42 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 2-26-19”

  6. That’s Christmas in February at my house, still. The copper/brass angel candleholders are from Mexico as is the bell which was purchased at a flea market in Mexico City years ago.

    The picture was painted from a photograph by a work friend of my mom’s years ago. The original photograph had my mom and me in the foreground sitting at a table in a cafe in Taxco with a wonder view of all the red-tile roofed buildings. My mom always wanted to take it back to her to see if she could brighten up the red roofs, but never did 🙂

    Anyway, it’s been on display and in the closet, off and on, through the years as I’ve moved to different places. Seems I always rediscover it after several years and get it out again. Nice memories.

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  7. Michelle’s rain is supposed to come to us sometime this weekend but I don’t think it’ll be a lot of rain, more like possible showers. See, we get Michelle’s weather hand-me-downs here in Southern California.

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  8. That is lovely DJ.

    We have a plumber due anytime (he’s actually an hour late), and after he leaves we should have a dishwasher, and not have a broken dishwasher that’s plugged in and another one in the middle of our kitchen floor. (It was in our dining room until recently, but once we had our dining room table assembled, we needed a new place for it.) Step by step this place is coming together. My husband has also contacted an electrician, and getting electrical work done will be a huge step forward. (Right now we don’t have working outlets in either bathroom–fortunately I don’t blow dry my hair!–and several other issues are on similar levels of inconvenience. Electricians can be expensive, and none of the electrical work was top-level priority, but it’s important enough that I’m thrilled we can move forward with it now.)

    The dishwasher isn’t something I care about; I’ve washed dishes by hand most of my life, and don’t really like dishwashers. But my husband prefers them, and likes the idea of a greater level of sterilization, and we have a place to put one, so we might as well. (In Nashville, I had a dishwasher when I moved in, but everything in the house with water had a leak–and I do mean everything, up to the icemaker in the freezer and the pipe from the street to the house–and I chose not to even try the dishwasher, but to remove it and put in a miniature freezer instead. And up north, we had a small eat-in kitchen with inadequate cabinet space, and no dishwasher and no place to put one, and I was fine with not having one. I grew up without one, and the rare times I’ve had access to one, I have found that they cost more to run than they are worth, and they damage stuff. So I can definitely live without one.)

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  9. oh, you need a dishwasher. 🙂 I grew up without one, too, and none of my other places I’ve lived as an adult ever had one. I was fine with that.

    But since one was already installed in this house when I moved in, I’ve become a true convert. When the first one died I wasted no time in checking Consumer Reports and getting myself down to Sears to buy a replacement. Love, love, love my dishwasher. And, yes, the dishes do come out extra clean — and sterilized. I’ve never had anything damaged, but some items are not supposed to be put in a dishwasher. I never put antique or extra delicate pieces in there, for example; but almost anything else can go.

    Dishwashers won’t cost much to run in a small household. I use mine maybe 1-2 times a week at most, I just keep filling it up until it’s full and that takes a while for me unless I’ve done some major cooking. Large families, of course, will use them more frequently and then I suppose you’d notice the costs, but still more than worth it for them, I’m told.

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  10. We have a dishwasher but it has not been used in years. Well, not a lot of years because it was replaced twice since we have been here. But I don’t use it. Husband thinks it needs to run every day and I don’t like to run it until it is full. We would run out of dishes before it is full and it is just quicker to keep up with them, rather than rinse them before putting them in, run the washer, take them out again….

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  11. The most liberating advice I got this summer was “Run your dishwasher every night rather than wait until it’s full. You’ll wake up in the morning to clean dishes and a fresh start and the cost to run it is minimal.”

    With four kids, I ran the dishwasher twice a day. Now I run it every night–or twice last Saturday when I did dishes and then pots and pans.

    If nothing else, you can use it to dry the dishes you wash by hand without cluttering up the counter. 🙂

    However, the next dishwasher is going to have rounded curves on the outside. I have permanent dents in my shins from hitting this one’s sharp corners. 😦

    It’s my appliance, so I’m sure it will die soon . . .

    Liked by 1 person

  12. Some are hunting gopher wood up here and I’m wondering if I should find a second cat when it’s time to board the ark. Monsooning like crazy–they’re predicting 5 inches today alone and it poured all night long.

    Go ahead and laugh, I called off Bible study. I don’t want to go out.

    We have to leave at 3:30 tomorrow morning to catch a 6 am flight out of Oakland. “Who bought that ticket?” Mr. Non-Travel Agent asked.

