Bye, Neighbor

Our neighbor across the street is moving. It's quite bittersweet for us because we've had many wonderful memories with this neighbor and they've been very kind to us. When we initially moved into the house, our kitchen sink clogged. Our neighbor saw us out late at night poking around our clean-out. He came over and helped us snake it. No significant debris came up, but somehow the kitchen clog cleared. 

During my first pregnancy, I was outside raking leaves one afternoon and he came over and helped me suck them up with his nifty leaf vacuum. I don't know if he knew I was pregnant or not, but he was very kind. 

When our daughter turned one, we invited them over for a small neighbor get-together to celebrate her. That same month, his wife turned 70 and we celebrated her. After having both kids, we've spontaneously knocked on their door to see if they had some time just to chat and they've graciously welcomed us into their home and let the kids poke around their belongings while we chatted. 

As I watch cars drive up and park to go in for showings, it's sad knowing their home will soon belong to someone else. But it also occurred to me that they've done this before. They've seen a neighbor sell their house and change ownership. I've done this before as a buyer when we bought this house. 

When I came to see our house for the first time, I parked across the street, in front of their house. I remember looking to my right and thinking to myself, This is a pretty house with great curb appeal. And then I crossed the street and went to see my future home. Perhaps they happened to look out the window a few times and notice the cars passing by with prospective buyers. Maybe they had noticed me. 

Now I'm the one seeing the cars...

We had a fun story last year delivering their Christmas card. This year we will need to put theirs in the mail, and we won't get to stop and chat for a while. We're going to miss them. 

Checking In: Small Kitchen Appliances - 6 Months In

We've been tracking our small appliance use for over six months now. Back in January, I set a resolution for the year to track our small appliance use and see what we use and see what we don't use. The last time I did an update was in February after one month. Since then, we've been quietly tracking our usage and living life as normal. 

After another couple of months and a change in seasons, the usage has varied slightly and appliances which were falling behind in the early winter months have now caught up again. Here are the update numbers as of July 3rd, 2022. I've put the numbers from January in parentheses so you can see how much it increased in five months.

1. Instant Pot: 27 (7)

2. Instant Pot Air Fryer: 38 (3)

3. Stand Mixer: 1 (0)

4. Griddle: 9 (1)

5. Juicer: 3 (2)

6. Waffle Maker: 10 (1)

7. Popcorn Maker: 0 (0)

8. Crockpot/Slow Cooker: 0 (0)

9. Mini Food Warmer: 1 (0)

10. Food Processor: 16 (2)

11. Blender: 15 (2)

12. Vacuum Sealer: 8 (3)

13. Hand Mixer: 0 (0)

14. Immersion Blender: 2 (1)

15. Toaster Oven

16. Kettle

17. Rice Cooker

18. Steamer : 3 (0)

19. Enameled Cast Iron Dutch Oven: 3 (2)

The Instant Pot is a clear favorite at our house, having a combined use of 65 times in the last 6 months. That averages out to more than twice a week. I have separated the two because you can purchase the air fryer lid as a separate accessory. We just happened to purchase ours altogether as a bundle.

Anyone else still use tally marks? For anything?

The griddle, waffle maker, blender, and food processor have showed significant increases in use as well over the last five months. There are still three small appliances sitting at zero uses. And this doesn't really surprise me. We don't really make popcorn anymore, and sadly, I'm not sure why. There's a chance once the kids get older, we would use it more to make popcorn, but for now, it is quietly stored away. Our slow cooker doesn't get any use because the Instant Pot takes precedence. If we ever host a big party and end up cooking, it's possible I will need it to cook a larger batch. For now, it'll be quietly stored as well.

