I'm not smart. Not even a little.

So we have been living without an oven for the last year and a half.

As a matter of fact I have never been able to use our oven because it's been broken since I moved in. This for me presents a slight problem because I love to bake.

When I first found out it was broken I was bummed but soon turned my baking passion into a candy making, doughnut making, breakfast making, anything made on the stove top making frenzy. You see, although the oven was out of commission the stove top was working great. Well, at least three of the four burners.

This frenzy soon waned to the occasional omelet, or maybe even a pancake here and there but for me did not hold the same excitement that i get from pulling a fresh baked loaf of bread from the oven, and the anticipation of waiting to cut into it to see if the crumb is exactly as i had wanted or if the crust would be beautifully brown and chewy like the perfection only artisan bakers can achieve...

....and even though i had made some new confections on the stove top i was still left with a broken oven; no smell of freshly baked bread, and not even the possibility of the perfect crumb.

We have talked about getting a new oven, but with the expense, and that fact that 95% of our meals are eaten at restaurants (at work or otherwise) we just never made it a priority.

One day off about 3 months ago i had a "man moment;" i decided i was going to fix the oven!!

I looked things up online, i pulled the oven out from the counter, shut off the power to the kitchen, unscrewed things, jiggled wires, tapped on things that i had no clue of what they were, looked over the wiring diagram (it might as well have been written in Japanese) on the back side of the oven, screwed things back in, and finally after and hour of MANLY oven fixing i had...

...a broken oven.

So for the last three months its been sitting, broken, taunting me.

When Shea and I went to RI to visit my family i got a chance to bake a few things. It felt good to feel the smoothness of the dough as i kneaded it, benched it and smelled it as it baked. The passion was still there. I needed an oven!!

So today i got on Craig's List to look for an oven that would not break the bank, but that would bake the bread. As i looked i came across this one.

This one looks a lot like the one we have only as i looked i saw that ours had more nobs than the one in the picture... Ours had a nob that said "off" "bake" "broil" "clean" which needs to be turned on in addition to the thermostat in order for the oven to work...

So i tried it... and guess what... It works.

Clearly, I'm not smart, Not even a little.