In 1999, Mr. Wonderful and I sold our tiny townhouse in New
York City and bought a single family home in the Hudson Valley. When I say our
townhouse was tiny I’m not kidding. The entire property plot was 23 feet by 36
feet. That included the footprint of the house. We were so excited to be able
to buy ourselves a home; a place of our own, where we could raise our kids and
be a family. Before we closed on the house we had already outgrown it. It was a
two bedroom house and we were expecting baby #3.
We made it work for years. You can get away with a lot when
your kids are little. Our oldest was going on eleven and we knew we needed to
upsize. We also knew that was going to be a challenge. Mr. Wonderful would have
to drive to the city, every day, so the final say was his. The last thing I
wanted was a miserable husband who resented us because of his situation. If we
weren’t all going to be happy there, it wasn’t the right house for us.
We did find a nice house, good schools, nice neighbors, and
commutable to the city. It was in pretty good shape but no one updated the
interior since the house was built in the 1970s. We made that work too. Little
by little I removed ugly wallpaper and wood paneling. If you don’t have the
money for renovations, paint is a good way to go.
The one thing that I absolutely despised was the double oven range. I cook every day. I make all our food from scratch and when the kids were little I was baking muffins and things several times a week. That range was a nightmare to use. It took up too much room in an already tiny kitchen. The top oven burned everything and overhung the range top in such a way that I could only use small pots on the back burners. It was so unnecessarily complicated that to get the bottom oven to work required three different knobs. So aggravating! Our first Thanksgiving dinner was two hours late because I didn’t actually turn the oven on when I thought I did.
We didn’t have the money to replace it so I adjusted to that awful range and made it work for the next bunch of years.
If Mr. Wonderful and I are anything it’s practical. We made a list of all the things the house needed. We prioritized and slowly worked our way through it. Five kids, one salary, new house, money was tight. When I say slowly I mean slowly. One day, while out with Mr. Wonderful, he took me to an appliance store. I thought we were just going to see what sorts of things were available and what they cost. You know, window shopping. No, he had brought me there to buy a new stove. I nearly cried. He had been planning this for ages. He squirreled away a portion of his cash every week for nearly a year so we could buy it outright. It was so sweet. I picked out a nice, simple, single oven range and by the end of that week the worst thing in my house was gone.
I don’t think any other gift has ever made me happier.
It’s not just that the oven was something I really wanted.
It was that my husband went out of his way to make it happen for me without me
ever asking him to. It was on our list and would have eventually been dealt
with but he didn’t want me to have to wait. That thoughtfulness and care made a
mundane thing like an oven incredibly romantic.
If you follow me on Instagram or are friends with me on
Facebook then you know that first thing Saturday morning I accidentally knocked
a mug off a shelf and couldn’t catch it in time. Instead of smashing itself on
the floor, the mug crashed into the oven door glass and shattered it into a
thousand pieces. I was a bit more upset about it than I expected I would be. I
actually have a sentimental attachment to this oven. The repairman will call me
sometime today with the cost to repair it and I really hope it’s not too much.
