Summer 2012

Our summer has been surprisingly eventful, particularly toward the end.  In July, we went on a vacation to the Washington coast with Stephen's parents and alllllll his siblings, including Mary and Tim and their two little ones, and also Cari's boyfriend, Eric.  We just spent a week at a resort town in the process of development, walking on the beach, hanging out and playing games at the house, swimming in the pool and relaxing in the hot tub.  We each took turns cooking dinner.  We had some very tasty steak-and-veggie kabobs by Cari and Eric, a yummy Mexican meal by Tim and Mary, and Stephen and I made spaghetti.  It was a very relaxing, laid-back vacation all together.


Shortly after the family vacation, Stephen shot his first paid wedding gig.  There is a lot invested in wedding days, so he was under a lot of stress leading up to the wedding day, and also some in the photo editing phase as well.  But he finished it, and the couple was very, very pleased with the photos, for which we are very thankful.


In August, one of my college friends got married, so I flew down to Idaho and stayed with my aunt, uncle, and cousin and attended Mindy's wedding, which was butterfly garden themed--very pretty!  They put a lot of humorous personal touches to their ceremony and the reception was one big, fun party, complete with a photo booth and props. :)  I got to catch up with some old friends and meet some new ones and had a really good weekend all together.  I am really glad I got to go.

My car's A/C stopped working sometime earlier this year, and we finally took it to get checked out in August, and found out we had to get a new part and the whole thing had to be reassembled.  God graciously provided the money for us, and we fixed it toward the end of August. In the same month, I had to get a new car key, because the buttons on my remote-entry car key didn't work anymore!  And today I got into a rear-end car accident (I was rear-ended by a car who was rear-ended by a car), but I'm not hurt at all and the damage to my car is very minimal.  The accident was not my fault at all, so insurance will be taking care of everything.

We've had an Indian summer this September, with temperatures in the high 80s and 90s.  I think the weather is trying to make up for the very cold and dark beginning of summer we had!  For now I am totally okay with sunshiny weather....I know those cold dark days are coming again!


Our church got a new music pastor, an answer to prayer after 3 years of searching for the right person.  Our church is now able to do so much more music-wise than we were before, because our temporary worship leader was doing so much other work in his position as Communications Director.  Now at our women's Bible study, Mark (the new worship pastor) comes and leads us in worship with a guitar, and we don't have to sing off a CD!  I am especially thankful for that.

Another answer to prayer is that Stephen got a nice raise this year, and we are so grateful for God's provision there!  Now it is actually a possibility for us to move into a bigger apartment, although we won't be taking advantage of that just yet.  For now it does ease up our budget some, and we'll hopefully be able to start putting more money toward debt repayment.

Overall, I think this year has been an incredible year of growth for us and our marriage.  I've grown in my faith in leaps and bounds, and as I've spiritually matured, I'm maturing in other ways.  Praise God for His faithfulness!  I sense good changes coming up for us.  I'm hoping to find my niche in the church we attend, although I'm not sure what that is yet.  And Stephen will be leading our regular small group Bible study again.  This year we will probably be going through 1 Corinthians to go along with our pastor's sermon series. You can pray for us through that.  We want to help our fellow brothers and sisters deepen their faith, as many of them are new Christians or just aren't sure how to grow deeper.  So you can be praying especially for Stephen as he bears the responsibility of teacher, and for me as I try to figure out where I fit into the mix.

Those are the biggest pieces of news.  Thank you for your prayers and your support!  You don't know how much it helps. :)

Domestically Challenged

This is the story of me attempting a new quiche recipe tonight:

At the grocery store.  What is WITH my cart?!  It's making sounds like it is grinding rocks into sand!!  HOW AWKWARD!!  Stupid cart-grinder haunted me the entire 20 minutes I was in the store.

 That's just the beginning.

Didn't know the difference between the creams.  Recipe called for "light cream"; I picked up whipping cream?  (My logic: Well, it doesn't say "light," but it doesn't say "heavy" like the one next to it!)  Wasn't sure how much was required so I bought the pint just to be safe.

Bought fully-cooked bacon to save myself some trouble.

At home.  Didn't double-check the amount of ingredients to add.

Heat up the oven to 425 degrees.

Minced an entire onion to DEATH, bound and determined to prove to myself that I can MINCE an onion!  I still didn't do it to my satisfaction, nonetheless...

Started sprinkling it into the pie pan.

Realized that is WAY THE HECK too much onion!!  Shook my head at the insanity of the onion-loving people who write these recipes.

