Appliances R Us

Hello! Meet the new member of my family:

ONE POT TO RULE THEM ALL

Yes, I succumbed. Every single person on my Facebook feed has been raving about this stupid thing and posting about how it is on super sale right now. "Who knows?" I thought. "Maybe this is the thing that will rekindle my love of cooking. I'll buy it!"

Would you believe I haven't cooked since last Thursday morning, by the way?

Anyway, I'm out all day tomorrow; but the next day...well, the next day I'm bound and determined to learn how to use a pressure cooker and make a delicious meal in minutes.  Although, from what I can tell, this darn thing doesn't do the grocery shopping for me, and really, the hardest part of cooking a meal is making sure you have the right ingredients in the house at the right time.

My ice cube maker is doing fine, thanks for asking. Here, another picture:

See? MORE ice. And no weird sounds, either...

All these appliances doing my bidding - soon I won't have to do ANYTHING around here. Have I mentioned that my washer and dryer play a little song for me when they are done? It drives the kids crazy, but I sort of like it. Well, maybe that's because it drives the kids crazy, but still...

Ice, Ice, Baby

Today the plumber arrived to hook up our ice machine. I sure hope my children regard machine-made ice as the perfect Christmas present, because that plumber visit cost me $210. That's pretty fancy frozen water, if you ask me.

Merry Christmas, kids!

In other news, um, well, nothing. I drove around all day today, ferrying children hither and yon. Did the NYTimes crossword puzzle. Went to a birthday dinner for a friend. Wasted time on Twitter. 

I'm thinking I really need a regular job. I mean, once I finish the Christmas knitting. That comes first.

Whoops

Inadequate photo of scarf I'm knitting

Sunday! Already!

As you might recall, our new refrigerator (which I adore) periodically made a VERY LOUD buzzing sound. As this is not behavior that one expects from a brand-spankin'-new household appliance, I called Home Depot and asked for a different one. I was very proud of myself for speaking calmly and assertively and getting positive results. I'm a grown-up!

SO, on Friday, as if I had not already moved food around enough on Thanksgiving, I had to empty the fridge of ALL the leftovers and ALL the condiments and everything else, so that the delivery guys could take it away and give me my new one. This was not fun. Still, I didn't like the loud buzzing sound, so I persevered.

The guys arrived and hauled out my almost-new fridge and brought in the even newer one. "Just leave me the hose for the ice machine," I told the one in charge. "I still need to have the plumber come by and do something under the sink so we can hook it up."

"Oh, okay," he said. Then he pulled open the freezer and, reaching in toward the back, said, "Let me just make sure this button is turned off."

Turned. Off.

He pulled his head back out of the freezer to find me staring at him. "Did you just do something?" I asked, comprehension dawning.

"Yes," he said. "The button for the ice machine is back there. If it isn't hooked up, you have to turn it off."

I just looked at him.

"So, uh, the first delivery guys didn't do that?" he asked, comprehension dawning on him also.

"No," I said. "No, they didn't."

He looked at me and then shrugged. "Well, I'm not bringing that other one back in here. Let's just pretend we didn't figure that out."

Inadequate photo of cowl I'm knitting (llama's wool!)

So, yeah, no loud buzzing sound this time. None whatsoever. My only hope is that someone benefits from all this by picking up an almost-new fridge real cheap.

Stuffed. Also? Tired.

Silly me - just because I made the stuffing, cranberry bread, and cranberry sauce ahead of time, plus bought the pies, plus cleaned up the house (somewhat), I naively thought that today wouldn't be too difficult. But no, I got up at 8 this morning and didn't stop moving for, oh, 5 hours. The whole time I kept saying to Brian, "I don't care WHEN you are working next year, we are NEVER scheduling dinner for 1:30 AGAIN." I just couldn't adjust to having the holiday meal that early. 

What made it worse was that it was a beautiful day out - who the heck wants to be inside eating dinner when the sun is high and the temps are almost pleasant? I kept thinking I would get a chance to go on a walk while the turkey was cooking, but there WAS NO TIME. Mashing potatoes, more cleaning up, finding 14 decent cloth napkins from our raggedy table linen collection - it took forever.

Luckily, Susie helped with the decorating

And then afterwards, of course, there was clean up. The quote of the day came from Rachel, who -when we told her to wipe down the kitchen table and sweep - said, "I ALREADY emptied the dishwasher!" in her most irate tone of voice. She apparently hadn't noticed Larry and I working our butts off all day. 

I topped off my day by emptying the contents of my new refrigerator (and there was a LOT to empty, because leftovers) into a cooler, in order to be ready for the delivery of our new new refrigerator tomorrow morning. Because I hadn't already handled enough food today...

So, yeah, I'm pretty much done with this whole Thanksgiving thing. I still have to wait up until Brian finishes his shift, though. Larry dropped him off at Best Buy at 4:30, and there was already a line of people going around the building. What is up with these stores opening for Black Friday on a Thursday? Are days of the week not sacred anymore? I say, keep Friday for Fridays. It's my new slogan.

Anyway, if you want to see a singing turkey, go here. An essential Thanksgiving tradition, if you ask me...

Thanksgiving Eve

It's almost midnight, so I could just go to bed, but that would be too sensible.

Naturally, with guests coming over tomorrow, and a big dinner to make (plus 2 dental appointments today), I decided to throw a flu shot in there for the fun of it. Here's hoping I don't feel under the weather tomorrow, because I don't even get to sleep in. You see, we had to schedule our dinner at the unaccustomed (for us) early hour of 1:30, because Brian is scheduled to work at 4:30 on Thanksgiving Day (THANKS A LOT, BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPERS).

Open on Thanksgiving Day? Seriously?

But the tables are extended, (most of) the food made/bought, guests invited. Our event has turned into a BYOPlate deal, since I couldn't find cute Thanksgiving paper plates at a reasonable deal, and we only own 11 dinner plates (half of them chipped because we like to break things, apparently). I think there are enough forks, though, so there's that.

I've fallen in love with this goofy turkey.

You know, Larry and I have been married for more than a quarter of a century. 25 YEARS. So I have no idea why we don't have enough dishes, etc., for a normal Thanksgiving dinner (with the 3 oldest kids absent, to boot). NO IDEA.

What I do know is that, when the last guest has gone and the last dish been washed, I am going to sit down and start a 3-day knitting marathon. No cleaning, no cooking, just me and my yarn and my needles, clicking away.

Christmas is coming, and THERE WILL BE GIFTS, and they shall be made of natural fibers. So sayeth the prophets, and so it shall be.







[Turkey image: Clipart Panda]