It seems that every year, in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving and Christmas, my household gets hammered with large and unexpected expenses.

Every year.In the midst of hoping that this year, things will be different, fate threw back his head and bellowed out a huge belly laugh, "Muah ha ha ha!" and started the fun a month early.It began with a $1,000 auto repair bill, an oil tank fill at $400, home and auto insurance bills to the tune of $1,200, another $200 auto repair bill and the demise of our microwave oven.On deck to go at any moment are our television and our refrigerator.The car repairs, the oil and insurance payments are must-do items, but the microwave is something we can live without, right?When I first had the thing put out to trash, my family was a bit baffled and disappointed when I said that I was not, in fact, on my way to the store to replace it."We don't need it," I said matter-of-factly.The next day, my daughter wanted to heat up some leftovers for lunch.She stood there for a moment with a deeply confused look on her face and then actually asked, "How do I heat this up?"I scoffed at her question and handed her a small saucepan.With the typical rolling of her eyes, she dumped the soup in the pan and proceeded to complain that it was going to "take forever" to heat up.It took three minutes, which in teenager time and compared to the 60 seconds it would have taken in the microwave, evidently is forever.I then had to yet again answer the question as to why we were not getting a new microwave.Aside from the present finance issues that are deterring me from making any purchase, I have read that in addition to nuking the nutrients right out of our food, microwaving food in plastic vessels (which we always do) can cause carcinogenic toxins to leak out of the plastic and into our food.There are also claims that the electromagnetic fields from microwave use can cause leukemia and that microwave ovens can also have an adverse effect on the heart.And there you have it: multiple good, solid reasons NOT to buy a new one.I was doing fairly well adapting to doing things the old-fashioned way and enjoying the fact that my kitchen somehow seemed so much bigger without the microwave's presence on the counter until the soup ran out and I forgot to defrost meat to make dinner.This I realized was going to be the true source of contention and testing of my will to remain microwave-free in my house.It was while I was banging a rock-solid frozen package of chicken off the counter that I realized how spoiled I had become and how dependent I had become on something that really isn't all that great for me on a health level.The decision to remain microwave-free means that I will actually have to start planning our meals ahead of time and then remember to put the meat out to defrost the night before or do the same thing we do to defrost our Thanksgiving turkeys that come frozen to us each year, which requires placing the frozen bird in a large pot of cold water and changing the water frequently until it is thawed.Although I can be very stubborn when I put my mind to something, the extreme inconvenience that not having a microwave is going to bring into my life is really going to suck.I don't know how long I can hold out.