Whew. I confess I sat in bed last night, constantly refreshing my Twitter feed to see what was happening with the vote on health care. All I could think of last night was the very real chance that millions of people were going to lose healthcare. I couldn’t shake it. I was up far too late but gave in to sleep before it all happened. And I had indigestion because Don tried a new recipe which took far too long to prepare and we didn’t eat until 9 pm.
So. With not enough sleep, Cranky Claudia arose this morning, afraid to check Twitter. Fortified by the first sips of a cup of coffee, I saw the news. Thank goodness! Thank you Democrats, John McCain, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins! For the rest of you who voted for it?
2018 is coming.
Thank you, thank you for all of your comments on yesterday’s post! I have the best readers and believe me, I never take you for granted. Your support, your enthusiasm and your wisdom really helped. I read many of them to Don. By mid-afternoon, I had Don call Antique Stove Heaven to check on the cost of a double oven (though I knew we’d be fine without one) and the additional $1500 or so that it added to the cost of the one we were seriously considering gave us our answer. We’re going with the one in the photo.
We’re buying it!!
I transferred the money for the down payment yesterday and today I’ll call and make the payment over the phone. And then they’ll make sure everything is tip-top, convert it to propane, figure out the shipping cost, etc. At some point, it will start the trek to our little cottage.
On one level, it’s scary for us to spend this much money. I wake up in the morning thinking “What the heck (actually, I use another word) are we doing?” On the other hand, we’re really excited.
I read an article that really helped us make the decision. It’s older – it was published on Slate in 2009, but it really hit home for me. Especially since the writer used Antique Stove Heaven and had the stove shipped to Manhattan. If you’re interested, here it is.
Can you see a tiny glass vase full of flowers on that shelf above the stove? I can.
I did a ton of weeding yesterday. I also cut back lots of brambles. I was tuckered out by mid-afternoon. But it looks better out there.
Again. Thank you. I love you all. You have been such a source of support for me through good times and bad and I bow to your wisdom and kindness and compassion.
Much love from Don and me.
Happy Friday.
Oh my goodness, I am so excited for you both! It is such s cute stove and will look even cuter in your home.
Hope the wait is not too long!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Thank you so much, Debbie!
Congratulations! You will love it.
We can’t stop talking about it. Now we just have to be patient and wait!
Good day, Claudia!
We have that exact stove. I wanted one for years and found one in great shape in San Fran (as you say they’re mostly on the West Coast), for an excellent price on ebay, found a nearby restorer, and had it refurbished. I love it every day!
We have natural gas, so needed no conversion. Because it gets so hot here, and also not to waste fuel constantly with a pilot light, we prefer to turn burners on manually and light with a flint sparker, and the restorer did that.
We found a shipper that was almost a thousand dollars less than the shipper the restorer used, and were happy with them: Plycon.
We’ve never used the griddle and do not miss a second oven. There’s a great blog by a clever and inventive woman who restored her own OK& M http://desiredcreations.com/Misc_OkeefeMerritt.htm
You won’t regret it, is my bet.
Thank you so much, Cara! It’s so good to talk to someone who has this stove. I think we’ll be okay with the pilot lights as we live in the chilly/cold Northeast. I saw Desiree’s blog the other day and I now I will have to sit down and read it because I could tell she has valuable information there. So excited!
Cara, I notice the back two burners have a solid section as opposed to the front two. Are they for slow cooking? Not sure about them and any tips you have would be appreciated.
Not Cara but my Wedgewood has the solid grates on the two back burners and I use them for slow cooking. On mine the grates can be flipped from front to back so if I have a particularly large pot I want to simmer I can do it on one of the front burners.
I am so happy for you and Don! You are going to love it.
You might get a kick out of this – I made a mini Wedgewood for my dollhouse. Not exactly a true replica but close enough for the effect I was going.
Ah. Thank you Andrea. That helps. That was my thought but I wasn’t sure.
