Praise the Lord for allowing us to see we needed a new freezer!
The freezer shown above was our old freezer.
Time for a little story...
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We have some girls who come to clean at our house every Friday or two. (They are the sweet Smith girls, whom you can find in blog posts gone by.) Now these girls have been coming to clean for a couple of years (less a summer or two), and they almost always have to empty a bucket in the basement tub. So each week, one of them goes downstairs, passes by our chest freezer, and empties the bucket in the next room.
Last Friday, Leah Joy went down and emptied a bucket just before they left. After she returned upstairs, she mentioned to Sylvia that it looked like the freezer might be unplugged. Sylvia thanked her, and the girls left. A few minutes later,
Syl went to check on the freezer, and found it plugged in. We surmised that the cord pictured above was mistaken as being connected to the freezer. This coiled wire has been beside that freezer for years, so it was odd that it was noticed only now.
Syl, just to be sure, opened the freezer...only to find water pouring off the lid, and the items inside thawing!
In August we purchased over $600 of beef (a whole cow), which was all stored in this basement chest freezer. After calling Jon at work, and after some further investigation, Sylvia found that only the top items - which happened to be the liver, which we didn't plan to use - had thawed out, and the beef below was all still frozen. The freezer had died! The freezer had to be over 30 years old. We got it after
Syl's grandmother passed away over 9 years ago, and she had it long before that.
Syl and the kids immediately went into action. All of our beef was squeezed into the freezer upstairs and our neighbor's freezer.
That Friday night turned into a very hectic night. We had an
AWANA conference Saturday morning, and had to leave the house by 6:15 am. Friday night we farmed all the kids out to different houses. The
Blackwelders picked Julia up, which eased the stress. So I came home from work, we ate dinner, sent Jules with the B's, drove to three other houses and dropped kids off, then headed to the mall. Sears closed at 9 PM, and we raced around and got there at 8:25 PM! We looked at what they had,
waited for them to see what they had in stock and selected one.
Syl was paying for it at 8:55 PM while Jon went out to the minivan and started dropping down the Stow-N-Go seats and clearing the massive amounts of kids' junk that had piled up since Jon last cleaned it (the June trip to Michigan).
Syl came out, and we went around to the pickup area. I've never seen Sears bring out a product so quickly. They had that thing out in 30 seconds after we arrived at the door! I was still trying to clean up and drop seats!
Well, we got it in the van, got it in the house, and managed to squeeze it through the basement door...uh, somehow...and slid it down the stairs. (How many engineers does it take to get a
freezer in the basement?
LOL) We got it up and running, let it cool down overnight, and stocked all the meat into it Saturday! And the above picture is what it looks like now. (Ever seen that
I Love Lucy episode with the sides of beef???)
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So all is well now.
We have a new Kenmore freezer.
The Lord was gracious to us and let us not lose 280 pounds of beef.
And thanks to the Smith girls...glad you came to clean Friday!!
Last Friday, on its opening night, Syl and I went to the theater to see FIREPROOF, the new movie from the makers of Facing the Giants. (If you haven't seen Facing the Giants, then we highly recommend you do!) FIREPROOF is an excellent movie. It stars Kirk Cameron, and has a very wholesome message. A successful fireman has a failing marriage at home, and he and his wife are ready to call it quits. But a wise father comes beside his son, and challenges his son to a 40-day love dare. 
