I just finished a yearly project. Each day of the month I posted on a pre-determined theme. During the month of November, I'll post a collage of all my photos on the daily theme from the past year. The theme for the twelfth day of the month was "Complaint."
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End of the Truce - Hannah stops feeling unwell and learns that chasing the cat is fun.
Duped! - My advent calendar was a disappointment.
A Woeful Dog - Hannah does not enjoy getting a bath.
I Can't Fix This - My contacts come in packs of five. I find this inconvenient.
Flooding Woes - Rain flooded streets and walking paths and I was inconvenienced once again.
The Bells - The church bells are So. Loud. Cute video of Hannah, though.
Modern Capitalism Woes - I couldn't get banks to break down a large bill.
More Dental Woes - This is why one of my Q4 goals is to find a new dentist.
Walking in Orange Cone Season - Update: All of the sidewalks have been reopened and the intersection with the terrible curb and then another curb has been leveled. Yay!
Are You Still Talking about the Pandemic? - We STILL have bad toilet paper to use.
The Saga of the Ear Buds - What a first world problem this is!
Minor Gripes - Eye liner? I wrote a whole post about eye liner!
Duped! - My advent calendar was a disappointment.
A Woeful Dog - Hannah does not enjoy getting a bath.
I Can't Fix This - My contacts come in packs of five. I find this inconvenient.
Flooding Woes - Rain flooded streets and walking paths and I was inconvenienced once again.
The Bells - The church bells are So. Loud. Cute video of Hannah, though.
Modern Capitalism Woes - I couldn't get banks to break down a large bill.
More Dental Woes - This is why one of my Q4 goals is to find a new dentist.
Walking in Orange Cone Season - Update: All of the sidewalks have been reopened and the intersection with the terrible curb and then another curb has been leveled. Yay!
Are You Still Talking about the Pandemic? - We STILL have bad toilet paper to use.
The Saga of the Ear Buds - What a first world problem this is!
Minor Gripes - Eye liner? I wrote a whole post about eye liner!
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Update on the sidewalk situation: My complaints about the curb running into another curb were well-founded. The sidewalks had to be REDONE meaning that some of them are, as of November 11, still closed. Womp womp.
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Hannah count: 3
Zelda count: 1
Whines about products count: 7
Creepy chip clip count: 1
Sign count: 1
Creepy rabbit count: 1
Modes of transportation count: 1
Blaze orange count: 1
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For today, I'd like to register a solution to something I've complained about endlessly since we moved into our house. We bought a new washer and dryer. Woot woot! We upgraded our Costco membership and then took advantage of their appliance sale and HERE WE ARE. Top loader 4 LYFE. Also, the lesson I learned from Sarah's experience was that we did not want them to be wi-fi enabled because I don't need aggressive texts telling me to take care of the laundry, so we have dumb machines. This is perfect.
Because we had to take the baby gate down so they would fit through our bathroom door, we're temporarily leaving the baby gate down as a way to test Hannah to see if she will go in the bathroom. If she manages to stay out of it for a few days, we can permanently remove the baby gate and won't that ALSO be exciting? I didn't realize how much smaller the baby gate made the entrance to our bathroom.
I also proceeded to send a text to some of my friends suggesting that perhaps it is NOT okay that I am this excited about new appliances. This should go under something you should tell 16-year-olds. When you get super excited about super mundane things, you're officially an adult and an old.
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What's your last mundane purchase that made you really excited?
Congrats!! Adults may be boring, but adulting is super useful!
ReplyDeleteCurious: Hannah looks so tall--does the baby gate actually keep her out, or does it serve to remind her that it's a boundary?
Great question, Maya, about the baby gate. The gates absolutely just serve as a reminder to her that there's a boundary. We frequently even left the one to the bathroom undone and the only time she's actually gone into that bathroom is twice when she was really scared and she came to me for comfort. We also have a baby gate to the mud room that we really only use at night and when we need to keep her in there (like if there's a repair person here or something). She COULD jump over the baby gate to the mud room, but she doesn't know that and has never attempted to.