Decided to use the second pie crust (WHY do they sell them only in twos??!?!!) and just make two quiches.  I sure hope we like this recipe, because we're going to have a TON of it!

Tried to chop up already-cooked bacon, which was not nearly crisp enough to be chopped.  Decided to just tear every piece by hand.  Sprinkled half in one pie pan, half in the other.  Knew it wasn't enough bacon per quiche, but decided it would just have to do.

Went back to the recipe.

Realized it only called for ONE THIRD OF AN ONION!!!!  Not an entire onion!!!

Scooped out as much onion as I could without scooping out all the bacon.  Realize the dough is getting way too soft because it's sitting on top of our oven, which is preheated by now.

Decided to start the filling part.  Vaguely worry if we have enough eggs for two quiches.  Find that we have exactly 8, which is exactly what is needed.  Hallelujah!  Cracked the eggs in a big bowl.

Went back to the recipe.

Realized it called for TWO CUPS of cream!  That's all I had!

Frantic, stressed-out trying to figure out how to substitute because I'm already late and SO do not want to make another trip to Freddy's. Plus, now I had eight eggs not being refrigerated and two crusts threatening to melt on me!

And I wasn't even sure if I had the right cream!

Quick computer research to see if anything substitutes for light cream (thank You, God, for the Internet!).  Decided that trying to melt butter was too much work.  Quick computer research to see what light cream actually is.  Half and half?  Whoops!  Oh well.  I'm sure a little extra creaminess will do no harm to this quiche.

So I have to go back to the store.  What to do about the partially-filled melting crusts and the perishing eggs?

Shove things aside in the fridge and put in the bowl of eggs.

Carefully balance two crusts in our over-full freezer.  :S

Turn off oven.  No fires for my apartment, thank you very much!

Back at the grocery store.  Run in, grab a pint of half-and-half, use the self-check, run out.

Back at home.  Turn oven back on.  Pull out crusts (thank You, God, that they didn't fall out of the freezer onto the floor) and eggs.  Pour cream and half and half into bowl of eggs.  Add salt, sugar, cayenne pepper.  Attempt to whisk.  My arm!!

Take a knife to both cheeses, guesstimating how much of a chunk I'm going to need to make 1 c. of each kind.  Grate, grate, grate, grate!!  Dumped a chunk of swiss cheese on the floor.  Used up the rest of the small pack of swiss--just barely enough for a cup!

Sprinkled in cheese.

Used a measuring cup to dole in cream mixture.  Didn't use it all because they would've overflowed!!

Carefully. Carefully.  Carefully.  Place both quiches in oven.

PHEW!!!

Epic conclusion to the story:
I dropped one of the quiches SPLAT on the oven door as I was trying to pull it out.

Sigh.

It had to be coming, right?

Perfect Quiche

Unlucky Quiche

Summer 2011 Update

Babies all around me! I have officially reached the stage of life where most of my friends are pregnant or new moms. Two of the couples in our small group had babies in the late winter, and the third couple is expecting in early to mid-September. We aren't entirely sure what is going to become of our group as the couples in it move to the next stage of life. My best friend is also expecting her first child in early October. I will hopefully get to see her in August when she has one of her baby showers!

Our own lives seem to be on hold until we reach a better financial position. We hear in August whether Stephen will be receiving a raise at his current job. I still work one day a week, Saturday, delivering flowers. I still love my job, but continue to look around for another part-time position that could fill my days and help with bills and saving up for a house.

Speaking of saving, I've begun saving up for an electric piano that regularly comes out toward the end of the year at CostCo. I took a fantastic piano workshop course that taught how to play the piano with chords instead of reading notes on a page--something I've been really anxious to learn since watching a college classmate play piano with a jazz band like it was nothing at all. I go up to my mom's to practice on her piano, but I can't wait until I have an electric piano of my own! I love to play the piano, even though I hate it when people listen...LOL. :)

My sister continues to serve the country on the east coast of the U.S., logging away airplane parts for the record books. She's also taking some dance classes. She's doing well, with the exception of some medical problems that keep surfacing. She's looking at deployment next year, which makes us nervous, of course...But we have to learn to trust God with our loved ones.

It's been a ridiculously cold and gray spring/summer on the west coast. We haven't had more than seven days above 70, and April and March were way wetter than normal. My husband keeps telling me summer never officially starts here until July 5th, but I sure am tired of the gray.

