The dishwasher starts fine, pumping out all water, but when it comes time to start the wash cycle, it quits, gives an error code, and pumps no water in.

The dishwasher is out of warranty, so we called around some local placed to get it looked at, and surprisingly found that nobody we called will work on LGs.

We finally gave in and called Sears, which said they did. The first scheduled repairman, which said he’d be here anytime between 8-5 didn’t show up for the first appointment or call about the no-show until way later. We reschedule, which left me at home for another day from 8-5. This time he showed, told me the code meant that it wasn’t getting water, looked at a few things on the dishwasher but did not pull the dishwasher out to disconnect the line in the back, but not until after he talked on his cell phone for about 10 minutes to a friend, and then declared that it was the plumbing. He won’t look at the pipe that is connecting the dishwasher to the sink. Then he charges me money.

We finally get a plumber here because Mac tried to replace that pipe, but it is soldered on or gorilla glued or something. It will not come off. The plumber gets it off and replaces it for us. Guess what? The dishwasher is doing the same thing. It isn’t the plumbing, it’s the dishwasher.

The plumber doesn’t work on dishwashers — which actually doesn’t bother me at all compared to a dishwasher repairman that can’t replace one pipe that connects the dishwasher to the sink. The appliance guy who installed the dishwasher also installed the pipe that goes to the sink. However, he says that they have employees that do, so he’s going to ask if they can fix an LG.

In the meantime, my evenings are spent washing dishes by hand. It is cheaper, but given all the other things we are expected to do during a day when you have young children, I am getting to the point where I want the convenience back.

We’ve had to fix this dishwasher a couple of times already, and we’ve only had it a little over 6 years. One time, my brother fixed what the Big Box warranty repairman couldn’t figure out. And given some past bad experiences with Sears, I’m never shopping there again, which will be easy since the Lawrence store is one that is being shut down.

The thing that makes me really nervous is our refrigerator is making a strange rattling noise. I’ve investigated the stuff on top, and it isn’t that, so it is probably the refrigerator itself. And it’s an LG as well.

I don’t care how much they try to smarten up their appliances, I’m never buying an LG again.

One of our shower heads^* has been half broken, and when I took a shower on Sunday, something snapped and it became three-fourths broken and the fourth that was still working was doing so at about half capacity. On my way out of that sad shower, I mentioned to Mac that I was going to go buy a new one, and he said to me, “Don’t buy a new one.” I replied, “But, it is broken but even worse.” with the look that Mac has probably learned means “I’m doing it anyhow because I’ve made up my mind and people just telling me ‘No’ will not change it.” So Mac says, “I bought you a new one for Valentine’s Day.”

He went to his present stash, and showed it to me before he installed it. Tonight I discovered that both heads have a mist setting, and it was fabulous! With each shower head pointed in slightly different directions, it fills the entire shower with hot mist.

I think it is one of those low-flow shower heads, but when there is two and you just want to stay in the shower until you run out of hot water, the point is moot. I’m about to lose the water savings I’ve gained recently by washing dishes by hand^**.

*We have two in our shower. And a shower stick.

**Our dishwasher is still broken^***, and while it takes more time, I’ve discovered that my water bill goes down by $14-ish dollars a month just by doing the dishes by hand, and I even run the dishwasher on the quick wash setting. I didn’t own my first dishwasher until 2003, so I’ve had lots of practice doing it. Maybe I need to do two birds and put my dishes in the shower with me.

***If you live in this town, don’t buy an LG. After the warranty has expired, you’ll be stuck with a bunch of local repair shops that don’t work on LGs. Then you’ll give up and call Big Box, which will require you to be home 8-5 only to stand you up, then reschedule for you to be home 8-5 another day, show up, talk on their cell to their friend instead of working on your dishwasher, tell you that it isn’t the dishwasher but rather the pipe supplying the water and they won’t work on that, and charge you money anyhow.

