The Refrigerator Saga

Fridge #1 in our teeny one-butt kitchen

Our refrigerator has become the bane of our existence. (Well, it switches between that and the fact that we have no central air conditioning. Because let me reiterate here, people: it's freaking hot and humid in the South.) Let me elaborate a bit on the refrigerator deal: It freezes over and must be thawed [now] about every two weeks. [It was once a month or so; but as happens with real-life things, it steadily gets worse.] Hubby, who has been a trooper with this whole fridge thing (many examples to follow) has slowly started dreading grocery day... which in turn keeps getting steadily and steadily pushed further into the future simply because before we can put food in the refrigerator with the purpose of keeping it somewhat chilled, he must haul said refrigerator across the house to our teeny front porch to be thawed out in the sunshine for about a day. He's even reverted to stealing my hairdryer to try to save some steps and lifting. I can't say I blame him. I'm not exactly much help with Baby Bump in the way and our house being a one-butt house in general (you've heard of a one-butt kitchen, right?).

Fridge #2 from Hubby's Mom in our teeny one-butt kitchen (yes, that's the
hairdryer cord...)

Superman ended up working so many overtime hours last week that he was simply on-call on Saturday -- which meant I got to have him home with me on one of my days off, yay! \o/ ^.^ Hearing a NEW strange noise coming from our refrigerator (Hubby deduced it was the fan getting iced over and cutting into the ice, which hadn't been a problem until now), we decided to call it quits on Fridge #1 (yes, we need to number them. yes, oh deer.) and called his mom and stepdad to take them up on their offer of a refrigerator they had sitting in their "shop" that they didn't need. They had also offered us a like-new bar-height dining table, so we finally decided to take the old 5-speed truck down the road to pick up their generous offerings. Nine miles later, we had a refrigerator and six chairs strapped into the bed (we had to make another trip for the table itself and the leaf it came with). Upon arriving home, Hubby moved new fridge in and old fridge out, having to take both all the way around the house single-handedly. And the South is freaking hot and humid, y'all. We plugged in Fridge #2 and decided to just toss the teeny amount of milk that had warmed and the cheese that we had left that had melted onto the counter, and we made plans to go out to eat with Hubby's dad and grandmother for lunch the following afternoon and then make our grocery run. Certainly that would be enough time for Fridge #2 to get accustomed to its new home indoors; and we could just go back to ramen until then (we didn't even have bread for sandwiches) (have I mentioned yet that it's 20+ minutes to the nearest Dollar General?). 
We take the fourwheeler out for some gentle mud-riding (I know -- LAME. But Hubby refused to go "faster faster!" because of the obvious ruts and the obvious Baby Bump riding on the back) and settle in for a rainy night of board games and movies (and ramen).

Original old farm table hubby pulled from a barn across
the street.

Like-new bar-height dinging table from Hubby's mom and
stepdad. We are in love. (Yes, we know it's off-center.)
(Yes, I'm married to someone very OCD.)

Close up of top of old original farm table. The "white" chairs
are also covered in black grease. Did I mention Hubby is a
diesel mechanic?

Close up of top of like-new bar-height dining table from
Hubby's mom and stepdad. Did I mention we are in  love

We wake up Sunday morning, ready for lunch and (FINALLY) a grocery run. But guess what? Fridge #2 isn't cold -- not even slightly chilled. My forever patient Hubby unplugged it to try and let it thaw out -- we thought maybe it had been unplugged just long enough the day before to let some ice slide down in the back and freeze back over the [working parts of a fridge] (don't judge me -- my husband is the mechanic/handyman in this relationship). (Yes, he stole my hairdryer again to hopefully thaw it out while I was in the shower.) But after leaving it to sit and leak all over the kitchen for a few hours (I didn't have any cares to give at this point) there wasn't even a damp puddle on the floor. In one last attempt, Hubby plugged it BACK in to see if it would try. Even just a little bit. (It didn't.) 

We really can't afford a brand new refrigerator; so we held hands on the way to lunch and decided to look at compact and teeny refrigerators for a temporary solution until we could find something else.

At lunch we caught up with Mamaw and Daddy and we shared with them the most recent struggle that was our house. (Hubby's daddy had already given us a tiny deep-freezer not a month or so earlier, so that our meat that we buy in bulk would be ok each time the fridge decided to suffer). They took it upon themselves to be benefactors once again and took us to Lowe's to get us a big-kid-adult refrigerator. No more tap water and no more growing ice in our three pitiful ice trays! \o/

Brand new Fridge #3 in our teeny one-butt kitchen.

After three+ hours at Lowe's while Hubby grappled with the generous offer (and I looked at brand new washing machines and magical things called dishwashers), much struggling to rearrange all the stuff in Daddy's van, we loaded up Fridge #3 and hauled back to our little country house.




We took the front door off the hinges to get Fridge #3 into the house. We rolled up carpets and moved what little furniture we have to make room to get Fridge #3 to the kitchen. We hauled Fridge #2 (which still hadn't cooled in the slightest in all that time we were in town) back around the house to sit in the carport with Fridge #1. And we realized that the parts we got to hook up the water line to Fridge #3 were too big. And Lowe's was closing in 20 minutes and was a 30 minutes drive from our little country house.

Of course by "we" in all those sentences and hard work, I mean Superman and Superman Senior. They wouldn't even let me hold tools while they worked. The most I did was get them (soppy) ice water.

We bade adieu to Superman Senior as it was already nearly 7:30, and Hubby and  I drove all the way back to town to Walmart for the right-fitting piece as well as a few groceries to last us at least a week.
Needless to say, before going to work this morning, I had to [stand looking into our brand new big-kid-adult refrigerator with the doors open and then] put back together some of the chaos that had become our little country house. (There was sticky plastic and styrofoam EVERYWHERE. And carpets were still rolled up and furniture was still out of place.) Oh and at least start some of that laundry that I said I was gonna do this weekend that I didn't get around to.

And so was my weekend. And it turns out this is the first Monday at the office that nobody's asked how it went.

Fridges #1 and #2 banished forever (hopefully not forever in the carport)

PS: I really did steal this off of the display at Lowe's. For a moment in the parking lot, I thought an employee was going to take it away and I was determined to waltz right back in there and get another one of of one of the other refrigerators.