Ever have an “Ah shit moment” ?

7 – Dec – 2015

I really hate those “ah shit” moments in life. You know what I’m talking about. It the feeling you get when you speed past that overpass and notice the red and blue lights appear in your rear view mirror. It’s the putting 1 cup of salt into the recipe calling for 1 cup of sugar.  These my friends, are self inflected. These are somewhat forgivable, since you did it to yourself.  In most cases, your the one that catches your mistake before it gets out to the world.

The ones I REALLY hate are the ones that are inflicted on you. Standing in line at the auto parts place and getting brake pads that the guy/gal behind the counter says are a perfect fit for your vehicle. Getting home and replacing the brake pads and finding out they don’t fit. “Ah shit !”

It’s picking out a smashing pair of pumps for this evenings soiree and having the check out person at the store accidentally swap them out for a different size or a different pair. “Ah shit !” You know the feeling.

So you can relate to this moment for me. As you may know, most home ranges come in 2 different sizes, 30″ or 36″ inches. This is a given and most cabinets and counters have enough space to fit these sizes. If the space is designed to fit a 30″ stove, it’s maybe  31″ between the cabinets. This is done to fit any range that is listed as a 30″ range.  Not sure what the guy(s) was thinking when they installed our cabinets and counter tops. When we went to install our new range, it did not quite fit the space. “Ah Shit !”

30″ stove not fitting into a 29 3/4 ” space.

As you can see, it’s just not going to fit. You can scratch your head as to the thoughts going through the contractors head when he installed the cabinets/counters.

“Oh it’s OK. Close is good. No one is going to replace this generic white Kenmore range. It will be perfect forever ”

I am almost surprised the range wasn’t bolted to the wall or epoxied to the counters.  That would have presented a challenge, but one I would have also tackled. So, me being me, and having the tools and know how, decided to not knuckle under to this “Ah shit” moment and pushed ahead to fix the problem.  Besides, the old range was disconnected and the new one was not installed yet. There was also a whole freezer of frozen pizza waiting to be eaten. Getting this range installed was a priority.

I get slack from Sandy all the time about the number of tools I have. My motto is that you need the right tool for the right job. If you don’t have the correct tool, an easy job will take forever. Since I have a tile saw ( everyone should have one of these), cutting the counter was fairly easy. If you don’t have a tile saw, forget it. You would still be cutting.  As you can see, I also had to remove 1/4 ” from the cabinets. After about an hour, the cabinets and counters were cut back enough.

The end result is a well fitting range, that now functions. Look out frozen pizza. Now we are cooking with gas.

More on the Kids and Darlings.

The kids are really curious about everything. I come home with a truck load of stones. Just stones, nothing special. For the kids, it must have seen like I was carrying a load of golden hay or something else. As I am shoveling out the stones, the kids decided to hop up into the truck to find out what’s going on.

We had a neighbor from down the street come by and visit. Burt is a pony that doesn’t get out much. We let him loose in the pasture and Burt went nuts. He ran around the pasture, kicking up his heels. After doing a lap or two, he would run back to the feeder and stock up on food. After a minute or two, he would run around for a lap or two and then head back to the feeder.