Bad week for Appliances

I'm kicking myself right now.

The reason I'm kicking myself is for not getting the "extended warranty" for Charlie.

A little over a month ago, I got a notice in the mail from Sears, but looked at it and thought to myself, "Kenmore is a good, reliable brand and it's a chest freezer so not much could go wrong. We don't need this," as I chucked the letter into the recycle bin.

Famous last words.

Charlie is like 12 months and 3 weeks and just up and quit on me. And you guessed it! He had an original warranty of 1 year. In a way, I know I got really lucky because although the food was mostly thawed, the thermometer read that we were still in the "safe refrigeration" zone and it just so happened that I didn't have a whole freezer full of food in there. Nevertheless, I am bummed because I really liked having the extra freezer space and it came in super handy whenever I caught good deals on things at the store. I "Dr. Googled" what might be ailing poor Charlie and have come up that it's most likely a compressor problem, which to repair would cost approximately as much as buying a new freezer. Of course this isn't an official diagnosis, but to get one I'd have to spend at least $75 to get a repair man to come out here and look at it. So, for now, Charlie sits unplugged while I debate what to do.

The next thing to kick the bucket was our TV.

Now this TV is ANCIENT by modern standards. I had the thing back when I was still in high school (so 12 or so years ago?). This TV accompanied me to college, then to all our various apartments and our first house and then finally accompanied us on the journey all the way down to Texas. It is nothing fancy and since it is so old even requires a converter box for the new digital signals. However, since we don't purchase any sort of cable or satellite service, (yes, you read that right, we are one of the few families remaining in the United States who solely receive service from only regular broadcast channels via "bunny ears".) I'm not going to go out of my way to get a new one.

I must admit, it WILL take a bit of adjustment to get used to having no TV for a while. For one thing, it means that if the kids want to watch a movie and I decide to let them (which I used to do on a daily basis in the afternoons) then I have to give up my computer so they can watch it. And no TV means no Saturday morning cartoons for them either. Matt and I will miss watching the occasional football game or show, but most of those things we can watch on the computer too. I don't intend for us not to ever have another TV, but I don't want to spend a lot of money on one, so I'll be stalking craigslist or freecycle for one.

Oh, and let's just say I'm crossing my fingers that those two appliances will be the last two things to quite working for a very long time!