Learning about the house.

Today I learned that I’m supposed to run a tub cleaning cycle on my front loading washing machine monthly! OMG, that front loading washer is so gross and yucky even though I leave the door open. You know how lots of things don’t bother you until you see it with a new person’s’ eyes? Well, our tenant has been doing lots of laundry (which is fine), but I cringed every time I heard her use it because I thought it was too gross for anyone outside the family to see it. So I started cleaning out the drainage holes with tweezers and clearing out the clogs and then I tried to clean it with bleach and then I went on the internet and found out that I’m suppose to run the tub clean cycle monthly with special tub cleaning solution. I’ve never done that in the 20 years I’ve owned front loading washers. So I’m trying that today. We’ll see. I also remember my neighbor who had the most pristine tub ever. And lawn. And deck. And they did it all themselves with small children. Sometimes, people are just better at things than you.

Eliana took Edda to a lake yesterday and snapped this gorgeous photo of Edda. Sometimes, ever so briefly, I can see the person she would have been without her disability. It’s not something I dream of or think of regularly these days, there is no Edda without her disability, really, so it’s not good to think about it too much.

I volunteered at Main Street yesterday at their Boba and Books events. A trip to get Boba tea and to the library. I’m trying to read more, mainly because I want to improve my attention span which is now hovering at flea-level. I just want to be entertained by short videos of cute dogs. I ran into J who I haven’t seen in months, so it was nice to catch up with her.

Ordering boba is complicated, but I managed to make this purchase with my watch! I did not have to take my wallet out of my purse.

We dismantled our kitchen yesterday afternoon to install our new induction stovetop. It did not go perfectly – going perfectly is like pitching a no-hitter or getting a grand slam, so a rare occurrence. I’m OK with that. Turns out we need to move some gas and electrical things which I’m not willing to do, so we’ll need to call our friends out again. I think we won’t need to cut or replace the granite countertop. I was having dinner with some tasteful friends a few months ago and they redid their house so beautifully 20 years ago, with handmade tiles and custom woodwork and now there are some needed repairs that will have to go through all that beautiful stuff and my friend was like – we shouldn’t have had all that nice work done because I’m going to have to destroy it to fix some leaking pipes and I won’t be able to put it back. Honestly, tons of stuff is broken in our kitchen, but it’s 85% fine. Are we going to just landfill the 85% that works? Anyways, his statement makes me OK with having subway tile everywhere. It goes back to my theory of – I just want the Honda Accord of things. Well built, not custom, but easily fixable. Essentially very, very boring. So boring. We are boring people.

Of course, Jeremy and I are learning to work together – this is a weak spot in our marriage, home repairs. But it’s going OK. My motto is to turn towards Jeremy when he wants to float ideas (so many ideas! So many) and then be relentlessly cheerful. Even when I think we’ll be without a stovetop for 2-3 weeks? I might as well think 2-3 months and then I should be good with the estimate.