Why keep the complaining confined to a Monday, really?

 On Sunday afternoon, I was prepping Monday morning’s coffee and starting to pack Monday lunches and dance/diving commute dinners and feeling very proud of myself for being on top of my ish. I was also really excited about my coffee because Jack and I went to Trader Joe’s during diving practice on Sunday and bought gingerbread coffee, my fave (thanks for the reminder, San). I opened the jumbled cabinet next to the stove to grab coffee filters (a cabinet I cleaned out before Thanksgiving but is ALWAYS a freaking jumble), and a glass jar of pumpkin pie spice fell out and shattered our cooktop.

It’s hard to see here, but the crack covers two burners and the warming burner my kettle rests on. The other 2 burners are uncracked, but I feel like the crack will most definitely spread if we try to use them, and then we’ll probably get electrocuted or something terrible like that.

But ARE YOU EVEN KIDDING ME UNIVERSE?? We have lived in this house for 12-and-a-half years and have dropped SO MANY THINGS on that cook top, spices chief among them, because the stove is flanked by 2 cabinets we use to store spices and random cooking ingredients AND BOTH ARE TOO FULL.

I mean. YOU GUYS. I am not, like, SUPER SAD to be shopping for ranges, but! First of all: HELLO, this is a really expensive month/months. ALSO! I need a stovetop, so I don’t have, like, tons of time to dither about this purchase. BUT. It’s a really important appliance, so it’s not like the washer where I am happy with literally the first metal box an appliance company can chuck in my back door, you know? (Which is not to say the washer is unimportant (IT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT in terms of living my life, I think), but I was WAY LESS PICKY about which one I got since they all do the same thing, and I based my decision SOLELY on availability followed by price).

We have a 2-pronged plan: 1. Call our insurance agent to see if this is covered by our homeowner’s policy. My childhood bestie (an insurance agent) says falling spices are not a typically inspired peril— which is a fair point. BUT the appliance was working fine before the accident. So, MAYBE? 2. Call GE and see if they have a replacement cooktop since the oven works fine. (This is probably not a good solution because the appliance is 12 years old, and then we’ll have a frankenoven, and probably the rest of it will break soon anyway and it will end up being more hassle and money than just buying a new one now, but I want to check how much/how long it will be).

And! This might be a silly concern, but all of our appliances are the same age (except our dishwasher because the original one CAUGHT ON FIRE, and GE gave us a new top-of-the-line model FOR FREE 3 years ago), and they are the same brand/perfect color match. Do I want the same brand?  Maybe not. But then they won’t match. So, like, I feel like I have to at least look ahead to microwaves and fridges to make sure I like what a brand has to offer for down the road… ANYWAY, I already have analysis paralysis/ decision fatigue, and I have only gone to ONE STORE and done ONE GOOGLE SEARCH.

Smart oven? Anyone have this? I think THIS is an appliance whose texts I would like to get (I am forever forgetting cookies, etc), and it would be handy to control it from afar in terms of cooking a casserole while we are out and about.

Airfryer setting? This seems to be popular, but why? We have an airfryer that we DO really like, but do we need one in our oven? Anyone have this?

Also? My $5 jar of spice survived the fall just fine, so if you need a heavy duty pumpkin spice, I recommend Spice Island **eye roll**