    It was the only way we could get to Phoenix in time for lunch. Honestly, the flight schedules are bizarre.

    Liked by 2 people

  13. My one regret about our place here is that we didn’t include a dishwasher when we designed the kitchen. At the time, I didn’t realize how often we’d have the upstairs peeps down for dinner. There is a place where one could be added but I’ve not brought up the idea (yet).

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  14. Good afternoon, EST. We did the eye doctor and then Sprouts this a.m. before Art left for work. My eyes are healing nicely, but the vision was not so good. I guess in two more weeks I will know more.

    I spoke with Karen briefly last night. Being at ER was rough since the hospital was full. She spent time on a stretcher in the hallway. Our call was interupted by the nurses doing vitals. We have texted, and I asked that she call when she can.

    Liked by 1 person

  15. We didn’t have a dishwasher until the mobile home we moved into when I was 15 (and which we moved back down to Phoenix after Dad died). The habit had always been that we children washed all the dishes, two of the three of us each evening, with Dad washing dishes on Sunday. If we had company, and they offered to help wash dishes, we were supposed to say “no, that’s OK, thank you” but then accept help if they offered a second time. Know what I learned? If a child say no, thank you, the adult assumes the child actually wants to do dishes, and does not offer a second time. So whether the company was our older brothers or other people, company meant the children working hard in the kitchen to prepare for the meal (with our mom working some too) and then the kids clearing the table, washing and drying and putting away lots of dishes, putting away leftovers, etc. before we could finally join the company or go to our rooms.

    Today when I have company for a meal, I rinse and stack the dishes, but I do not wash them. If company offers to help, I say, “No, thank you, I’m not worrying about them for now.” Occasionally company will insist (adults will sometimes insist with other adults), and I’ll let her help, but I really would rather just leave them and worry about them the next morning.

    Oh, and when we got the dishwasher when we were teenagers? It was decided we would use it on Sundays (Dad’s day to wash dishes) and on Thanksgiving, but otherwise we would continue to wash dishes by hand. So it lightened our load very little.

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  16. I think it is excellent for children to dishes, especially when there are guests. It allows the adults the opportunity to talk without the help of children. And it gives the children a good work ethic and the opportunity to learn to serve. I do not regret doing dishes as a child nor do I regret having my children do them. These children do not do dishes and there are several good reasons for it. But I do and I enjoy doing it.

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  18. And I probably should not be typing while trying to understand twelve year old telling me about finding perimeter and area and all.

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  19. I don’t remember whether I had a dishwasher in any of the apartments I lived in in Phoenix. I remember that Mom eventually used her dishwasher every day (when we kids moved out), and that her Revere Ware pans looked worse for wear after she started using it (the handles turned gray).

    When I was renting a house a year out of college, I bought two sets of Revere Ware pans, but decided they wouldn’t go in the dishwasher. I told my roommates that, but they kept putting them in the dishwasher, and finally I packed up the pans and put them in my room to use in a later household but not there. In that household, the housemate who had the lease in her name had some odd ways of doing things, including the idea that we should all three take turns at buying all household supplies. Each one of us had to keep track, for instance, of whose turn it was to buy paper towels, toilet paper, dishwashing detergent, cleaning supplies, and whatever was on that list. To me that was crazy, and so I said no, I will buy toilet paper and paper towels, and you two work it out between you how you will buy the rest of it. Well, when it was one housemate’s turn to buy dishwashing detergent, we might wait on it several days. The dishes in the dishwasher would start to stink (we didn’t have air conditioning), and when they were washed they might not come clean. Furthermore, the kitchen was right outside my bedroom, and I had to sleep with my door open since my bedroom didn’t have heat and this was Chicago. The roommate who was lax at buying the dishwashing detergent worked odd hours, since she cleaned businesses after the workday was over. So she might get home at 2 or 3 a.m. (I worked at 8 a.m. in those years, and was in bed by 11.) She would get home, mumbling under her breath, stamping her boots, and slamming the back door–all at my end of the house. And then, having bought detergent on her way home, she would put dishwasher detergent in and turn it on, and at 2:00 in the morning when this insomniac was trying desperately to get to sleep, the dishwasher would start clanking! Then to make really, really sure I was awake, she would pick up the phone that was three or four feet from my bedroom door, and call someone to chat. (We had another extension in a different room.)

