Lauren views dishwashers as a way to get dishes clean. She has absolutely no sense of the truth and beauty that comes from a properly loaded dishwasher.

The dishwasher that came with our house must have been about 15 years old, and either dishes had changed in that time, or our dish use never coincided with the Average American Dishware that the people who design dishwashers used when designing dishwashers.

At any rate, loading the dishwasher properly was a passion of mine that Lauren just couldn’t get on board with. Not that I ever failed to blame her for that. Anyway, to make a long story pretty much the same length, I was dissatisfied with our dishwasher because of my inability to (a) solve the loading equation and (b) convince Lauren that my solution to the loading equation was better than her solution.  And Lauren was dissatisfied with our dishwasher because it would occasionally smell funny and need to have some bleach run through it.

Before we went to Lincoln I looked through a leading consumer magazine for likely brands and models. When I had it down to a few, I went to Sears.com (where America and I shop) and printed off the comparison of those models. Looking through roughly 6 pages of data, I came up with the following qualifications for our new dishwasher:

• Adjustable racks so as to fit largish pots and pans
• A fairly quick wash cycle
• Lots of different cycles for all of our dish washing needs
• Built in heating element so we didn’t have to set the water heater higher
• Food disposal, so I didn’t have to forget to empty the filter
• Power scrubbers, because who wouldn’t want those
• A quiet wash cycle, because our downstairs is basically one big room

This was Lauren’s list of qualifications for our new dishwasher:

• Does not smell funny

Our plan was to go to Home Depot, Schaeffer’s, Best Buy and Sears. We’d go in that order because (a) that’s the order that they come in and (b) We’ve purchased all of our major appliances for Sears since Circuit City (a) became a desolate crap hole of terrible customer service and (b) went out of business. [I do hereby solemnly swear that I will not use "(a) ... (b) ..." for the next week and a half.]

Well, that was the plan. But once we got to Schaeffer’s our salesman was so knowledgeable and helpful and not at all pushy or rushed that we just bought it from him. We got the Whirlpool GU3200XTX, but we didn’t have the truck with us, so we made arrangements to drop the old dishwasher off and pick up the new one next week.

Surprisingly enough it doesn’t have:

• Adjustable racks so as to fit largish pots and pans, because Lauren said that we wouldn’t ever take the time to adjust the racks anyway.
• A fairly quick wash cycle, because Lauren said that we have never sat around and waited for the dishwasher to get done.
• Lots of different cycles for all of our dish washing needs, because Lauren said that we only use two cycles on our dishwasher anyway: rinse and normal wash.
• Power scrubbers, because Lauren said that we’d do what we currently do when dishes don’t get clean –leave them in the dish washer.
• A quiet wash cycle, because Lauren said that our current dishwasher was just about as loud as you could get, and everything these days was quieter (and also took about an hour longer to wash than our old dishwasher).

 
Not surprisingly, it does not smell funny.

All was well until 1:18.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Stumbling to the kitchen, I had one of those ‘thousand-thoughts-running-through-your-mind-in-two-seconds’ moments. Do we have a fire alarm? Am I cooking something? Is Lloyd cooking something? Did this happen when Kristi was visiting and she was too polite to tell me? I hit ‘cancel’ on the stove panel and went back to the couch.

3:00.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

What the what? Stumble, stumble, cancel, cancel. I thought about going up to bed, but I was in my jeans and didn’t want to change into pj’s. Lazily, I went back to the couch.

3:43

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Grrrr. Cancel.

3:48

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

I am going to kill someone. By this time I have noticed that ‘F-2′ is flashing on the screen, and now I was WIDE AWAKE enough to google it. It’s a sensor issue. I unplugged the stove and went back to sleep in the blessed beep-free quiet.

I wound up cooking our little turkey in the roaster, but couldn’t rely on my cool digital thermometer to tell me when it was done, because it was in cahoots with the stove and showed wildly fluctuating temperatures – all wrong.

Did I mention that I’m sick? Using a roaster and the microwave, I had turkey, stuffing and potatoes ready to eat by lunchtime then shoved it all (uneaten) in the fridge and went back to sleep until 4.

