Meet Floyd, and Yuki...

...and Beauty.

In case you were unaware of our situation, no, we did not have a dishwasher for about 10 months. It died shortly before Connor was born. So yes, we've been hand washing dishes for that long. What are we crazy? There is an explanation as to why it dragged on so long. It's not that we couldn't go out and buy one or use our emergency fund. When our water heater went out, we had one within two days. I lasted less than 24 hours without a clothes dryer. But for some reason, I was okay with washing dishes for that long.

I'd say the real reason though is due to indecision. See, our current kitchen appliances, including our former dishwasher, are off white--almond, cream--whatever you want to call them. The rest of the appliances are fine, relatively new even (within 10 years--wait, that just made them sound old). But they don't sell appliances in that color anymore, nor do I think they should. (Okay, not entirely true. I've seen one or two, but I think most could agree that this color option is slightly out of date). So then, what new color scheme did we want to go with? I literally went back and forth between white, black and stainless steel so many times. Because once we choose this, the rest of the appliances will follow once we remodel our kitchen (which, in case you are wondering, will be in this century). I know everyone says that stainless steel gets tons of fingerprints on it, which was the drawback, along with it costing more, but I finally decided that it's the look that I like the most. Of course it was all up to me, Jared could care less--no, he actually couldn't care less.

So after all this time, tons of indecision and soul searching, and a tax return later we finally brought the newest member of our family home: Floyd. I love the sleek look and the hidden control panel. Yes, it does collect fingerprints and we have many fingers around that height. I've found that vinegar and water works well. Does anyone have a better suggestion? Oh, and you see our laminate counter sloping down? The guy who installed it broke the counter! Yeah, it was Jared. Can't be too mad about that now can we? Besides, it gets us closer to that new kitchen dream. This is the inside. It has an extra rack on top that has actually really come in handy for those little things and flat stuff. It cleans great and is so quiet, sometimes I'm not sure if it's even on. But then again, I'm used to my really old, loud one. The only problem is, we still have to load it. We are so grateful for Floyd.

Our next new addition is Yuki the tree. Our family room window faces west which, if you know anything about sun patterns and living in Florida, means that the afternoons are super hot on that side of the house. I basically pull the shade closed every afternoon and make a cave, but it's still so hot in that room especially. We did have a tree there before the hurricane took it out a few years back. We actually had four trees back there but it has been quite a wasteland for a long time. I decided that I couldn't take another summer here without getting a tree for shade. So we paid a pretty penny to get the biggest tree the nursery could give us.She is a Japonese Fern which is why her name is Yuki and she is very pretty. Unfortunately, I am retarded and told them to put it in the wrong spot, as Jared pointed out that night. It only shaded half of the window and as the summer sun gets higher in the sky it would shade even less. I felt like such an idiot! We were thinking about paying to have it moved, but then I decided to use that money toward getting another tree. They had two new Japonese Ferns so we picked the biggest one. The kids named her Beauty, which is probably good for her self image because she is admittedly lopsided. But, they assured us it would all get evened out over time and we now have excellent shade and will all throughout the year (as long as we don't kill them).You can see that Yuki has lost a lot of leaves, but it's just because of shedding leaves in the spring and growing new ones, so the nursery tells me. I like them. It was definitely worth all the money. Some day we might landscape our yard or something. Some day. Oh, here's a picture of our family room window around 4:00 pm. Look, Yuki is shading even less now that we're closer to summer. Ahh, shade. So much better!