Author: Yajaira

My stove is fixed! In a little over 24 hours the problem was resolved, thank God.

Thank my Dad-in-law actually, who, along with his friend Ricky, took apart the back of my beautiful stove and figured out that the prongs of the electrical plug weren’t correctly coiled around this connector thing which burned and caused a short. It burned.

One of the things I fear most is a fire; a fire while I’m home alone and especially a fire during the night, where we, God forbid, might not hear the smoke detector going off. To think that the wires that burned could have sparked the wall and caused a huge fire scares the hell out of me. Thankfully it contained itself, probably because of the metal cover.

They assessed the damage last night while the boys and I ate at Mary’s and was kind enough to send over a plate of dinner for Mario, too. We’d need a new plug and that connector. Mary brought them over today after work and I was dreading to know how much it all cost. To my relief everything came out to $17. Praise the Lord.

Tomorrow, all will hopefully be back to normal. I’ll still be very cautious and keep an ear out, just in case though. I really want some lasagna, so I might just whip some up tomorrow while Mayra visits :). I can’t wait to catch up on the happenings of the last few weeks.

I should shower and get to bed. My back is aching. I did the rest of the housework I didn’t get to yesterday, so that might be why I feel so tired. I’m feeling sloth-like lately.

P.S. I made time to vote today, which was an adventure all on it’s own. Mom didn’t get to vote, which totally sucked. John didn’t want to go so if Republicans stay in charge I’m blaming him. I keed, I keed. Only because he bought me a cinnamon roll at his work :).

P.P.S. We totally have to go to Donna’s Corn Maze! I’ve wanted to do this since last year, when I first heard about it. It sounds like so much fun. Plus free roasted sweet corn and s’mores? AWESOME.

One of the worst things that could possibly happen in this household has happened.

Our electric ceramic-top stove has died!

Mario wanted a potato and egg taco for breakfast (he requested it around 1am last night when I felt him slide into bed) so I got started on it after I got home from dropping the kids off. I turned the right front burner on to heat the pan while I washed and peeled the potato. I noticed that around every 8 seconds I’d hear a ticking sound. I got closer and noticed the tick was coming from either the top of the stove where the knobs are, or from the front burner itself (the one I use the most). The potatoes finished cooking, I drained the olive oil that was left and added the egg, pepper and garlic powder. I took the pan off the burner when it was done and placed another pan on top of it to heat up the tortillas while I went to wake up Mario.

He gets up, I go back to the kitchen. I notice the red light that indicates that theres a “Hot Surface” isn’t on at all, yet I’ve had the stove on for a while on ‘6’. I switch to another burner, the left back one, put it on ‘9’ and nothing. I freak out and run into the bathroom where Mario’s taking a shower and yell, “OHMYGODTHESTOVEISN’TWORKING!” I explain about the ticking and how it was probably telling me it was dying and he says he’ll check it out when he gets out.

Not much he could do…he’d have to take the whole darn stove apart just to check the stove top and he still had to eat breakfast and get his stuff together for work. And I was finally going to make lasanga tonight, darnit! How the heck are we supposed to eat? I don’t buy microwavable food! Even the stuff that can be “heated up”, like pot pies and pizza, require an oven to cook them. The oven isn’t working either *pulls out hair*.

I wish I knew what caused it to just take a crap like that. We’ve only had it since February 2003, which is 3, almost 4 years. I can’t find any of the pamphlets and god only knows where I left the receipt for it. I know for a fact that we were idiots back then and wouldn’t register anything, so we probably don’t have any type of warranty. We paid cash for it at Sears, so they most likely didn’t take our info down, I think? Argh! I told Mario, “Dina’s (Jorge’s mom) had her flat top for years; how come hers hasn’t died?”

He smirks and says, “Because she probably doesn’t use it as much as you do.”

“… Great. I killed it. For cooking too much.”

I don’t know what we’re going to do, where I’m going to cook (I really don’t want to be cooking at my mom-in-laws then lugging everything back here), and who will fix it. Mary’s calling around and I need to ask my dad-in-law if he knows anyone who’ll fix electric ceramic tops, so we’ll see. Appliances and cars have great timing. Here we were excited about buying baby things and Christmas presents and now we have to fix a stove. Lovely!

I have no idea what the heck is wrong with my toilet (lovely way to start an entry, no?). It’s either the water pressure is super low as always or (gulp) one of the children dropped a wash cloth in there and it’s now clogged to hell. It already overflowed all over my soft, light blue bath rug. I’m afraid to pee, which really sucks because I need to pee all the time.

Today was a really low-key kind of day. I didn’t go anywhere today, which is a nice change. I spent most of the day cleaning house which was way overdue, heh. Jason came over with his laptop in tow and connected everything to play Xbox Live with John and the boys. Gave me time to do everything I needed to do without being interrupted.

I wrapped and boxed my breakables that I still had strewn around my bedroom so I can take them to storage. I’ve just realized that it’s November and according to my Last Menstrual Period, I’m 7 months pregnant as of today (Tuesday, if we go by Alaethia’s size). If I recall correctly, every year it seems that once November gets here the new year gets here just as fast. At first it felt like the pregnancy was slithering by, but just today I started getting that panic-y feeling like, ‘Shoot, I need to hurry up and get everything ready!’. Now that Alaethia’s constantly moving around and that her elbows and knees are clearly visible as she moves them across my belly, reality’s set in. I’m going to be the mother of 3 by the end of January!

I need to make a list of all the stuff we need to get. I need to finish organizing our closets. I need to get rid of that darn dresser. We need to put the crib together. I need to go through storage boxes and get all the baby stuff I need out of them, plus unisex stuff like onsies all washed and ready. I’m getting incredibly excited and nervous! And on top of it all, we definitely need to start Christmas shopping! I seriously can’t believe it’s already November!

I have my 28 week doctor’s appointment this Wednesday; let’s hope all is well. I wouldn’t doubt if this little lady already turned (Jaylen turned by 7 months) what with the way she kicks me in the ribs O_o. I’m also looking foward to Tuesday, which is when Mayra will hopefully come over to visit for a while :). This is going to be a great week!

P.S. Desperate Housewives was so awesome tonight. I watched it after spending about an hour outside with Mario while he waited for the fire to successfully start so he could bar-b-q. We had a talk yesterday about how our relationship’s been going lately and we’re doing better than before now, thank goodness. When I came in to watch Desperate Housewives I remembered he likes peanuts with his beer, so I took him some. He calls me from his cellphone and says, “It’s nice how you brought me peanuts. That’s why I’ll never leave you; because of the little things like that.” Aww :).

Anyway, the woman who got killed was totally not who I expected it to be. I thought it would be Edie Britt for some reason. I didn’t watch TV for most of yesterday so it was a surprise when I turned the TV on this afternoon and Doogie Howser’s gay and Sadam Hussein will be hung?! Crazy!