Stephen and I are part of the Marriage Ministry Team of our church, and we just put on a really fun murder mystery dessert theatre-- set in the wild, wild west! I got to play Annie Elmley, a sharpshooting cowgirl. I could almost have been the murderer, but it turned out to be the most seemingly innocuous character there! Isn't that always how it goes? :)

In the meantime, I continue to learn more and more about the Gospel. Did you know that the heart of the Gospel is simply Jesus' substitutionary sacrifice on the Cross? That that is how God dealt with His wrath against us for our sins? When I learned the truth of this, I was floored at the simplicity. I think I thought the Gospel was to be a good person to please God, and that Jesus somehow mysteriously enables us to do that. That is true, too, but it isn't the heart of the Gospel! Christianity is not about being a good person, but about the One who took our punishment.

I was part of a Women's Bible Study this winter/spring. I got to meet a lot of neat women at my church and am thankful to know more faces and names and personalities there. Countryside is a medium-big church and it's hard to get to know people unless you get involved. I'll be doing another women's Bible study this summer, led by our assistant pastor's wife in their home. We will be learning about a woman's identity in Christ and how it works out in her everyday life.

Stephen and I will also be official members of Countryside in the next month. We are thankful that we have found a good church to be a part of and get involved with.

New Year 2011

Well, we've gotten our new year off to a good start. We joined an 8-week Sunday night Bible study called "God's Big Picture." I also joined the women's mid-week Bible study at our church. We'll be going through Beth Moore's "Living Beyond Yourself" study until June. Our small group starts tonight, and we'll be taking them through a great study called A Biblical Portrait of Marriage. Stephen and I have been through it once before, but it will be new to our group. And I think it will be as helpful to them in their marriages as it was to ours.

The start of the new year also means dental work for me, usually, and this year has proved no different. Today I had a root canal re-treatment done on a tooth that was treated once before, but apparently the bacteria were never fully eliminated. The endodontist packed medication and antibiotics into my tooth today and we are hoping to see the infection disappear over the next week so she can refill the canals and I can get a new crown put on it. (The current crown is about 5 years old and in need of replacement.)

The root canal re-treatment and new crown will wipe out our benefits once more, so next year when our benefits roll over, we'll probably be doing this again, on a tooth on the upper left part of my mouth. It's the same situation: a failed root canal treatment in need of a redoing.

God was gracious to us today--we were worried that the tooth they worked on was cracked, and the good news today was that it wasn't cracked. So praise Him for that! A cracked tooth would have meant an extraction, and a replacement tooth costs about $6000! But He has provided for us once again and will continue to do so. I am thankful that the other tooth that needs working on is not bothering me much.

Well, that's all the news for now. I'm pleased that the year is getting off to a pretty good start. Praise the Lord for his goodness!

CHRISTMAS!

I am super excited about Christmas this year. I'm not sure if it's that we are planning on going to my grandparents' for Christmas, or if it's hoping that Christmas will be make up for a less-than-awesome rest of the year, or if it's the uplifting feeling of solidification in our marriage, or if it's a change in heart. But I'm really ready to decorate up for Christmas, light candles, drink spiced drinks, and let the lights of a Christmas tree reflecting in glass ornaments bedazzle me.

I've spent the last three or so years in deep cynicism and I think this year God has renewed my innocence and my childlike faith. I worry a bit that it'll go away again sometimes, but when I don't think about it, I simply dwell in peaceful joy of trust. I wish I had more moments like this across my lifetime. But for now I am so glad that God has brought me to this place of renewal.

And I Thought My Life Was Boring!

Well, THAT was exciting!!!

I was calmly sitting in the office, working on a special Christmas scrapbooking project. I was about to place a sticker down on a page when I heard feet scrambling up our staircase, a frantic hammering on our door and a muffled exclamation I almost couldn't make out. But after a second the words registered in my mind: "FIRE! GET OUT!"

I am slightly embarrassed to admit that no clear thoughts went through my head. I went into total panic. Paper pad and sticker in hand, my brain checked out and sheer survival mode kicked in. "What?!" I shouted to the door as I ran to it. "Where?!" As I opened it, I heard the manager say, "Over there!" Somewhere in the back of my brain, I noted the irony of seeing my manager clopping as fast as she could down the stairs in her suit jacket, pencil skirt and heels to go evacuate the other apartment dwellers, looking pretty panicked herself. Then I glanced to the right and saw a wall of orange flames leaping up from the front of one of the garages next to our apartment building. It felt like that moment in movies where you see a close-up of a terrified stare and the blazing fire reflecting in it.