If I feel better tomorrow we’re going stove and thermometer shopping.

Pity that it doesn’t work.

*sigh* This faucet thing is going to take nigh unto forever. We got stuck when the stupid nut that held the old sink down wouldn’t budge, but yesterday evening we finally got it loose, then I had to go to a meeting. Before I left, we put a paper towel soaked with vinegar over all the holes in the sink to dissolve the decades of hard-water build-up and grime that marked where the old faucet lived and died.

Today, the sink is sparkly, and the faucet is attached to the sink, but that’s it. The old water supply lines aren’t long enough, so that means at least two trips to the hardware store. (One to buy wrong, once to perhaps buy right.)

Lloyd thinks that we could just aim the supply lines at the intake lines, turn ‘em on – and hope for the best.

There were many other wonderful things, but I was very excited to see a vinyl quote! I’ve admired these on many a window shopping trip, but didn’t buy them (due to cheapness). Now – I had one right here! “If music be the food of Love, play on.” A beautiful quote, but the right spot for it would have been by the piano where all the music stuff is, and that space is currently taken.

I went with the next logical spot.

I have since cleaned up the fridge and straightened up the counter, but I can’t take a picture of it. Why? That’s a post for another day……

Lotta mistakes here, folks. Lotta mistakes.

How did it get to this point?  It took a good 45 minutes to tame this mess. Canned goods were relocated to the basement, like foods were re-grouped after years of migrating away from each other, things I’ll never use were put in a bag for the food pantry, and expired things were tossed.   I’d like to make a few notes to myself for future reference:

Quit buying crackers! I threw five half-eaten sleeves out for the birds. No more.
You do not like oatmeal. Stop kidding yourself.  Too ….. ooky.
Same with cream of wheat. It’s better, but still ooky. You have two boxes to finish.
You have enough basil and cinnamon to open an Italian Cinnabon.
Make some things that involve rice so you can use it up.

When it was all said and done, it looked like this:

Well, I really should go work in Mark’s room.  Or……. paint the basement……

In other news, Cricket had a ‘sample’ dropped off at the vet today.  Stupid cat. Why’d she have to make me love her? I’ll keep you posted about  her progress.  *sigh*  Maybe we should just have them both put to sleep and have a long weekend of mourning.  (Well, I would mourn and Lloyd would bring me Kleenex.)

So, I give you this picture. I think somebody needs to take a new picture for the computer desktop.

Well, Parker, we didn’t drink milk, but we did make mashed potatoes. This may not be a big deal to any of the rest of you, but I almost never, ever make them. To have potatoes you have to have gravy, and that requires a whole lotta steps. Tonight, though, we feasted like royalty! A tiny roast (hurried along in the process using the Spike Method), green beans, GRAVY and mashed potatoes. Yuh-um.

We’ve got a ricer, which is fun because you don’t have to peel the potatoes. Just chop, boil, smash, and the skins stay behind.

Thanks, Parker. This spud’s for you. (You saw that comin’, huh?)

I’m not ripping paper tonight, though.  I’ve been in my jammies since 6:30 and had plans to go to bed right after American Idol.  Then stupid House had to be a stupid new episode.  Now I’ll be up all night!

Brad is a cereal eater, and since he’s a guy, his custom is to rinse off his cereal bowl and spoon and set them by the sink to use again the next day.  Since I’m a girl, I kept putting his bowl in the dishwasher every other summer.  Oops!  So this year, we’ve got the perfect solution!  Lloyd helped with it’s construction – he’s got mad Dremel skills – and made the spoon notch just right!

Anyway, this my enameled red cast iron dutch oven from Target that I love like a child. It’s so pretty, and makes anything cooked in it appear like I’ve really slaved, y’know?  You can’t dish something out of a dutch oven without thinking, “Boy, this food must have had some work done on it.”  It’s not fast and flashy like a frying pan, or quick-to-boil like a saucepan.  It takes minutes for this thing to heat, and even longer to cool down.  I love it.