We’ve also purchased/enjoyed some fireworks. The kids and I made another crustless quiche–this time was broccoli, cheddar and Mural of Flavor.

The big project for today: The animatronic dinosaur has been moved out to make room for a folding table. All craft supplies were moved over to the sink area, and today, I will set up the organizing bins around there and have the kid’s craft area ready. That means we can actually set up that loom that Ada got for her birthday. I’m also wondering if I should just go ahead and put our painting tarp underneath the craft table. Not that I care about the crappy carpet that is down there, but I’m not sure I’ll convince Mac to replace it with something better, and right now, it isn’t crusted with paint. Some of the craft stuff is locked in my office, so I am really, really hoping I have the energy to clean/organize that as well as I pull things out and put it in the playroom.

The thunder and rain did make harder to get out of bed, but my headache pushed me out anyhow. Coffee is in the Dalek. My family is awake. Time to get started on the day.

*The problem is we eat in it everyday.

We ended up with 6 kitchen trash bags for donation. All future fitting clothes are folded and put away in a labeled bin, as well as the winter blankets and our winter duvet cover. Now you can open the closet downstairs and see the labels on the storage bin to know what is in it without having to drag them all out and looking inside.

This is how I want to handle the storage area. I want stuff we just really, really won’t use out of the house. I want everything organized and all bins labeled. I want to move some of my not used that much kitchen items to the shelves in the storage area with easy access to just walk in and grab them for those few times I use the items. I’m not doing this tomorrow though. I am scrubbing the inside of the fridge and going to the zoo.

I will update this post if I find more goods under the stairs.

• Stainless steel GE blender with glass container
• Tea length flower girl dress. This is a size 4. Fun play dress or could be fitted into a Halloween costume. We even have the steel gray sash, but not the necklace and unfortunately, I gave the shoes away awhile ago. Here is the back, and the front.
• A girl’s 5T red coat. I’ll post a photo tomorrow

This year, I decided that I’m not only going through the guest closet to purge clothes, but also the bins that have shown up there that holds junk. And I’m going to tackle the storage closet under the stairs and do the same thing. We have too much junk. It does make me feel lucky that the only thing in the attic is holiday decorations, a bike frame in which the wheels were stolen, and Christmas dishes. We haven’t gone that far in our hoarding of junk. And luckily, if you watch Hoarders for comparison, we are extremely neat and non-junk collecting.

We aren’t *that* bad, but we could be better. And when we move out of this house in about 5 years, I don’t want to be all OMG.

I also want to find a corner bookshelf to place cookbooks on in my kitchen. Or a narrow, non corner one I can attach to the pantry for the same reason. Or get rid of that small wine rack that now seems to just hold toys and junk instead of wine like it used to before we had children and put the bookshelf there. That will free up my hutch to place dishes. I got some really cool tapas dishes for my birthday or Christmas^* that I don’t have a place to put, so they are still packed in the boxes in the guest room closet. I’ve stopped requesting and buying cookbooks due to space. I’d love to have these in electronic format, but I’m not about to type them, so I need to just move them.

In theory it is nice to get some money for some of this stuff, but Craigslist has proven to be flaky. And I hate garage sales, so I’m not about to have one of my own. I will make a post of stuff I’m getting rid of, and if my friends want it, cool. Otherwise, I’m taking it to charity and getting the tax benefit just for the ease of removing it from my house.

*Either one. They sort of blend together, so I don’t remember for which occasion I was gifted them.

I made it for my dinner tonight. My changes: leave out the English muffin, add more spinach, add a few dashes of Mural of Flavor to the spinach while cooking, sprinkle on some fontina cheese before baking. This was good, and now my mind is thinking of different flavor combos. Ada and I have been enjoying hard boiled eggs with smoked salmon for breakfast, so my next one might just be with salmon and goat cheese.