DeleteWhen we first brought her home (she was 1-2 already, so she was an adult dog), we kept her tethered to us for 3-4 days and we made it clear where she was and wasn't supposed to go. She has mostly followed our lead from those early days.
I would love to do away with the baby gate to the bathroom, though, because it's annoying for guests and makes the room feel really small. So far today she's respected the boundary even without the visual reminder, so fingers crossed for the next few days!
Hannah is so smart! (I hope babygate is a success.)
DeleteYay for new appliances!!!! My last mundane purchase was these little bars that go over the doors to our undersink cabinets and hold hand towels. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.
ReplyDeleteI think of you every time I have to pull out a new line/5-pack of contact lenses. It drives me nuts, too, so I always take them out in lines of two and remove the fifth contact from each. Then they are in nice pairs. Except! My current box has an odd number of 5-packs! So I am going to end up with a contact lens with no match!
Isn't it crazy how much those little purchases can make your life so much easier!! Yay!
DeleteI am sorry that my neuroticism over the contacts has drifted over to you. THEY SHOULD COME IN PAIRS!!
If I replaced a washer and dryer I'd get very excited about it. I got annoyed just reading that there are wifi models...I can't even imagine.
ReplyDeleteThe closest I've come to being excited over something mundane is when my husband cleaned out the dryer vent a few months ago. It kind of feels like we got a new dryer because ours works so much better now.
Cleaning dryer vents is so satisfying and effective. (I really feel like An Old getting excited about this kind of thing. What would twenty-five year old me say about this?!)
DeleteI remember reading your post about eyeliner and thinking I like this chick. Anyone who can make that topic interesting is someone worth paying attention to, imo.
ReplyDeleteLOLOLOL. I am glad I wooed you with talk about whether or not buying eyeliner is ethical!
DeleteAside from groceries, I don't know what I bought last. Last year there was a new furnace and AC, but it didn't excite me, particularly the cost.
ReplyDeleteYeah, we bought HVAC stuff a couple of years ago. It was not as exciting because both of them still worked when we replaced them and so we never really noticed a change at all. At least with the new washer and dryer, there's a definite improvement in quality and noise-level.
DeleteIt is ALWAYS cool to be excited about new appliances! And I hope the gate works out.
ReplyDeleteLOL I think my husband could benefit from laundry text reminders.
I think I could probably benefit from laundry text reminders, but I also think they'd drive me mad!! No thank you to appliance-induced insanity.
DeleteI would be SO EXCITED by a new washing machine, especially if it were a top loader. We have a front loader, and like everyone else on earth I hate it. Well, HATE is a strong word. I like that it uses less water, important in California. But it's impossible to keep clean.
ReplyDeleteQuestion - Why is Hannah not allowed in the bathroom? Mulder had full run of the house privileges, and he never abused them (except for barfing purposes, and the bathroom seems like a perfect place for that.)
This is replacing a dreaded front loader, which I LOATHED. You're right, it was impossible to clean and it was making our clothes DISGUSTING.
DeleteHannah is not allowed in the bathroom because that is where the cat's litter box lives. Dogs love to eat cat poop and it's pretty frowned upon, so we've never let Hannah experience it! Also, it's nice for Zelda the Cat to have a "safe space" to get away from the dog when the dog wants to play a little too intensely. It's the only place she's not allowed to go on the main floor!
Neither of them are allowed upstairs because I'm actually allergic to both of them and we try to keep our bedroom as dander-free as possible.
Congrats on the new machines! I am with you that I would NOT want text reminders of the laundry, especially not passive-aggressive ones! I wonder who came up with that idea; my guess would be that it wasn't someone who does their own laundry.
ReplyDeleteThe texts are not a good idea in any way! Potentially useful, I guess, but so stressful! You're right that it was probably someone who didn't do laundry who thought them up.
DeleteYessssssss! And NO. DO NOT get texts from your washer. Very stressful.
ReplyDeleteI 100% learned my lesson about that from you.
DeleteTop Loaders 4LYFE!
ReplyDeleteI share your excitement, so remember that when the time comes for me to replace our next appliance (which will not be anytime soon, I hope).