I have an AGA in my dollhouse! Do you have a photo of your mini Wedgewood? Sure would love to see it!
I just “liked” a photo of Andrea Jane’s mini Wedgewood on Instagram!
I just saw it myself! It’s adorable!
I asked Desiree that exact question about the burners and here is her reply:
“And yes, the solid grates are for simmering. If you were to set a large pot of soup on the simmer grate and set the burner so only the simmer burner was on, you could slow cook the soup all day long without burning it. :)
The main and simmer burners combined with the open and solid grates provides you with the maximum control of cooktop cooking.”
And you can switch the burners around, although that would mess up the “put it on the back burner” adage.
The burners have 2 rings of flames, one small one in the center, and a large one on the outside. You can adjust them as needed.
Thank you so much for that information, Cara. Much appreciated!
YES! YES! YES! for the stove, and YES! YES! YES! the the health care vote. I’m doing me a little dance this morning.
Me too!
Woo-hoo! I know it’s scary to spend a lot of money on an appliance, but this is something much more than “just an appliance”. It has history and class. It’s a work of art. I don’t think you will ever regret your decision. I can already picture it in your kitchen. It will be perfect. I had a feeling after reading all the comments on your last post, that you’d be “going for it”. :-)
Thank you Melanie! I think you’re right. It is a work of art and it’s also something we will use every day. xo
oh, that makes me happy for you and don. and the stove. :) meant to be, for sure!
any idea when your stove will arrive? hope it won’t take long before you do get to put a bud vase on that little shelf and enjoy cooking on that pretty stove.
hope your indigestion is gone by now and you two have a great weekend!
kathy in iowa
No ideas yet. I’m betting it will arrive while I’m in Hartford and I’ll have to finagle a day off because you can be darned sure I want to be there when it arrives!
Thrilled you are going for it! It will be the perfect fit for you, Don and your cottage. And I’m also relieved about the vote! Good news all around!! ;)
Good news most definitely! Thank you, Donnamae!
I am so pleased for you Claudia! This really is great – the stove I mean although the healthcare is of course great too – and you should do the things you want to do. After all you are only here once, time is marching on and you don’t have any children to leave stuff to so enjoy it yourself while you can. Plus with a stove like this I am sure that it will keep its value in any case! Sorry if that all sounds either bossy or depressing it isn’t meant to be, it just reflects my own feelings about my and my husbands situation and we are realising that we have to do the things that we want to and can do as and when we want and can do them because no one else is going to do them for us and we don’t have anyone to leave money to – children wise – so if we can afford it then why shouldn’t we go for it. You are buying a stove not doing something terrible. Anyway, sorry to put all of that on to you, it just came out, but I am going to leave it as my comment as I hope that you will understand that I mean this in a good way and wish you very well and your stove too! Do let us know how it goes and what it is like when you get it!! I am really pleased for you!!!
I totally agree. Why not? We’ve gone without for many, many years and it’s been fine. But this is a treat/present for both of us.
Happy Friday! What wonderful news on all fronts. I’m looking forward to seeing that beautiful ‘baby’ in your cottage kitchen. Now go and have a wonderful weekend.
I will. You, too, Cathy!
I was up so late, fell asleep and then woke up around 4am to the great news! Thank you to those who will stand up for what’s right! I am so concerned about the Trans issues right now as well.
The stove!! So excited you made the decision and I know you will love it. Hugs!!
I am very upset by the trans issues. But it looks like the military is defying him, which makes me happy. To use them as pawns in his crazed distractions is reprehensible.
I just hate when he refers to “my generals”. Sounds just like a banana republic, huh? May they continue to defy him.
Everything is ‘my’ with him. As if he is Emperor.
I can smell the fresh apple pie waking up the east coast.
Wait…is that a pumpkin pie?
Yes, I see the vase of sweet flowers. So nice.
You guys both work hard. You deserve this addition to your lovely cottage.
