Pause in the Project

In my last post I had mentioned my project for Christmas 2021. I have decided to call it "Operation Hallmark Christmas Inn Bedroom.  My neighbors are making plans to visit a Christmas Inn and I decided to create my own Christmas Inn bedroom since we are still sticking to home. 

I plan to start posting the day by day photos. Don't get too excited, the project is moving slowly. And once I found my 4' pre-lit flocked tree after visiting numerous Dollar Generals surrounding my community, my daughter-in-law asked if I could try to find a "not flocked" one for one of my grandsons. We began stalking the Dollar Generals again - we even tried three different ones in a neighboring county where we were surprised to find zero Covid precautions. At least our county does post "suggestions" on business doors, even if barely anyone follows them.  

Luckily she spotted a 4' prelit tree on sale at Michaels. Searching the site, we would need to travel about an hour and a half away to pick one up in the store, but remember, I am a gramma! And more luckily - I re-googled the morning before we left and found that another town only 45 minutes away had gotten some trees in. SO - I think I am finally done searching for 4' Christmas trees. 

The other drama that has paused the project is my stove. I was working at my counter with the stove off, when I heard a warning beeping sounding off in the kitchen. At first I could not even figure out where it was coming from. I ruled out the smoke alarm, but noticed the clock on the stove. It was flashing a secret code - F30S5 (or something). After investigation by my husband which involved manuals and his ipad, it turned out that the "mother board" had died or fried. Who knew a stove had a "mother board"?  And the cost of said "mother board" is quite high - especially for an 11 year old range. 

Today we donned our face masks and had our first shopping expedition since February 2020.  We had to include a two year old who loves wearing his paw patrol mask. He found the process both amazing and the most boring event he has ever attended.  

We visited five stores, we explored limited supplies of stoves, we received delivery dates ranging from April 2022 to tomorrow. After 3 hours (which included a stop at the Verizon store because my husband's original flip phone also took a nose dive - he replaced it with another flip phone), we finally chose an astronomically priced range which will be delivered tomorrow. 

That was when we returned home and received a phone call that the stove has actually been discontinued. My husband was too scared to risk the store model with the, again, astronomical price we paid for it. We negotiated and tomorrow a stove I did not like as well, but is listed at a higher price will be delivered for the amount of the check I had written for the first stove. 

And - just to make the whole experience even more fun - when we moved the burnt stove out tonight, we realized we had not painted behind it when we remodeled the kitchen. My husband then painted the wall with the dark green from the living room instead of the 50's green for the kitchen. Now the kitchen wall has been repainted for the second time today and we are anxiously awaiting the random stove delivery.