Am I Shallow? Perhaps.

Goodbye old fridge. Hello to a beautiful new friend, gleaming stainless steel on the outside, clear and clean on the inside.
In the ten years that I've been married, this is the first fridge we've had that didn't come out of the Pennysaver. And it makes me smile every time I pass it. With my new dishwasher and this fridge, I can almost pretend that I am the host of my own cooking show or a contestant on Top Chef. Of course, that means overlooking the outdated flooring, oven, range, microwave, countertop, cabinets--essentially everything else in my kitchen--but when I catch a glimpse of my newest acquisitions, those other things fade away.

My kids love that our new fridge is actually big enough to keep the Brita full of water cold. I love that I can see all the leftovers without having to squat down and dig around.


Jared will love the new electricity bills, since we just replaced two old fridges (one in the garage and one in the kitchen) with one energy efficient wonder. He also appreciates that I had to get rid of the basket full of clutter that used to sit on top of the fridge because it won't fit anymore.
I did call Christine to ask her what I should do about my newest obsession of keeping the appliances free of fingerprints and smudges. She is highly qualified to answer this question, having a degree in Interior Design and all the accompanying credentials and experience, besides owning a few stainless steel appliances of her own (and four darling kidlets). Alas, she couldn't come up with a solution either, but assured me that I might soon be able to tolerate fingerprints for an entire afternoon before wiping down the fridge after the kids go to bed. I pondered on the internal struggle going on between the woman who loves shiny, sparkly, clean, and looks-like-a-cooking-show-or-magazine-layout everything and the mother who really wants her kids to grow up in a home where they are comfortable. Surely it would be unreasonable to make touching the fridge off limits. Do you think it would be neurotic to require the entire family to wear gloves? You don't have to answer that.

But even with the compulsive wiping down of my new treasures, I don't regret choosing them one bit. Nor do I regret having so many small hands around who will surely touch them as soon as I finish wiping. Both things of beauty and sticky-fingered children are more than worth the extra effort. And if loving my kitchen appliances makes me shallow, I guess I will have to live with that.

True Love

I'm in love. The object of my new-found and undying affection is my new dishwasher. In a stroke of good fortune (actually a blessing I attribute to our policy to pay a full tithe,) we found out that a friend of ours was selling their slightly used, high-end, so-much-better-than-our-1980-model-that-it's-beyond-comparison dishwasher for a fraction of the retail price.
The installation, which appeared to be simple and straightforward, did throw us for a loop. It would have helped if the owner's manual had said something more than "Do not attempt to install without a certified Miele technician." I did manage to feed the kids that evening with the water turned off, but when Ian had a major blowout on the living room rug and I attempted to clean him up with only wet wipes, (while keeping the other kids out of the living room until I could clean up the carpet in there,) it became somewhat hysterical. We attempted to turn back on the water in order to shower him and water spewed all over the kitchen, soaking our 1980 vinyl flooring and 1980 oak cabinets. In the end, we did figure out how to get the water back on without the spray--I just had to remember to dump a bucket every 6 minutes while Jared made three trips to Home Depot.
But Good Fortune continued to smile upon us and the entire Elders' Quorum Presidency showed up for a meeting and assisted with the install. They got it to run as long as the garbage disposal was turned on!! We finally unplugged the garbage disposal until Darling Brother-in-law Flint the handyman/electrician/mechanic came over the next morning and put a new outlet plug in so that I didn't have to choose between a dishwasher and a garbage disposal.
We still haven't learned to comply with the owner's manual instructions that we should not rinse the plates, but at least we aren't completely washing dishes before putting them in. And I am in the process of teaching the kids how to load the dishwasher, which is so marvelous.
Stay tuned--I am composing a sonnet to the new fridge that we are expecting any day now!