I’m excited for you!
Thank you so much, Monica! We called today and paid the down payment.
You’ll never regret it! Not only is it beautiful, it is soooo practical. NY winters can be brutal, power does go out, and you’ll still be able to cook and have heat! When I left NY for Florida, I made sure we got a gas stove. We don’t have snowstorms, but we do have hurricanes (I didn’t enjoy 7 days cooking with a charcoal grill). Enjoy it and never look back :)
Yes and you need power during those pesky hurricanes! Thanks so much, Lori!
Sometimes you just need to treat yourself to something special. The stove will look right at home in your cottage. I am awaiting some medical test results in the next few days but am determined to enjoy my weekend instead of worrying. Preparing food for 12 to 15 tomorrow as a housewarming gift for relatives. Staying busy and trying to keep positive. I hope you and Don have a lovely weekend.
Janie, I am thinking of you, my friend. Sending healing light and prayers your way.
Yes!!!on the vote. What is the hurray, even if Obamacare has problems this should have been a ” Dems let sit down and work this out’ no the republicans what it to be THEIR PLAN. I am so excited for you and Don about the stove. Spending a lot of money is always hard but last year we had a new roof ( $$$) put on. Really you cannot sit out front and admire a new roof like you can a stove. Let us know when it ships we can have a countdown to seeing the first photos of Don cooking.
It will be a while until it ships – probably a few weeks at least. Yes, you’re right. We can look at this expense and love seeing it every day.
I can hardly wait to see it in your kitchen!
Yes, I breathed a sigh of relief after the vote.
The word is that they are coming after Medicare next. I may not survive the stress from this group of nasty people.
We are coming for them in ’18!!!!!!
I feel like I’m in a constant state of stress. We all are, I think.
A perfect way to say it, Claudia. An epidemic of stress. Being on edge. Completely. I resent it, too! It makes me angry. And that’s not good for me or any of us. It would be worse to be indifferent, though.
We cannot be indifferent, but I resent all the crap this man has spewed in the last year and half – and before, frankly, as I’ve always found him detestable.
Now you’ve done it. I’ve fallen in love with a 1947 O’Keefe & Merritt 30″ stove pictured on the Dream Stoves site. I’d dared to look only because I just knew I’d never find a 30″! For now, it’s just a dream, if only because that particular stove is sold, but it’s a fun dream. As to the vote, I was awake because of a bit of extended-family turmoil. I got to see the vote and hear the cheer from the Democrats when John McCain made his thumb-down gesture with Senator McConnell facing him, arms folded and squared, and five or six other senators a little further away in a semi-circle, also trying to intimidate him. I know from my own experiences, including my own craniectomy, that physical infirmities can sometimes rob of us our strength to fight anything but the biggest and most important fights, so Senator McCain must have thought this was one of those. I and some of my friends had made calls all day yesterday with little hope that the “no” votes would prevail, and it was wonderful to see that we were wrong.
I bet you’ll find another 30″ Linda!
I didn’t see the film until today, but Don and I played it over and over again! Take that McConnell! And Cruz, etc.
Oh, and congratulations on your own purchase of an antique stove! I’m so happy for you!
Thank you Linda!
I’m so glad you decided to purchase the stove! I’m thinking about how cozy your kitchen will be with the new addition, particularly this winter. The warmth from the oven, the aroma of fresh baked goods…mmm
It will be awfully nice, that’s for sure!
Congratulations Claudia and Don. I m so excited for you and look forward to seeing photos when it arrives. Have a great week end.
Marilyn
Thank you so much, Marilyn!
You will get so much pleasure from cooking on the stove, as well as just looking at it!
We sure will, Wendy!
I’m sitting here with a huge smile on my face; I am so glad that you’ve shared the research (I read that article!!) and photos and decision about your wonderful new stove; it makes me happy; I feel really happy for both of you. Yes, it’s a big decision but you approached it with forethought; it’s a good investment.