Out hand mixer is the last small appliance that doesn't get any use. It was a registry item when we got married and wet ave used it a number of times. But I was gifted a stand mixer some years ago for Christmas, and naturally, I would use that one instead of the hand mixer. Ironically, the stand mixer isn't getting a lot of love either...but I probably won't be getting rid of that one even if it does come in last. Let's be honest. Baking with little kids is hard right now. You've seen the videos of the grandma and her grandson. I'd like my children not to eat raw batter if possible. Or spill flour and sugar onto the floor. Or drop an egg on the ground. 

The three bolded items have no tallies beside them because they are staples in our house. I have probably used the rice cooker every day this year except maybe what totals one week. 

The next update will be at the end of the year with the final numbers after one year. 

Mute Magic and Other Musings

Every now and then homeownership becomes more of a burden than a privilege. Lately it has felt like that. Yesterday I decided I wanted to clean out the gutters so my husband helped me set up the ladder and I pulled out all the leaves and branches which had accumulated over the last year. It wasn’t hard, but it’s not glamorous work, especially when it’s 100 degrees outside. My one small victory is that everything I pull out of the gutter goes straight into my composter. As I discovered years ago, the gutter is a wonderful place for compost to decompose, but an abomination to water flow when full of compost. 

When I got to my last downspout, I saw that a lot of the debris had piled on top of the opening. Chances are it was inside the downspout, too. So we proceeded to unhook our rain barrel hose attachment and I watched this brick of compost slide down the inside of the gutter. Unfortunately for us, it got stuck on the way down so we had to unscrew the bottom of the gutter and jiggle it out. It was like our gutter pooped out some compost. 

Look at the color of that dirt. Believe it or not, it came out of my gutter.

See how dark that color is? It’s quite extraordinary. Im pretty sure the quality of that soil is better than the quality of potting mix I purchased from the store. As I mentioned earlier, wonderful place for decomposition to occur, but a nightmare for drainage. 

While unclogging the gutter, I also discovered a leak in our hose. It must’ve happened that afternoon in the heat because I had just used the hose that morning and everything was fine. Well, that was a bummer. However, the hose has a lifetime warranty so I was able to claim that and receive some money back for it. I actually still have the original receipt from 7 years ago. 

They require a picture of your house taken out of commission.
If you look carefully, you can see where it burst.

Later in the evening, I noticed our kitchen sink was falling down. It's an undermount sink so it's glued to the underside of our kitchen counter. Of course it would be ours that falls down within six years of being installed. Ironically, we used a car jack stand which was almost the perfect height to prop the kitchen sink back up so it wouldn't be half dangling in the cabinet. The saddest part is it would be cheaper for us to buy another jack stand to use for the car than to hire someone to come out and reglue the kitchen sink. So what's the trade-off? We lose a good portion of our under-sink cabinet storage space. 

You can't really tell that something is holding up our sink....right?

For now, this is going to do because we have no desire to drop hundreds of dollars to pay someone to reglue our kitchen sink, especially not because we found a quick fix that does exactly the same thing for $0 cost to us for now. Eventually down the road or one day when we sell the house, it'll need to be done, but for now, we'll just lose a portion of our cabinet space. 

That evening after bath time, I decided to play a little game with my daughter. Instead of speaking to her, I started mouthing words to her. I'd see the videos on social media where parents mess with their kids and trick them into thinking they're deaf to their parents voices. Or that they've become invisible. While that wasn't my goal, I was curious what she would do. So for the rest of the evening as I got her ready for bed, I didn't say anything audible. She could see my mouth moving and mouthing words, and someone who has a strong sense of lip reading could have communicated with me almost perfectly. But you know what conclusion I found? Bedtime was smoother than it normally is. On any other day she likes to give me a lot of nonsense about using the toilet before bed or brushing her own teeth instead of letting me help her or wanting specific items in her room put in specific places. That night was the easiest, most straightforward, she's ever gone to bed. 

Now parents, I'm not suggesting you go mute on your children and expect them to behave 5x better than normal. But I am proposing the idea that the best listening skills sometimes come out when there is "nothing" to listen to. 

It's been quite the week, y'all.