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Well, our water heater blew up this morning. Water all over the basement, and no hot water. And we just discovered that when you turn off just the hot water, it means we can’t have a cold bath or shower either– no water comes out of the tap. I think it’s because there is just one faucet?
Because we are going away soon, I was going to plan ahead and take some photos of stuff I’ve saved so I could continue my NaBloPoMo project, but there is too much to do. I work this weekend, we have to figure out what to do about the water heater, we have to get ready and pack, and then we’ll be away and frankly when I’m away, I like to ignore the computer. So I think this is the end of the road for my project… only made it 9 days. I do have a few more days of photos that I could post, but I might as well just end it now. Oh well!

Since we have a sizable tax return coming our way (thank you, TurboTax– I actually started filing with H&R Block online, ran into a problem that couldn’t be fixed, and decided to re-do with TurboTax, and ended up with almost $600 more back than H&R Block– wow this should be its own sentence, instead of stuck here in parentheses), I am thinking about making two large purchases. I am soliciting advice from my readers (how many of you are there??).

1. Our water supply is pretty icky. We use either a Pur or Brita filter on the kitchen sink, but both of them get clogged pretty quickly. There is an off-white substance coming out of the water– I can’t believe that’s good to drink. So I am considering getting some sort of under the sink water filtration system. I don’t know where to start looking, and have no idea how much something like this would cost. Any ideas?

2. A new digital camera. I’ve been suffering with my hand-me-down, old, slow, sometimes-won’t-take-a-picture-even-if-I-push-the-button-a-dozen-times camera, and I really want a new one. I’m not looking to spend a lot, so no fancy Digital SLR for me. I want something small and good. Joe always liked his Canon PowerShot Digital Elph, but the screen died on the last one, and that discouraged him. He got a Panasonic Lumix, but is taking a long time getting used to it. I’d be willing to forgive Canon for the screen problem. What do you think? What kind of camera do you have? How much was it? Do you like it?

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In other news, I think my hearing is getting worse. The info I’ve seen about broken eardrums makes it sound like it isn’t a big deal. However, the pain in the first 48 hours was worse than labor. And the lingering not being able to hear (due to constant ringing and cloudy feeling) is really discouraging. It looks like it could take 2 months to heal. Fingers crossed that it is much less than that.

Today we had the required final inspection for our Philadelphia Home Improvement Loan. We started paperwork for the loan in May (or was it April?) of… 2006!!
With the loan, we got:
A new furnace (December 2006)
6 new windows (January 2007)
Our porch fixed (sorta)
and…
A brand new kitchen! (December 2007)

We are in love with our kitchen! Our contractor has got “mad skills” (or is that mad skillz?). It’s amazing how he was able to transform our 8 foot by 8 foot space into our favorite room in the house!

We bought our appliances from a Philadelphia store called Airs Appliances, and I recommend them highly.
We chose a:

Whirlpool GU2700XTSB Black Dishwasher (good reviews on Consumer Reports, and it does seem quiet– I never had a dishwasher before, so I can’t compare!)

A black Frigidaire range and a Broan range hood

and my favorite appliance:

This LG LRBP1031T Refrigerator

It was love at first sight, and I was happy to see this positive review of it.

The cabinets are from Mid-Continet Cabinetry (style: Concord in Sandalwood Maple). We ordered them through Miller’s Surplus Home Center in Catasauqua, near Allentown. We had great service there.

We used Ikea Pronomen countertop (which is their thin butcher block counter). We also got an Ikea sink (the Domsjo) and faucet.

The finishing touches:
Wall and Floor Tile from Avalon Tile;
This Calphalon Pot Rack;
A new back door with 9 panels– we can see the Philadelphia skyline from our kitchen door;
and
A new light fixture to match our shade from Rejuvenation Hardware.

Click on the picture of Joe’s juicer for the gallery of the kitchen project!

Apparently, these are not flushable, at least not in our house.

We finally turned the heat on. It’s nice and toasty. I was reading about bleeding your radiators and we tried to do it, but upstairs nothing seemed to happen– no air or water coming out. All the radiators are good and hot, does that mean we don’t need to bleed them? Downstairs, water came out right away when Joe turned the key.

So, for the record: heating season 2005-2006, first date of use, 11/18/05. Please keep your fingers crossed that our little antique Peerless radiator lasts through the season!