On a much-less lighter note, my husband and I are finding our conversations drifting ‘way too much again into the sad state of American politics (due to one person who happens to be the top dude). I was very encouraged watching Rachel Maddow last night, though. She had on one of her usual very-knowledgeable guests who essentially said what my husband has been telling me since before the inauguration that the courts and our Constitution will protect us from a president who thinks he’s above the rule of law. (The conversation was centering around the FBI and what a president can and cannot do when it comes to the FBI.) I still can’t get over the Boy Scouts organization having to be put in the position of apologizing for their speaker. But, yes, I don’t always agree with him although he has my immense respect…for my whole adult life, always…as an American patriot/hero, God Bless John McCain who has been through ENOUGH hardship in his life, to now have to be starting serious and critical medical therapies for an aggressive form of brain cancer; prayers for him in the arduous journey ahead at age 80 (soon to turn age 81).
Wasn’t that article great? I read it out loud to Don because it answered some of the questions he had. He got a big grin on his face. That was it. We were done for!
McCain knew what he was doing and I think he had plotted it all out, including the first ‘yes’ on the vote, which took it to a place where it cannot be brought up again in the Senate for a long time because of his ‘no’ vote.
How embarrassing about the Boy Scouts and then inciting violence with the police yesterday. I despise him, Vicki.
My husband agrees, that McCain had a plan. He’s done some indepth reading on the subject.
Me too. I read a very good explanation of the whole thing and it all made sense.
That’s great news tonight Claudia and Don. You will not regret your decision and may even wonder later why it was so hard to make! It’s hard to part with a sum of money that is large but it truly will be an investment. Enjoy! X Chy
Don said we’re just moving our money from the bank to the stove. We’ll be able to look at it, appreciate it and know that it only gains in value.
Oh, Claudia, I am so very happy to hear that you did it!!! Yay! I can just imagine a post about a Winter day, and a nice pot of soup “on the back burner”, oh, and some cloud biscuits being baked! This is a wonderful gift to yourselves, and one you will use and enjoy every day.
I, too, woke up this morning and was afraid to turn on the news. We turned on Morning Joe at about 6:20 AM and I had tears in my eyes when I saw the news. Everything he said today was “THEY couldn’t get it through” ~ and if they had “won”, it would have been “I got it done”. It is astounding that this mess goes on and on and on. That Communications Director they are trying to hire is a horrible excuse for a human being. I have not often ever agreed with John McCain in politics, but he is an honorable and a heroic man. He proved it one more time last night. And with the firing which took place today ~~ well, the beat just continues to go on. And on. And on. I don’t think I have ever been this weary on a daily basis.
But your purchasing this stove makes me so very happy. It is in your “voice”, and I hope you know how happy all of us are for you!! ♡
Soup simmering on the burner. Biscuits in the oven!
Scaramucci is horrible. But he reflects Trump, doesn’t he? He’s like a mini Trump. McCain is my hero at the moment.
And now Scaramucci’s wife is leaving him, apparently making no question over her disdain for DT. (Although, of course, we shouldn’t believe everything we hear, right?) The degree of polarization is incredible: My cousin and her son (she’s nearing age 70 and he’s age 45; we’re speaking of mature people here), on opposite poles (she, in recent years of Indiana rather than her home state of California, unbendingly for DT & Pence…and her son vehemently against everything those two men stand for), have never spoken to each other from the day she stated on FB that she was a proud DT supporter…and this mother/son were close (he’s her firstborn); until she relocated East, she’d travel from another town here in SoCalif every week just to visit him and his young daughter and have some quality ‘grandma/mom’ time with them. It’s tragic, for all of them. A lose-lose-lose. It’s deeper than ‘basic’ politics; it’s about core values if nothing else. I don’t know if this particular family can be mended now.
