One More Appliance

When we bought this house, we went into it knowing that we'd have to buy all new appliances...except the dishwasher.  This was a foreclosure, and the previous owner took just about everything with them when they left. 

The first thing we bought was the stove, and we actually bought that and had it installed before the house was technically ours!  We needed to have a working stove in the house prior to the appraisal or we may have had an issue with our loan.  We choose a Whirlpool stove/oven, stainless "look" with a black glass cooktop. 

Once the house was ours, we bought the refrigerator.  For this, we went with a Frigidaire, stainless "look" with black handles.  Basically, we're going for the sleeker look without spending the absurd amounts of money.  :-)

At one point prior to taking possession of the house, we thought our dishwasher was also unusable.  I have to admit I was a little bummed to discover that the dishwasher door does, in fact, latch shut, and therefore I didn't have an excuse to buy a new one right away.  :-)  Since we've moved here, the machine has done a decent job, although I've been noticing lately that it isn't cleaning all that well, and I occasionally end up re-washing some items.  So I was thrilled when Shawn suggested a few days ago that we could use part of our tax refund to get a new dishwasher!!  Yay!

So...any suggestions?  I'd like to go the "stainless look" route if possible, just so that all our kitchen appliances match.  I'm willing to consider black, though.  The main things I'm looking for in a dishwasher are simply a machine that will clean well and a machine that is quiet.  I had heard good things about Bosch, but on the Lowe's website, I've noticed that those machines aren't receiving very good reviews.  Whatever we get, we're limiting ourselves to less than $700. 

So feel free to give me some input!

Oh, and in case you're dying to know, we did purchase a washer and dryer for the laundry room when we first moved in, too.  We just chose to go the Craiglist route for those, though.  :-)

5 months old

Satchel is five months old now, and he weighs about 40 pounds (give or take a few...it's hard to weigh him at home).  He's getting so big!  He loves to play fetch and tug-of-war, and he still loves to snuggle.  He's been losing his baby teeth at a pretty rapid rate lately; I've found three teeth on the carpet in the last two days.  He's begun to love car rides.  I think he's figured out that getting in the car usually means he gets to do something fun once he gets out of the car.  Shawn was cleaning out the car the other day and took Satchel outside with him.  Satchel jumped into the car and happily hung out in the backseat while Shawn was cleaning.

Here are a few recent pictures of the little guy!

Here, he's checking out the camera, wondering what's going on in the front yard.

 Trying to look all innocent.  Really, he's hoping that I look away so that he can jump up into that chair.

 He's figured out that he's now tall enough to look out the window by himself.  He likes to keep an eye out for Shawn to come home.  He also sometimes likes to stand with his front paws on the window sill.

 Awwwwwww.......

 Getting ready to go on a hike on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

 It's hard to get a non-blurry picture of him, especially when we're playing fetch.

Why blog?

It's been a solid month since I last posted on this blog.  Wow.  That's pretty pathetic.

But here's the question....has anyone noticed?   Hm.

I guess the real question needs to be...why do I blog?  I certainly don't do it to make money (since I have no ads posted and I'm not doing anything special to up my readership or to get sponsors).  I don't really expect that strangers will be interested in following my blog for the sake of being entertained by my style of writing.  I initially started the blog as a place where friends and family could be updated quickly and easily about the things going on in our lives...but I'm not sure who actually reads this.

Part of the reason that I've enjoyed blogging is simply because I like writing things out.  If nothing else, this blog has been a diary of sorts for me over the last couple years.  And for that reason, I would like to continue to blog.  At least until I get back in the habit of blogging, I think I'll aim to post once a week.  If I post more than that...well, good for me.  :-)