I’ve known that I needed a new gas range for sometime. Last year when I bought the new washer/dryer and the refrigerator, I fully intended to get a new range as well, but then I got the new back door and there was the squirrel infestation and one expense on top of another, so I just kept putting it off.

But I’ve gone a couple months without a major expense (for the first time in a year!), plus I received that lump sum payment as a result of the Social Security Fairness Act. So even with the uncertain state of the union (and the world) because of that shit stain in the White House, I decided to get a new gas range now.

Because the problem with the old one was getting worse.

Ever since I moved in here five years ago, I’ve had little control over the surface burners. The controls let me select low and high, and anything in between is guesswork. But I’ve been able to make do.

However, recently baking has become a problem. Pies are still turning out ok, but every time I try to make brownies or blondies, they come out overdone.

So time for a change.

The new range arrived on Friday and it was installed without a problem.

You may recall that I had a bit of trouble with mice climbing up behind the old range onto the kitchen counter, and I had partially alleviated that by lining steel wool along the back of the range.

So when the new one arrived, when they took out the old one, I planned to simply plug up whatever hole was behind the range with steel wool to keep the mice from even gaining entrance altogether.

Alas, it wasn’t so easy, as you can see in this photo. 

There was no simple hole to plug. So scratch that plan. Once the new range was installed, I simply lined the back with steel wool, just as I had with the old one. It’s not perfect but I presume it will help. Then again, ever since the plumber fixed the kitchen drain a few months back, I haven’t seen any mice, so perhaps he sealed the hole from the outside where they were getting in. Perhaps, perhaps?

Anyway, the new range is all new and shiny, and it has all sorts of new controls and settings, some of which I’ll probably never use. But the convection baking and the steam baking sound promising. Plus, there’s a steam cleaning function that the woman at the dealer said works much better than the self cleaning feature—much faster, doesn’t get as hot, and doesn’t leave the horrible lingering odor.