Divine Reassurance

Yes, today I received divine reassurance that we made the right decision.

Last weekend, John and I finally decided that we will not embark on the kitchen renovation project that we've been thinking about for the last few years.  At least not in the next year or two (or perhaps three or four).  I've come to believe that the reason we have not actually started it yet is because I do not have the intestinal fortitude required to weather a project of this magnitude.  Not right now anyways.  We have done a lot of talking about it, but it never goes farther than that.  John just doesn't care enough to do anything about it and I just can seem to force myself to make the requisite inquiries to get the process started. 

I fancy myself pretty handy around the house.  I can usually diagnose basic problems and even fix them most of the time.  This week was not a good week for me on that front, however.

Earlier this week our oven decided to konk out.  On Sunday evening, it worked fine.  Monday I set it to preheat.  And nothing.  What the...? 

Today, I successfully managed to somehow stop all hot water from flowing to our kitchen faucet.  I was, ironically, trying to fix it (again).  I turned off the water under the sink and when I turned it on again, nothing.  I can make absolutely no logical sense of why it isn't working.  Valve open, water flowing.  Valve closed, water stops.  Valve re-opened, hello water, where are you?

I eventually gave up on that because I was so perplexed I wasn't able to think straight.  I decided instead to move on to something more basic.  I had picked up a dimmer switch a while back that I thought would be nice to have in our dining room.  Today was the day to make it happen.  I should have read the signs: today was no day for me and house projects.  But I didn't.  I should have just conceded after trying 4 different configurations of wiring, running to and from the fuse panel, each time returning dejected after my commands of "let their be light" were left disobeyed.  It was only in my final fury after trying half a dozen different things that I grabbed the packaging and saw that the dimmer is incompatible with compact flourescent lighting.  Nerg.

So.  In sum, my oven still does not work.  We still have no hot water in our kitchen.  And I'm certainly not in the mood for a romantic dinner, even if we had a stupid dimmer switch that worked.  A full scale kitchen renovation project will have to wait until the day that I'm convinced that it will be worth the sacrifice of my sanity.