How Hard Can It Be?

Jason and I spent a lot of years living in apartments while he was going to school.  We watched all of our friends we went to college with buying houses while he continued on the journey to become a doctor.  We were finally able to buy our first house when he started residency in Iowa.  It was a tiny house built in the 1950s but it was cute and we loved having our own place.  That is, until things started to break.  I still remember the first time it happened.  The air conditioner wasn't working (it gets awfully hot and humid without central air in the summer in Iowa!) and I didn't know what to do when I could no longer call a landlord to fix it.  Jason was spending at least 80 hours a week at the hospital and the few hours at home were normally spent sleeping so I called a repairman.  I think it cost somewhere around $100 to have him come out and discover that the only problem was a blown fuse!  Jason rarely had time to work on the house and I quickly grew tired of an old house that was constantly needing attention.  The climax was when the roof started leaking two days before Christmas!

When we moved to Utah I told our realtor that I wanted a house built within the last 10 years.  I was done dealing with constant repairs.  Every house that we seriously considered fell into that category except one- the one we bought.  We just fell in love with it and felt like it was our home from the first time we saw it.  It's definitely in better shape than our house in Iowa but it was built in 1986 and anything that is original in the house is starting to show wear.  We've always laughed about the old original microwave in the kitchen.  It took forever to heat food and looked awful.  It finally completely died the other day and I was glad for an excuse to replace it.

Saturday afternoon we dived into installing the new microwave.  The first problem we ran into was how to get the old one out.  We unscrewed it from the cabinet above and tried to lift it off the rack just like everyone had told us but that old thing wouldn't budge.  We tried everything imaginable and still couldn't get it to move.  That's when the typical home improvement conversation started.  Jason, "I have no idea what I am doing!"  Me, "My dad would probably..."  Jason, "Well, I'm not your dad!"  Me, "I know you're not my dad.  I don't expect you to be my dad."  (If you haven't figured it out yet my dad is a huge home repair guy that can fix anything.)  Jason, "Well you must have expected me to install it since you bought it."  Me, "I didn't think it would be this hard.  Do you want me to go back and pay for the installation?"  Jason, "Too late.  I'm already started.  I have to finish now."  This wasn't a serious argument but you get the gist.  We were awfully frustrated by that point.  Jason called my dad who suggested we take apart the old microwave.  This made me laugh because I have vivid memories of my dad taking apart anything imaginable in an attempt to figure out  how to take it out, install it, or repair it!  We started that but still couldn't figure out what was holding the blasted thing on the wall.  My story would end here with a torn apart microwave still hanging above my stove if it weren't for our awesome neighbor.  After an hour and a half of sheer frustration Jason went next door and asked our neighbor, Tim, who happens to be an electrician, for a hand.  He was a lifesaver and had the old one out and the new one installed in about an hour, including a trip to Lowe's and some rewiring that had to be done.  The good news is that Jason now knows how to install a microwave so if you ever need help you know who to call!