OT I can't believe I did this

I had to LOL at your interesting trip to the mall.

My refrigerator was old like yours but was that 70s dark brown. When it decided to defrost it shut off completely. I had to use a dorm frig for some months and hated it.

I finally got fed up with the whole situation and headed for Sears also. I've always wanted a side by side.

Before I left Sears I ended up with the refrigerator/freezer I wanted and a riding mower. Talk about blowing several retirement checks.

For weeks it felt strange to walk over the frig and find fresh food and it was still cold.

Congrats on getting your new toy.

Kate T. South Mississippi

There should be *quite* a difference in your electric bill over the course of a full year; new appliances tend to be a LOT more efficient! :-)

I know what you mean about having totally *new* stuff. Harri is still laughing that I got so excited about have a BRAND NEW TOILET!!! Actually, the building super was laughing hysterically when he called the guy at the warehouse and told him that Arne was coming by to pick- up a new toilet for us since ours was "urgammal" (ancient). I've been dancing about singing "I've got a new potty" ever since!

Erin

I've had my Sears refrig for about 20 plus years and it is close to time to replace it. Barbara in FL

I think that you did a good thing. You will love it and wish you had done it sooner. That old one was dying and costing you extra in electric bills and who knows how it affected your groceries.

Congratulations.

This is not a brilliant opening line but 'I think I read somewhere' that you must not store milk on the refrigerator door. Something about the doors' shelves being the least stable as to temperature because they open out into a warm room. I guess a lot would depend on how long you attempt to keep milk and what sort of traffic your refrigerator endures. There were years when that was the busiest place in our home. Polly

Linda PATCHogue, NY

Well done! Might be worth double the price to get the avocado green out of your kitchen :-) Roberta in D

"NightMist" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news: snipped-for-privacy@news.madbbs.com...

My DH dreads those shopping trips - good work!! Musicmaker

Polly,

I've heard the same thing, but we store our milk on the door anyway. With 2 children who drink milk like fiends (YAY!!) and a hubby who also likes a tall glass with dinner, we tend to go through it rather quickly. If the milk is in the cardboard half-gallon containers, it lasts longer anyway, and that is what I get my milk in. Yes, we purchase 3 different milks every time we hit the grocery store - 2% for hubby, whole for the children who need to put on more weight, and fat-free skim for me because I can't stand milk and this is the only way I'll drink it (no "aftertaste" to me).

Since we do go through it rather quickly, it just makes sense for us to have it on the door. The part about it being the least temperature stable is correct because, when you open the door, the cool air is still pretty much conatined int he "box" and the door is exposed to the room temperatures. Anyway, I suppose it's just personal preference and how fast you drink your milk!

Larisa, not sure why I'm rambl> This is not a brilliant opening line but 'I think I read somewhere' that you

It's understandable, really!! The previous owners were nice enough to leave their crappy brown side by side fridge for us to use when we first moved in, but it was definitely on it's last legs. So, we went to look for a fridge and ended up with both a fridge AND a stove!! whoops. It wasn't too bad a deal because we actually needed both (I can't even remember the color of the stove, other than coated in grease). Got both on sale and had them delivered on the same day and set up for us. We ended up with a bottom freezer fridge because DH was getting tired of having frozen foods drop on his feet (what can i say, I purchase food half a month at a time, so there are times when the freezer got rather full).

To Erin's comment about the toilet....I did the exact same thing, only ours wasn't broken, it had gotten overstuffed by DD with diaper wipes!!! $ hours of trying to unclog the dang thing and hubby decided we should just save time and purchase a new one!! Got a more energy efficient (less water used and all that) model and I'm happy with it. NOw, it we could just remember to get new seats for both toilets, I'd be happier. The ones that came with the 2 toilets are the flexible plastic, so if you try to sit in the middle (as when I'm combing out DDs hair after her bath), the seat starts to cave in....one of these days they will finally just break and somebody will end up with a wet tush!!

And finally, y'all have scared me because, if the tax paperwork is correct, we'll be getting a substantial amount back (not to mention the additional rebates that are being talked about) and Hubby wants to get his flat screen tv and I want to get the electric fireplace insert to replace the non-functional gaslog fireplace insert that came with the house....can you see where this might lead?? Oy!! Since I'm the one that divvies up the money for bills and fun stuff, I think I had better write down a list of the things we want and figure out what is feasible, otherwise, we'll have new stuff and no money to pay the bills!!

Larisa

Enjoy your new fridge! I am sure you will see a big difference in how it cools your food and lowers your energy bill. I remember avocado - my sister's kitchen was all avocado back in the day (mine was all harvest gold).

One time I went with a coworker to pick up her sewing machine which had been in for a cleaning and tune-up. I didn't quilt at the time and was knee deep in counted cross stitch and rubber stamping. She left the shop with a tuned up machine and I walked out with a brand new Pfaff Creative 7570 and the beginnings of the biggest anxiety attack I have ever experienced! That was around 1995 and I've been quilting ever since. And without regret! But I have told her that I will never take her to the service garage to pick up her car after its been serviced!

AliceW - Royal Cybrarian

Hug them while they're here!

Pollydear, we have an 8 soon to be 9 year old boy in the house! Plus a 17 year old girl who likes milk better than soda any day of the week.

If I want to bake a chocolate cake I have to sour the milk a'purpose!