I tore around the apartment trying to make sense of what to do. I still had a sticker on my hand and I couldn't pick anything up with that hand until I found somewhere to put the sticker down, and I couldn't just throw it away because it was the only one I had in that color and I NEEDED to put it on the paper, but I couldn't think straight enough to find the right spot in this state, so I ended up just plopping the paper pad down on the kitchen table and sticking the sticker on a receipt next to it. In my mind I had images of flames jumping from a tree to a house, or in this case a garage to a house, and my only thought was, "GET OUT!" I grabbed just my jacket and my purse and ran out the door, only thinking to grab my keys at the last minute because they were hanging on their hook next to the door. And then for some stupid reason I locked the door behind me. But the last image I had was Genevieve staring at me as I went out the door. And it suddenly dawned on me that if I left Genevieve in there and our house caught on fire--this thought was interrupted by a sudden flash of logic which cut my panic down to size. The fire trucks and fire fighters were already here and already dousing the fire and it was nowhere near enough to the apartment to catch it on fire, and the wind was blowing the other direction.

My thoughts started making more sense, but I was still shaken up. If I wasn't in danger, should I go back into the apartment? But the manager had told us to get out. And dozens of families were standing outside their apartments. She probably didn't want us back in until it was under control. That made sense anyway.

I called Stephen's cell. He didn't answer, so I called his work number, praying he would answer. Thankfully, he did. I watched the thick, billowing smoke and couldn't even think how to begin for a moment. Finally I told him everything that had happened so far--the knock on the door, seeing the fire, grabbing my coat and purse. "Did you grab anything else?" he asked.

"No," I said. "Not even Genevieve!" And then I just rambled to him, processing out loud. "Should I go back in and get things? It's not reaching over to our apartment."

"Maybe our laptops, and the network drive," said Stephen.

We talked for several minutes as I watched the fire being taken under control. Our neighbor with the 5 kids went back into the house at one point briefly, and came back out with her children's jackets. I agreed to get the laptops and network drive out of the house and just at least put them in our car.

At one point, I finally said, "I wish you were here." Stephen said he could probably call his boss and explain the situation and ask if he could come home, at least temporarily. That sounded good to me. "I'll call you back," Stephen said and we hung up.

A minute later he called. "I'm coming home!" he announced.

After we hung up again, I decided to go get the computers and network drive. It was more out of a kind of follow-through with what I said, though, because by now the fire was out and there was just smoke. It was a little scary being in the apartment--I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be or not, and it made me nervous not being able to see the fire through to its bitter end and make SURE it was out. I didn't want to stay in there, not knowing, for long.

People were still standing outside, watching. I watched with them as the firefighters came around the back of the garage with a chainsaw and some picks and things. They sawed open the back of the garage and took it off in pieces. Everybody got closer, LOL. One of my neighbors had gotten out his digital camera and was taking pictures. Several people were taking cell phone shots.

We were already losing daylight, but I could see the remains of a charred car in there. Smoke still swirled up at the top of the roof. One little boy called out to a little girl asking what happened. I wish I could have understood what she said, but all I caught was, "He got burned here," and saw the girl gesture to her left forearm.

Stephen finally arrived and we stood watching the excitement for a few minutes. A little smoke still swirled out, but the firemen were cleaning up. I wasn't ready to go into the apartment until I heard it was okay, so Stephen and I asked a fireman as he rolled up the fire hose. "Yeah, the apartments are fine," said the fireman confidently. "You can go back in." Phew!!

Stephen left shortly afterward. I brought back in the laptop and network drive, still a little nervous about doing so. I'll tell you one thing I learned from this experience. We are NOT prepared in any way for the event of a real fire on our house. When Steve and I were on the phone, we talked about writing up a 5-step plan or something to help us get what's important out of the house if it does catch on fire. And I also learned that I really need to clean up, because it was extremely difficult to run around and get anything done or even get TO the important stuff with the current state of our house. Scary! So maybe this was a little extra motivation from God to get my house cleaned up. :) And also extra motivation for fire safety... I will never doubt Stephen again when he tells us to keep things away from the baseboards!

The Price of a Microwave

How many Wal-Mart employees does it take to find the price of one microwave oven?

Let me tell you a story.

Back story: Our microwave went kaput last week. I did tons of research to see where the best place was to get microwaves at the lowest prices, and what were the best brands to get. Walmart had tons of reviews on many of its microwaves, and a lot of them had 5 stars. The best reviewed microwaves that were in our price range were Osters, Panasonics, and GEs. The worst reviews were on Emersons.