I’ve sadly found their ‘situation’ isn’t so very extreme or unique (my peace-loving husband refers to our times now as Civil War); the election (this person, DT) has driven a wedge in more than one family, co-worker, neighbor…ripple effect that surprisingly (or not surprisingly) keeps rippling; festering. No one can heal. It’s an ongoing open wound; a serious wound that’s continually getting infected, over and over again. Causing a host of negative emotions and downright pain. And I imagine there are DT champions who now know they made a terrible mistake by voting for him, but they don’t want to admit it. And I feel for them; I’ve made many mistakes in my life, too; it’s not a good feeling, not at all. We all want to feel good, not bad. We want to think our choices and decisions are good ones.
My faith and hope hugs me still although I don’t think any of us will let ourselves get too comfortable; we’re wary, and it’s hard to live like that, month after month after month. But there are some brilliant minds in government right along with the unbrilliant; like any good doctor, they’ll come forward, rise to the challenge and work on ways to cure some of this ‘disease’ but it won’t happen overnight and it’ll take awhile to get America back on the road to better health/recovery. Years, no doubt? Sobering. I dunno; maybe we’re not unraveling to the extent (and speed) it sometimes seems…
In the meantime, I’m sitting on the West Coast as a direct hit for a North Korean missile, if they get a good-enough one off the ground, and I can’t help but think, hello, is anybody in Washington paying attention while DT’s ‘people’ (those who surround him; his flock) are in disarray and he’s focused on petty, infantile crap like saying he’ll stop Obamacare payments because he didn’t get his way in the Senate?
I swear he’s identical to my bad, next-door neighbor who I prayed for three long years would just go away and get out of my face; let our everyday life return to some kind of sanity. I’ve tried to curb my vitriol over the national scene in past weeks/months and I’d rather not be one who criticizes another, but DT stirs me up in every wrong way and always has, long before he was ever in the government. Anybody who was so into himself could of course never be into me, as a citizen, as a voter, as a lover of my country.
I think you’re absolutely right. It’s about core values. Fundamental values. Right and wrong. Those who are still supporting this travesty of a human being? I can’t even go there, nor will I try and have a dialogue with them. I disagree so profoundly with those ideas and actions that there’s no coming together. Nor do I want to. Everything I hold dear, everything I value, is being trampled by this administration.
That Republicans and Trump would gleefully take health insurance away from millions to get back at Obama (and that’s exactly what it is) is mind boggling. That my nephew and those with disabilities along with everyone else who needs Medicaid (including the elderly in nursing homes) would lose it if that bill went through is wrong. And now that idiot is threatening Congress and us saying he’ll stop those payments and do everything he can to force it to implode. He’s worse than a child. Children are never vindictively petty. He thrives on it.
I read in one of your reader comments that there’s a threat now to Medicare? There better not be, just when I finally ‘get there’ and need to apply for it. Then what…Social Security? Every day brings more incredulity.
It’s like January came and a menacing virus descended on an otherwise-healthy populace. Or like the small feral cat colony I’ve got up on my hillside that doesn’t have a perfect life but gets along okay enough…then a rogue and bullying cat enters the group and disturbs the whole group for the worse, making all the other cats’ lives miserable, when they wish he’d just go back to wherever he came from. I’m serious; a zillion comparisons I could come up with!
I’m just about to enroll in Medicare in the next month or so.
I want him out of there. Now!
YES!…can’t wait to see it in your kitchen!…I’m so happy for you!
Thank you so much, Nancy!
Sorry to hear you feel that way. I don’t support in any way taking millions of Americans off healthcare. I have a nephew with cerebral palsy who would not get treatment, therapy, or medicine without Medicaid. If you support anyone, including my nephew or my mother when she was in a nursing home, losing that coverage, we must agree to disagree.
Interesting that you would comment on this but not on any other post. I find that happens frequently with Trump supporters. Very telling.
Have a nice day!
Oy! I admire your restraint, Claudia!
Thank you, Sylvia. xo