break-ins.

So yesterday when he decided to get rid of his old lawn mower, now that he has a new one to zip him about on the back forty, he left it in the driveway, thinking someone would take it off his hands. Just about dark, a neighbor called, to tell us we had left the lawn mower in the driveway. I looked at hubby, and he laughed. "Maybe somebody will take it, and I won't have to make a trip to the dump."

Guess what was in the driveway this morning.

My Sweetie loves Christmas

The first photos Sweetie sent me before we met were not of him but of his house, all decorated for Christmas. His decorations were the kind that would light up the sky to guide the way to his neighborhood. My idea of Christmas decorations had been a tree, some garland here and there in the house, and some electric candles in the windows.

By the time he had decorated his house that year, he had brought me some extra lights he had so I could light up the shrubs in front of my house. I had never had so much Christmas lighting before. He had also told me of how he had broken up with his previous girlfriend after two consecutive Christmases when she had been out of town and had returned to spend more time catching up with her girlfriends than with him.

After we married, and he moved to Raleigh, he adjusted his decorating to our house on the cul-de-sac. Our front yard does not have as much space as his old house situated on a corner lot. He makes up for it by overflowing to the edge of the neighbor's yard, and decorating the back yard. Inside we have animated Santa and Mrs Santa as well as animated angels. We have a Christmas Tree in the front foyer as well as one in the bedroom. This morning, he turned on the tree lights before he got dressed.

Sweetie even decorated a tree for my brother who recently had ankle replacement surgery, and can't get around very well.

That's my Sweetie, my own personal Santa.

Farm News

I haven't blogged about the garden much this year. But even with all the other stuff going on, Tinker has been the busy farmer. He's been out there within days of his hip replacement, pulling greens, picking tomatoes, and tending to fruit trees.

He's so proud to have a watermelon this year that's bigger than his fist. He has planted them the last few years, but with the irregular, or non-existent rainfall they didn't get very far. We'll see if this one is good to eat.

And his fruit trees!! LAWD Hammercy, we have an orchard in the back yard, apples, peaches, cherries, plums, and pears. This year the pears outgrew the tree. There was so much fruit that the branches couldn't hold up under the weight. After Tinker saw the birds and squirrels watching with big eyes, waiting for the right moment of ripeness, he decided to pick a bunch. I don't know what a bushel looks like, but see for yourself.

Then he started pealing and cutting pears to make pear pie, and freeze some. I think he might have given some away, but they have so many ugly spots they don't make an attractive gift. But they taste good, once you peal them. When we go to the State Fair this year, we'll have to get advice on peaches. They reach about 2 inches in diameter then they get covered with spots. If you peal them they taste pretty good too.