On Tuesday our dishwasher wouldn't run so yesterday the repairman was here. It turned out to be a broken wire to the door, a small fix and we were up and running - thank goodness. Now you might think this is no big deal and wonder why I'm telling you - but here's the thing - my parents bought this portable Maytag dishwasher in 1972. Yup that's right. It's 40 years old. I believe my mom ran the dishwasher every night (she always did it when us kids were sleeping) for all the years we were growing up and then even after we all moved out. When she moved, her new house had a built in dishwasher and so she gave this one to me as we have a small kitchen and could use it. So now for about 10 years Jp and I have used the dishwasher - we run it maybe 3 times a week (more when The Kidd is here) and I've only had to have it repaired once about 5 years ago.

And this is why I'm in no rush to replace it. They really don't build things like they used to. Granted my father maintained it really well and repaired/replaced parts as time when on, but really it's been quite the workhorse. I checked it out on line, and there are some gearheads out there who swear by these old machines they really do run extremely well.

Sometimes newer isn't better

Curious coincidences?

About 5 times in the past week, I've rescued something before the situation became worse -first there was our portable dishwasher that started to zap at the wall outlet, I was across the hall at the time, so I raced over and pulled to melting plug from the wall - it appears the outlet had shorted out. Jp had to cut off the old plug on the dishwasher (which by the way is 40 years old - can you believe that?), replace the wall outlet and replaced the circuit breaker in the box just to be safe. But what if we were in the yard, or even at the other end of the house, could it have started a fire?

A day or so later I awoke when the fan in the bedroom made a noise like to motor seized and the fan stopped oscillating. I hopped out of bed to turn it off. Would it have whirred until it burst into flames?

A day or so after that, the dishwasher (again, poor thing is getting a bad rap) was running and something smelled like it was melting, I opened the door and found a spatula that had fallen through the racks and had melted in 2 spots on the bottom drying element. No further harm was done.

Yesterday we were sitting having a nice family brunch when the light in the fish tank started to short out, so I hopped off my chair and dove under the table to unplug the aquarium light, and then removed the stinking hood from the aquarium so our whole house wouldn't smell. No more lights for the poor fish (gee, anyone want a free fishtank, I've been told I must get rid of them.. ) The boys think this could have been a house fire, but I think all the water in the tank would have helped to stop it from going further - although I might've had some cooked fish....

And then today, I was inside and heard a stellar jay squawking - as they always do - but then something didn't sound right so I went outside to find a very guilty looking cat hovering over an adolescent jay. He lost most of his wing feathers and had some bleeding but I think he could recover. I had put box out for him with some food and water, but a couple of hours later, it's  since disappeared - I'm pretty sure my neighbour took over it's care as she too, didn't want the cats to attack this poor little birdie again.

Gee,  5 things that I that prevented from becoming worse. Are they only coincidences? Or is there a bigger message? What do you believe?

Lovin' my cuppa

Recently Jp made some changes and stopped drinking coffee which meant I too had to make some changes. It used to be that I'd make coffee for the two of us either in a french press or the drip coffee maker and liked the coffee very much, but I couldn't seem to get a good cup when I was just making it for one and since I drink my coffee black, the taste isn't masked by crem or sugar so it had to be good. I had just decided that I would switch to tea for my daily cup when he surprised me with a Keurig coffee system for one:

Wow! I am impressed! The manual said it would take 2 minutes for the water to get warm and two minutes to brew coffee but I've got a nice hot steaming cup in 2 minutes total! Can you believe that? I am amazed. And the joke around here is that I need three days to warm up to new appliances introduced by Jp, but this was love at first cup.

And check out all the varieties of coffee- they list 71 on the site! The machine came with a sampler box of 12 k-cups and I've been keeping track of which ones I like - so far the ones marked 'bold' are a bit strong for my liking but they are pretty good. I'm liking "Donut House" which is strong but not super strong. My one issue is that the k-cups are not very environmentally friendly since the little plastic cups have a mini filter inside they have to go into the garbage - but Jp must have known I'd think that about that and so he also bought me a reusable filter. This way I can use the coffee I want and not have to throw anything away. (The grounds go into my compost)

It also brews tea, which I understand if you're in an office or or RV or other location that doesn't have a kettle, but otherwise, tea already can be brewed one cup at a time so I don't see the need for that.

What a great gift idea! He knocked it out of the park with this one! *

Do you have one? Which flavours do you like?



*Note to family members, mum really wants one now too.....

PHOTO  CREDIT: http://www.keurig.ca/brewers/keurig-mini-plus-brewing-system