The Electric Slide

We are having electrical problems at our house (did I mention that 2011 is not my favorite year ever?).  We have a lazy kitchen breaker that doesn't want to do its share of the work.  It has tripped regularly since we moved into the house but this week it completely broke (like its inside mechanics literally snapped in half...who knew that could happen). 

The problem is that our breakers/stuff in the breaker box (forgive me, I don't speak electrician) are uber old and no one really carries replacements for them anymore so while we can order the bits they are very expensive relative to the cost of newer breakers.  Also, apparently the rest of the box is a mess as well and it all really needs to be replaced.  Boy am I glad we happen to know an electrician so someone I trust is helping with this because someone could cheat us and we would have no idea.  He will be doing the work for us this next couple of days to get our power up and running again. 

So, for the past five days we have been without electricity in our kitchen.  We have extension cords running to the fridge and microwave but we have no use of the dishwasher or garbage disposal or outlets (the stove is on a different breaker so that works fine...hooray). 

Poor Josh has been really hammered by the lack of a dishwasher.  You see, washing dishes by hand is my LEAST favorite job on the planet (I'd rather clean toilets any day) so I will use every single clean dish in the house before I force myself to wash dishes (eat off of pot lids for lunch...why not?..ok, I'm not quite that bad).  My sweetheart has been relegated to head dishwasher this past week.  He does it without complaining (out loud) but secretly I think his heart will explode with joy when the electricity is back on line.

Also, because the kitchen outlets are powerless at the moment, this is what I found when I dragged myself out of bed (slept in 'till nearly 8:00...awesome!) on Saturday morning.

 My ever creative-thinking kids decided to make toast in the living room.  That's a new one.  I've never woken to find a toaster lined up next to the couch before.  There was a lovely line of bread crumbs running from the living room to the kitchen table, but nothing our trusty vacuum couldn't handle. 

I'm looking forward to extracting the extension cords from our living areas later this week and returning the toaster to its rightful home in the kitchen. It will be a good thing for everyone involved.