So with this knowledge in hand, Stephen and I drove to the nearest, safest Walmart, 17 miles away.

We found our way to the microwave aisle and all we saw on the price tags of the display items and the boxes below the display shelf were Emersons. However... On the display shelf, without a price tag, a UPC tag, a box, or any indication that the store even carried the brand anymore, was one Oster microwave.

I wanted that one, of course. But we wanted to know the price first. For that, we'd have to find a customer service representative.

...Right. Because Walmart has such a stellar track record for customer service.

Thankfully, we heard walkie-talkies bleeping nearby. So Stephen followed his ears and chased down 3 employees (employees #1, 2 and 3) pushing 2 carts that had two very large, heavy-looking objects in them. "Excuse me," said my ever-considerate husband. "We need some help finding a price on a microwave."

The three of them looked at us for a blank moment, and then one finally said, "We'll call someone for you."

Uh-huh.

30 seconds later we heard the announcement over the intercom: "Customer Service Representative in or near the housewares department to the microwave aisle for customer assistance please." Not bad response time... At least to call somebody...

Minutes went by.

Nobody came.

So I went off to find somebody, anybody. After traversing several aisles, I snagged an employee (person #4) as soon as he stopped talking to a customer, and asked him if he could help us in the microwave aisle, or call somebody who could. "I'll call someone," he said. So again we hear over the intercom: "Customer Service Representative in or near the housewares department to the microwave aisle for customer assistance please." Surely two calls would do it.

Minutes went by.

No one came.

So Stephen and I decided that if they can't come to the microwave aisle, we'll bring the microwave to them. We took the microwave we wanted off the display shelf and plopped it into our cart and rolled it over to Electronics. We explained the situation to a lady (employee #5) behind the Electronics desk. When it became known that we had taken a demo off the shelves, she said very sternly, "We do not sell our demos." Stephen and I were slightly chagrinned, until she added, "Unless we no longer carry the product anymore."

Stephen asked matter-of-factly, "Well! Can you tell us, then, if you still carry the product or not?" (I am so thankful for my straightforward, quick-thinking husband! :D )

"Well, I'll have to scan it to find out," she said. Stephen explained to her that there was nothing to scan. There was no tag on the product, as we had just shown her. There was no way of identifying the product.

Not so easily persuaded, she came out of her little stand, walked all 15 feet to the microwave aisle, and took a look at where our microwave had been.

Immediately, she picked up the price tag that was under where our microwave had been sitting and began to scan it. Even though it clearly said Emerson, and we had already clearly told her that our microwave was an Oster. I took the liberty of re-explaining to her: "That price tag is for an Emerson microwave. Ours is an Oster. There is not a single Oster to be found anywhere else in the entire aisle."

Surprised, she stepped back and surveyed the products. "Oh--oh!" she said. "I see your frustration!" She then proceeded to search again all over the microwave for a UPC tag of any kind. "Oh wow," she said when she finally decided for herself that there was, in fact, no tag at all. "I'm afraid I can't help you with that, if there's no tag. I'll have to call a manager."

So off she went to find a manager. Well, at least she was going to get somebody to help.

More minutes waiting.

Aaaaand more minutes.

It was a good thing Stephen and I were in unusually patient and good-humored moods today. :) (Honestly, I think it had something to do with me deciding not to work Mondays anymore, so we could have our Mondays back together.)

Finally, a girl wandered into our aisle (employee #5), presumably the employee finally responding to the two original calls for help in the microwave aisle. She also checked all over the microwave for a UPC tag, and then repeated what the lady had said: "I can't help you if there's no tag. I'll have to find a manager." We explained to her that the other lady was already off finding us a manager. So she went off, but soon she was back with the electronics lady. They stood looking at the microwave, perplexed, talking amongst themselves while we watched.

Then a young man came over (employee #6). He was about 30, with 3 days' growth of facial hair and no teeth. Or very few teeth. He never opened his mouth far enough for me to find out, but he spoke with his lips curled in a bit as if he had no teeth.

The other employees recapped him on the incident, and his intelligent response was: "Wow, I have no idea how to handle that." So the five of us stood looking at the microwave, until the lady and the girl left again. The guy hung around, and started talking about how factories sell the same product under different labels. "I think this one also sells under Sunbeam label," he told us. And he left momentarily to check his knowledge, but when he came back, his conclusion was, "Nope, totally different product."