NightMist My family is awfully good at keep>This is not a brilliant opening line but 'I think I read somewhere' that you

We bought a new refrigerator last summer. Great device. Our first new one in nearly 19 years. We do keep the milk in the door. It's wonderful. Always cold and very nice.

The one caveat is this, and nobody told us so we really screwed up: Let the new refrigerator run EMPTY for the first 24 hours to get it to the right temp. Yes, it's a royal pain in the patooty letting it run all that time while your food sits at friends' houses waiting to come home. But it worked and that was at the height of a very hot summer. I can't believe it t ook us so long to buy a new one. No more waking to frozen milk, lettuce and whatever. And no more waking to hot milk, lettuce, whatever. The temperature stays the same. The seal is good. The freezer freezes all the time and consistently. All around a good investment.

Congratulations on your purchase and I'm really glad for you.

Sunny

The energy efficiency was the straw on the camel's back. The old fridge runs all the time. The new one is bigger (20 ft^3) and says it will cost $42 a year to run. We have some of the cheapest electrical rates in the country, so I will be really interested to see the electric bill for February.

Now if I can just get my landlord to put in a more efficient furnace we will be grinning on the energy front! I know for a fact that the mmassive blower on the thing runs us around $25 a month in electric (a little less to a lot more depending on the winter weather). Plus it is a distinct possibility that some crematoriums have lower winter gas bills.

NightMist

Very well. Buy a big sack of Oreos and proceed. Polly

Howdy!

Run the 'fridge empty for 24 hours? Never have. In 33 yrs. we've had 5 new refrigerators (sometimes it's easier to sell it w/ the house ), and no one EVER told us to run it empty first. Wouldn't be practical, having to keep the old machine plugged in & running while the new one cooled off. Kenmore, GE & Frigidaire never say this, not in the appliance manual, not from the installers or repairmen. While it may take the ice maker that long (not anymore w/ Kenmore), new, energy-efficient refrigerators cool down very quickly. We've bought 'fridges twice for our anniversary gift (hey, it's what we wanted!), and they were cold within 1/2 an hour of installation; our anniversary is July 4; we live in Texas.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

R/Sandy --th> We bought a new refrigerator last summer. Great device. Our first new

When we bought this house it came with the side-by-side. I HATED IT. Always seemed to be digging to the back to get things. Then it was getting old so I wanted a new one. Bert thought that I was weird wanting one with the freezer on the bottom like when I was growing up. We searched all over and finally found one. He loves it and I am happy. "Donated" the old one to my kids coffee stand at school and not more than a couple of months later it died. How's that for timing. Got the tax deduction and it was out of the house. The shop teachers thought that they could fix it and they wanted a new one for in the shop. Have at it and thanks for taking it off my hands. A couple of weeks later they came back to me and wondered if I wanted the old one back since they couldn't get it to work after all. I told them no and they complained that now they would have to figure out how to get rid of it. Not my problem anymore. That did not endear me.

Anyways, enjoy the new fridge. I'm sure you'll see a good drop in your bill, even with some of the lowest rates around.

Steven Alaska

"NightMist" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@news.madbbs.com...

I got kiri to run me out to buy a box of wood screws, and bought a refrigerator.

I just don't _do_ stuff like that!

But kiri wanted to go to the mall after I got the box of fasteners, and then bribed me with fish and chips when I didn't wanna (hate the mall, hate it hate it hate it!), so I went with her to get a game for her system that her mom was buying her. Then the game store was packed full of people, and I didn't want to wiggle around through one of those narrow little mall stores when it was crowded. Even though the counter girl was so awesome I could have just watched her all day, though kiri would probably slap me upside the head eventually. So avoiding the crowd and not wanting a flat side on my head, I toddled off to Sears to see if they had any thermostatic heating pads I could use to jump start germination on my pepper plants this year. (I am _not_ paying twice what they cost anywhere else for the privlege of buying one at a seed store.) I wandered past appliances where a fridge with a $350 price tag on the front caught my eye. They were having a sale (ending Saturday, that very day). So I looked at some of the sale models and found one that I liked going at $399. I didn't expect that! The seal on our fridge has been, I guess the right word would be "iffy", for some time now. You have to give the bottom of the door a push with your foot to make sure it is completely closed. Sometimes it drips too, but not always. Lately it has taken to sticking at the top when you open it. The darn thing is a 16 ft^3 jobby from the 70's, and it is AVOCADO (ew). So long as it worked I didn't so much mind that it was weeny and the color of old pickles, but lately I have been worried about it. So a quick trip home, a confab amongst the adults, and we went and bought the darned thing. I really was not keen on a Kenmore appliance, but I called the store and made the guy tell me who made it. It is really a Frigidare, so that is not so bad.

This is wierd. I have never had a _new_ new fridge before. My first one was so old it had a pilot light (really and for true). I am going to be curious what the difference is on the electric bill. It has wierd fancy stuff, like humidity controled crisper drawers and junk. So long as it doesn't drip into the crisper drawers I count it as good (I hate when the outgoing one does that) Being able to put the milk in the door shelf as god intended is good enough for me. :)

They are going to bring it around on Thursday. And no, Sears doesn't have heating pads anymore. They said to check K-Mart because that is where stuff like that goes now.

NightMist has cookstove money set aside, but is still looking for one without electronic stuff on it.

I've never heard of that either, and we've had a few new ones. Doesn't make much sense to me. Gen