Since the spinach is cooked before baking, this would be a really easy breakfast because everything can be prepped the night before and then assembled and placed in the oven while I get ready in the morning. I’m hoping it will be even faster once my new oven is installed^*

My fake wood panel 1989 microwave is finally being replaced. I’ve always passed on the opportunity because all I do with it is reheat some foods^** and cook bacon. The bacon cooking is starting to take a long time, so Mac got me a new microwave/convection oven combo for Christmas. Now all my appliances will coordinate, and I will have another, small convection oven for cooking, which I’m hoping will pre-heat faster than my big convection oven. Perfect for making ramekin-sized quick breakfasts.

**Some food is best warmed on the stove.

I almost got all of my Christmas shopping done tonight. Well, at least for the immediate family. I have some friends who will probably end up with gifts after Christmas. Jay and Ada’s Santa presents are not bought. We usually keep those for the bigger, more expensive gift. Ada wants a camera. Her only requirement is that it’s pink. I’m trying to decide whether I want to get her the crappy, but plastic and more durable, V-Tech camera or put in a little extra and get her a much better, but less durable, Nikon Coolpix. Jay wants a puppy. I warned Mac a long time ago that the first kid that requests a puppy is getting a puppy, however, with Jay, he’s all puppy talk and no puppy walk. He talks up about how awesome puppies are, but if you get him near an actual real dog, he freaks out and acts like, well, Mac. Because of this, I’m not getting a dog. I suggested that maybe we get a fish and name it Puppy because it is in a bowl and won’t try to come near Jay. Then I saw one of those Leapster game systems that had a game where you took care of virtual pets, and I was like, “Oh, I’ll get him a game that involves dogs.” Jay loves games. However, I don’t really want a Leapster. I’d rather get him a Nintendo DS because, well, you should see him play the Mario games on the Wii. However, I also don’t think an almost four year old really needs a Nintendo DS. I do feel confident with the correct types of games, he’d have no problem playing the DS. I don’t feel confident that he wouldn’t break it. Nintendo has a lot more games geared towards the younger crowd, so if we got a portable gaming system, it would be that over the PS. I haven’t decided with him either.

We bought a mattress today, but it won’t be in until January since, yeah M, our frame is a Cali-King and those have to be ordered because none are kept in stock. We did try Tempur-Pedic. They feel awesome, but we could not spend that much money on a mattress. Tempting, but no. Until January, we have to sleep in the guest room or the living room sofas because our broken mattress has been drained–unless we go buy an air mattress, which is tempting to have one on hand again for extra guest situations.

My house is a big disastrous mess. I get up to get ready at 5:15am, leave at 6:30am and return back home with the kids at 5:45pm. Then I get to make dinner or run. Then we have to get the kids in bed. It is usually 7:30-8:30pm before I have any time to do anything. I will unload/load dishes in the mornings and during dinner prep. I try to throw laundry in the morning, night, but because everybody is still asleep except Ada, I don’t get stuff put away in the morning. I’m not keeping up. In January, we are going to start looking into hiring housekeeping. I’m tired of my weekends being mostly catch-up chores. I am more than willing to just pay someone to clean my kitchen and bathrooms once a week, preferably at the end of the week so I go into the weekend with them clean and I’m not tempted to do it myself. In the spring, I’ll be hiring lawn care service as well because I just can’t do it all. I’m not getting enough sleep or running time or fun, and I’m going crazy. People in Lawrence have any recommendations, please pass them my way.

I don’t have a laundry room. I have a laundry closet. There isn’t room in there to store both the clothes and the machines to clean the clothes. So they sit in the hallway near the laundry closet. With the above system, I could at least separate clothes and have one or two marked for clean clothes that get taken out late at night or on the way out the door in the morning and need to be folded later. And it would take up less floor space than my current system.

I like it.

Luckily neither of us were standing underneath the shelf when it plummeted to the ground. The books are now in a standing bookshelf on the floor where I have been thinking about putting them, but haven’t. *cough*

However, Ada is still upset about her broken shelf. The wall needs some small repair from the screws ripping out. We are going to hang artwork in that space after that is complete.