The women still weren't back. Apparently he thought his job was to entertain customers until real help was finally brought. He entertained us with a riveting speech on how he learned from somebody that at the Del Monte factory, they stop in the middle of processing, switch the labels to Western Family labels, and then restart processing. Same product, different labels. "You really do pay for the name," he said. Wise man.

He dilly-dallied around some more until the women reentered, with yet another employee in tow (employee #7). Apparently he took that as his cue to go "entertain" some other customer. The new employee was dressed in a nice shirt and black pinstripe pants. Ahhh, here is the real manager! "Sorry, I just came in from lunch...," she apologized. Then she and the other women stood looking at the microwave, contemplating how they were going to find out which microwave it was, when Stephen finally opened up the microwave, pulled out the user manual, and said, "Perhaps you could try looking it up by model number?"

Lightbulbs. "Ohh! Yeah, we could do that..." The manager explained that the employees would have to go to a computer in the back room to look up the model and find the UPC code. The manager left to go put her stuff away, while the girl and the lady wandered around to the other side of the shelf. We heard the lady saying distractedly, "We'll have to find another product of the same brand, another Emerson."

Um, it was Oster?

Stephen and I continued listening as the two of them rounded the aisle, talking. I must've heard Emerson three times before the lady finally caught herself: "I mean--what was it? Not Emerson. Oyster. Oyster. We've got to find another Oyster product..."

She kept saying "Oyster" until her voice faded away.

More minutes.

The manager and the girl returned, separately. The girl told her manager she had found the microwave, and that it cost $85, and the manager asked, "Did you write down the number?"

"No," said the girl.

Sigh.

Off she went to go find the UPC number again.

The manager stayed only long enough to tell us that we would get a discount on the microwave, and then left us alone again in the microwave aisle.

Stephen and I were still, amazingly, in good humor about this, just snickering at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. But our legs were tired by now. Since Walmart was being ridiculous anyway, we decided to add to the ridiculousness. And sat down on the floor to wait.

At last, the girl returned, with the UPC code in hand. "Sorry about the wait," she apologized. "Will you guys take it for $49?" she asked us.

Even with all the drama and absurdity, I thought $49 was a pretty awesome price to pay for a $85 microwave! I agreed, but probably a little too quickly....Whoops. Stephen was more hesitant. "Will we be able to return it if it breaks?" he asked wisely.

"No," said the girl. "Since we don't carry it anymore, we can't take it back."

"What if it's dead on arrival?" Stephen asked.

"No," said the girl firmly. "We can't accept returns on discontinued items."

"Can we at least check and see if it works?" Stephen asked.

I would never have thought to ask that question. I'm glad he did, though. The girl seemed surprised, but the answer was not "no."

"Um, yeah, if you can just find an outlet--I think there's one over here," she said. She led us around a corner to a display shelf with outlets cleverly tucked behind it, out of sight. I had NO idea that stores would let you do that kind of thing. But she waited while we cleared off the shelf, put up the microwave, and plugged it in. Stephen put his lukewarm coffee into the microwave for one minute. We three calmly waited for all of 35 seconds, and then he pulled out the coffee to test it. It was warm enough that when he took the lid off it steamed up his glasses.

"Okay, we'll take it," we said. We unplugged it, redid the shelf, and plopped the microwave back into our cart.

The drama didn't quite end there. LOL. When we got up to the register, with our handwritten UPC code, we announced to the cashier, "You get us! We're fun!"

I loved her response, a very good-natured, "Good! I like fun." Haha!

And sure enough, it was indeed "fun"! She punched in the code. "Item not found" read the digital sign above the cash register. "Is that a zero or a 6?" she asked us.

"Well--I guess you can just try both until one works," I helpfully suggested.

She tried it again. "Item not found." Again. "Item not found." She tried about 3 more times until one finally worked. "Digital Oven - $49.00" the sign read. "Yaaayy!" we all cheered. (Okay, just I cheered. :) ) We paid for it and as we started to walk away, the cashier said, still in good spirits, "You're right! That was fun!"

So our crazy experience ended on a good note. :D And we now have a microwave that turns on AND heats up our food. Woohoo!

And if it breaks, well, we'll just have to call Oster.

Thank you, Walmart, for your stellar customer service. We now know that the price of a microwave is 7 employees (8, including the cashier!), an hour of our time, a no-return policy, and a discount because you are absolutely ridiculous.