    One day I told her that I was a lifelong insomniac, and that her multiple sources of noise at 2:00 were making it so that my body wasn’t allowing me to really go to sleep until she had gotten home and done all her routine. I asked her if she could be aware of her noise level coming in the door, wait to run the dishwasher until everyone was awake, and talk on the other extension if somehow she needed to talk on the phone at that hour. (The other extension was a good deal farther from the second bedroom, and they shut the door to the other bedroom.) She looked at me as though I was asking her to adjust her mealtimes for my convenience, and she said, “I can do what I want in the public areas of our house.”

    To add irony to the rudeness, a month or two later she accosted me and told me that when I left the house at 7:40 or so in the morning, she was trying to sleep, and my locking the deadbolt woke her up. Using an expletive or two, she told me not to lock the deadbolt when I left for work. How she herself failed to make the connection with what I had asked her not to do, I have no idea.

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  20. Anon E. Mouse, I too think it is helpful for children to wash dishes. However, when the guests were our older brothers, especially when they had traveled from out of town to see our family, we too wanted to interact with them. When the guests came with children, the children were left to play alone in our backyard until we were finished working. And when children do virtually all the work for company, but get little opportunity to interact with the company, they aren’t really learning hospitality; they are learning that company means a lot of work. All in all, I think there is a way to teach children a work ethic without it being a burden. For instance, the children rinse and stack the dishes, but they can wait to wash them. Or the children rinse and stack the dishes, and wash the plates and bowls, but then Mom washes the rest of the dishes after the company goes home. Or the ones who wash the dishes get an extra serving of dessert after the company goes home. Or Mom washes the dishes the next night and they get a night off. Or even simply acknowledging the good job done on the dishes.

    Yes, children should learn a work ethic–but making work something they dread, and housework something done only by children, teaches as many negative lessons as positive ones.

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  21. Hmm, that’s a new thought, running a dishwasher nightly — to help keep it in better working order? Mine now is probably 10 years old and I only use it 1-2 times a week when it’s full. Still going strong.

    My kitchen required a built-in under the tile counter top, so the space was small. As with buying any appliances for my old house (even the add-on kitchen was done in the 1970s), the space available is always the first variable and that typically limits the choices to just a few. It makes things easier, actually.

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  22. I did find this online:

    “It is best to run the dishwasher about once a week to keep the motor seals working properly. The dishwasher can be run on a short wash.”

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  23. I’ve got a basin in the sink where I leave dishes to soak. I agree with kids doing dishes while adults visit–and mine often do, even the adult kids!

    My parents made a bargain when they got married. My mother would cook and my dad would do the dishes. He bought a dishwasher after the first month of that plan and never washed dishes again.

    Other than in Navy housing, I’ve always had a dishwasher. I can’t stand a cluttered counter.

    I also always empty the car after we’ve gone somewhere. I can’t stand having trash and junk in the car–and taught my children accordingly.

    They don’t live that way now, but they all have a dishwasher. 🙂

    Stargazer’s last year of college he lived with eight other people, without a dishwasher. He was the one who always did the dishes because he couldn’t stand the cluttered countertop.

    After a while, they perched a large trashcan in the center of the roomy kitchen and used paper plates! LOL

    To each his own. I didn’t make them clean their rooms except once a month so I could vacuum. We all have our different levels of necessary tidiness. I think it’s like learning styles –individual.

    Liked by 2 people

  24. Change in plans. The rains continue to pour and we have a 6 am flight tomorrow. We just rented a hotel room for the night, with parking, so we can battle the roads in the daylight while we’re awake rather than at 2:30 in the morning.

    Liked by 3 people

  25. Oh I love our dishwasher! Now getting the other persons living in this house to put their dishes in there is a challenge. I mean seriously….it is just to the right of the sink…maybe 6 inches over and down…how hard can it be?! I run the dishwasher everyday.
    I just returned home from the eye doctor. She didn’t get my prescription quite right…the optician suggested I have her do a follow up. She wasn’t too happy I don’t think but she did re examine me and changed the script. When I took it back to the optician he said “oh you will be able to see so much better now” 😎 (in another week when they come in!)

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  26. Well, no dishwasher yet. He came about three hours late, and did the other task we needed. But someone gave us a dishwasher that had been given to them (and that they were told is a working dishwasher) and the plumber wasn’t sure it had all the parts it needed. He said we’d be better off getting a new one, and that he would consider it an extension of this visit rather than starting us all over again with billing. (Running late after a long first appointment, he’s probably just as happy to keep ours short and get closer to being back of schedule.)

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  27. Yeah, get a new one, they aren’t that expensive from what I recall.