Yeah, our dryer in particular was on its last legs, so it was time. But I've been complaining about them for years.
DeleteTop loaders indeed. We have an older model and it is amazing! No regrets and I would NOT get a front-loader. I've heard too many horror stories. And no thanks on the Wifi.
ReplyDeleteThe thing I love the most about this is how far Hannah has come health-wise since I started reading your blog.
YES!! She's relatively healthy now. Zelda is our problem child now.
DeleteWoohoo! You DEFINITELY needed a new washer and dryer! I didn't even realize they could be wifi enabled- I also would not want that feature.
ReplyDeleteI just read your response to J about why you have the baby gate up- yuck. Well, I'll be interested to hear if you can keep it down from now on. Hannah seems like a cautious dog and she might just avoid the bathroom out of habit.
Hannah does seem to be following the rules, so that's been encouraging. She really is a good girl.
DeleteAppliances are definitely exciting purchases! Not mundane in the least! Maybe the washer and dryer are mundane in and of itself, but the purchase of one certainly isn't.
ReplyDeleteWe are a front loader family - but that is what came with the house. When we were using cloth diapers, it was actually trickier to get the water level right with front loaders.
Our old one was a front loader that also came with the house. I was grumpy about it from day one and am so excited to have a top loader. I know front loaders have their defenders, but I am solidly in the top loader camp.
DeleteI was very excited about my new dryer after the old one died.
ReplyDeleteReading all the responses I started wondering about the front load washers and why they would be harder to clean? Something to research. Until we moved to the US I had not even seen a top loader. We have one and I hate it with all my hard. I am short and the machine is big (came with the house, not my choice), and I always have to get on my toes to take everything out. I also think that it does not clean as well as my front loader back in Germany did. I think I am missing something? I probably would get very excited about a front load washer 😂
Well, in a front loader there are lots of places for moisture to get stuck and there's no way to dry it out, creating mold. Once that mold is in there, it's impossible to reach into all the crevices and get it out. We used to leave our washer door open (and we do with the top loader, too!), but since it's in our bathroom, the door being open meant it took up space and we were constantly banging into it and occasionally it would bang shut.
DeleteI agree that top loaders don't clean as well. Fortunately we are a two adult household, so our clothes don't actually get really dirty. In the Consumer Reports tests, they did crazy tests on mud and grass stains and other things that honestly don't come up in our house. So, if I had small children, maybe this would be more of a concern, but it wasn't a concern for us.
I can see how the open door is an issue in a bathroom. I guess it is one of those things that is different in Germany. Maybe they are even build in a different way or have a different rise cycle? I never thought about mold being an issue.
DeleteAdulting can be weird... but yeah, I get excited about new appliances too. They make adult life easier so it's warranted! Question though: why team toploader? I had nothing but trouble with top loaders (and all German machines are front loaders anyway, so I am like "wth"? LOL)
ReplyDeleteFront loaders are IMPOSSIBLE to clean. They're gross. That is all. LOL.
DeleteHooray for a new washer/dryer! That's so very exciting!
ReplyDeleteI got a pair of drywall anchors in the mail and was so excited about it. My life is all downhill from here, I think.
Drywall anchors. LOLOLOL. It is the little things, I guess.
DeleteDude, I would give... a lot (maybe not a limb, but definitely some cold hard cash) to trade in my stackable for a real w/d. I shall live vicariously through you (NOT Sarah, I don't want her machine's PA texts...) for the time being. ;)
ReplyDeleteI think the texts were downright aggressive, not even passive aggressive. Like, I was sort of afraid her washer was going to come to life and find her to empty it!
Deletegetting excited about adult tings feels so adult. I also feel it is a bit sad. Don't get me wrong I am more than happy for you that you finally got a new washer and dryer. It makes life so much simple. And you should be happy.
ReplyDeleteI personally though find it sad that as an adult I am happy about such things instead of I dont know discovering a new flower.
I mean, I don't think it's sad. I think it expands our range of things that please us! Like, I'm still excited about a new flower, too. It's a LARGER range of happiness!
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