Power Surges? Really?

Well, we've had a rough go of it as far as major appliances go the past few years.  When we moved here from Los Lunas, we used the refrigerator from Los Lunas in our house.  We put an old refrigerator that we had used in our shed in Los Lunas (which was old when we got it from a guy from Dad's office).  We also bought a new freezer for the garage a couple of weeks after we got here.  One of Dad's Albuquerque clients raised us a beef, so we needed a place to keep it.  We also had a pretty old dishwasher when we moved here.  When Steve and Dad replaced the kitchen floor, they bought a new dishwasher and put it in.  That was about 7 1/2 years ago.

Well, about three years ago, the old refrigerator in the garage gave out, so we bought a new one for the kitchen, and put that old one in the garage.  Dad was able to resurrect the one that gave out for awhile longer, so we had two in the garage along with the freezer.  Eventually that one died, and we got rid of it.  Since we were down a few kids here at home, we thought we could live just fine with one in the garage.  Well, the old one in the garage died shortly after that, so we got a new one for the garage--not fancy, but it filled our needs.  The the new one in the house died.  The repair man said never get a GE, because they die young, and the parts are so expensive it's not worth it to have them repaired.  We got another new one for the house (which, by the way, we like a lot better.)

A couple of weeks ago, the one in the garage died.  We hadn't even had it two years yet.  We went back to the place we got it and found out the compressor was still under warantee, but it would take several weeks to get it fixed.  We went ahead and bought a new one.  If and when the other one gets fixed, we will either sell it or give it away.  We couldn't wait that long without it.  We would have lost a lot of stuff.  However, when we bought this one, the guy at the appliance place asked if we had all our appliances on surge protectors.  He said the newer appliances that have  computers and fancy switches in them are especially sensitive to power surges, and he had  a good idea from the way ours all died, that that could be a problem.  We put the refrigerators and freezers on power surge protectors, but we didn't think about the dishwasher.

Putting in the new dishwasher--one good thing--I replaced the shelf paper in those bottom cupboards!

Adding the finishing touches.

Needless to say, the dishwasher has been having some major difficulties with it's computerized switching for the last few weeks.  Finally, it decided it was easier to give up the ghost rather than to live on that way.  Yesterday we got a new dishwasher and Dad installed it.  It's up and going, and happily, it is on a surge protector.   Moral of the story--get all major appliances on a surge protector...  soon!

The new refrigerator in the garage.

On a more exciting note--Starla and Jarom had their baby girl this past week.  Her name is Evanie.  I'm not exactly sure how to pronounce that.  They've posted some pictures of her on facebook.  She's adorable.

Starla's new baby daughter.

This is a picture they posted of her on facebook.  She was only one day old!  She's sure a beautiful baby!