    New pic: Spring is coming. That’s the view from my porch, flower baskets are thriving as is Charlie Brown and my front lawn with all the rain we’ve had. I can’t remember when everything’s been so green.

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  28. The used dishwasher reminded me of what I went through yesterday with the garage door opener. Painter bought an inexpensive model at Home Depot and installed it, but it’s been nothing but trouble ever since (maybe 1-2 years ago).

    Sometimes cutting cost corners works out great; other times, not so much and you wind up throwing good money after bad. The guy from the garage door company said he could try a $199 ‘tuneup’ on my existing unit but there would be no guarantees. I decided to just let them put in a new, better one and be done with it.

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  30. DJ, I have been watching this whole series of videos as they have been posted, and some would interest you and some wouldn’t. But in this episode, they’re looking at what to do with the kitchen of a 100-year-old Craftsman house to use actual materials original to the house, and other stuff that matches the look as much as possible. Thought you would appreciate the attention to authenticity. (They haven’t actually done it yet, but they look at various elements they might use.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY4WMeTOSFs

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  31. Ooh, thanks Cheryl, I’ll check those out and dream.

    I didn’t need a dishwasher with all the bells and whistles, so reliability marks were what focused on mainly — and dimensions, it had to fit into the pre-existing counter space.

    My cousin who’s rehabbing his 1908 craftsman over the bridge was fortunate to still have the original kitchen cabinets and the old ice box in his kitchen. He is retiling the counters that were covered with linoleum ?

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  32. off to school on a beautiful sunny morning. Today the children get their reward for meeting their reading goal for the Book Festival. Which means I will take them all in the large van to the store for ice cream. I believe that they are excited. Good thing that Wendy will ride in the back with them.

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  36. Love my dishwasher. Would replace it ASAP, if needed. My aunt put in two in her kitchen. She said dishes were always left in the washer anyway. Now she has a clean one and a dirty one and needs less cupboard space. She says it was cheaper to buy the extra washer than the cabinet. Couldn’t prove it by me, but each to her own.

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  37. Finally Karen called. Her phone was needing to be charged. She is some better. She has been blessed with seeing a doctor that she had wanted to make an appointment with. One of the conditions, dermatological in nature, that she has suffered with for a number of years, she found out today it had been misdiagnosed. She was in the hospital at exactly the right time to get this doctor doing rounds. Praising God for that happening. Now maybe she can get treatment for what was thought to be untreatable.

    Liked by 7 people

  38. A lady in my church (from the craft group who meets monthly) found she had far too much jewelry-making stuff, and she opened her house up for women and girls to come this month in groups to make jewelry using her supplies (tools and materials). I actually had some materials to make some necklaces, but had never bought tools; our craft group chose tonight to meet, and I drove over there. I made one necklace with supplies I brought myself (jasper beads of greens and various shades) and one with supplies she had (metallic keys on a chain) and I made the second one long enough to take it off over my head without a need of a clasp, for those days one is in a hurry or the fingers aren’t cooperating.

    After so many years of finding it difficult to get together with church folks outside Sunday morning because we all lived so far apart and I was out in the country and not inclined to drive at night, it is such a blessing to live close enough to go to other people’s houses for informal events, and to have a church with fairly regular social events. Tonight was the fourth time I’ve gotten together this month with people from church other than a service or Bible study (two craft events for our group of six women–the valentine cards and tonight–and two events at church). I wouldn’t want to be in a three-times-a-week kind of expectation, but having something every week or two is really nice. And Saturday I’m beginning to meet with some ladies for a home Bible study started for some Chinese ladies, and with a few of us who aren’t Chinese invited to join in.

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  39. Kathaleena, I laughed at myself when the dishwasher that came with this house gave out and I IMMEDIATELY went online to find a new one (which I bought/ordered at Sears the following day!). It was like a panic state. No dishwasher!????

    Cheryl, that sounds so sweet, I wish I had the time & energy to do some of that with our church women’s groups. Maybe someday …

    I enjoyed seeing the Iowa tonight on NCIS. 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

  40. Tomorrow it’s a story on storm-related oiled birds in recovery while finishing up the piece on a WWII vet who’s going back to France for D-Day’s 75th anniversary — he’s 93 and is still making documentaries.

    Liked by 1 person

  41. While having my tires rotated today I was told my rear brake pads were worn and should be replaced. Sheesh. So more car expense.

    But NOW the Jeep should be all current.

    I think.

    Liked by 1 person

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