I have to start with a big sigh of relief, followed by a gleeful shout of T.G.I.F. because, oh my God, what a week I've had! A grading marathon, a computer virus, and a dead fridge all in seven days. What more could I possibly want?

Ali and I have been living out of ice chests since Monday because our sturdy, but 20+ years old refrigerator gave up the ghost quite unexpectedly. No whirring or groaning or whizzing sounds, no last minute gasps from the internal light bulb, absolutely nothing to indicate that there was a problem even. Just a sudden, surprising, we-didn't-even-get-to-say-goodbye death. Ali has wanted a side-by-side with an ice and water dispenser in the door for years but because he is a firm believer in hanging onto appliances until even junk yards don't want them, his dream fridge had to wait. That is, until Monday when I called to deliver the bad news: "Ali, we have a problem. The refrigerator is dead."

After checking online for sales and rebates, I found the model that would best suit our needs, give us the most in rebates, and had a sale price that appealed to my inner cheapskate. I love stainless steel appliances and already have a fairly new stainless steel sink, so that was the obvious choice. I sent Ali to our local Sears to buy the fridge, thinking that because the store's website said it was available for next day delivery, that we'd have our chill back by Wednesday at the very latest. If only our lives could be so neatly ordered and problems so easily solved!

Problem number one: the stainless steel fridge is not EnergyStar compliant. Our power company offers a $50 rebate for EnergyStar compliant refrigerators, and I certainly didn't want to give that up. Although not my first choice--ok, technically, not even my fifty-first choice--we ended up with the same model in white because that color does comply with the EnergyStar standards. Why one color or finish complies and the other doesn't, even when the only difference between them is appearance, escapes the clutches of my rational thinking ability.

Problem number two: although the store's website says that the white fridge is also available for next day delivery, we can't get ours delivered until SUNDAY! So Ali is trying to speak to me discreetly from his cell phone with the sales guy standing right beside him, while I am emphatically telling him that there is no way in H-E-double-hockey-sticks that we can stay without a refrigerator for six days! But in the end, it was what it was--no delivery until Sunday. Ali paid for the fridge, and the problem was solved.

I finished grading the essays for one class and am diligently working to finish the papers for the other one. Focus is not my strongest point these days, possibly because if I sit still for too long a stretch, sleep overtakes me. Napping has become a necessity lately, but it sure does put a hitch in my get along, as my grandfather used to say.

In fact, although it's less than ten minutes after seven in the A.M., and I have been awake for only three hours, I need to catch another forty winks before we head off to tackle the challenges that await us at the business. Keep your fingers crossed that the cosmos ignores me for a while!