A Little Bit of Heaven

We just did a slight remodel on our kitchen. For the past 5 years we've not had an automatic dishwasher. The man who owned our home before we bought it also built the house, sans dishwasher.

When we walked through the house for the first time, we asked him about not having a dishwasher and in a raised voice, he said something along the lines of:

“I'm a retired submarine sailor and you only need one fork, one knife, one spoon, one dish, and one glass and you'll be fine! You have two good hands so you wash the dishes with your hands! Dishwashers are for lazy people!”

Mkay, then.

Zel and I think Chuck planned on living out his days in this house, and wasn't too concerned about resale.

Since having Baby Kaos, we've begun to hate, and I do mean H-A-T-E doing dishes by hand. This is the 21 st Century, for Christ's sake. I want to spend time with my family, not doing dishes.

So, we talked to our neighbor, who Chuck hired to build our kitchen, about installing a dishwasher. He knows what can be moved easily and what can't. Based upon his advice, and knowing that anything can be done if you're willing to pay for it and that we were investing in the value of our home, we decided to go for it.

Here's what the kitchen looked like before:

We had to run electricity and plumbing to the site:


And, here is our brand-spanking-new automatic dishwasher:


We now get to spend more quality time with Baby Kaos and with each other. We're saving our hands; we're using less water; we're saving the earth (sorry, by default, living in Flagstaff and then the Pacific Northwest makes you a granola!).

It's a little bit of heaven.

Talking on the Telephone to Jesus

Church May Erect Cross-Shaped Cell Phone Tower.

I have so much to say about this that I can't say any of it.

Last Week

My last day was this past Friday, July 6. I worked the four days of the week, taking full advantage of being a government employee and getting paid for the Fourth of July.

They threw me a great party on Tuesday, July 3. Zel and I even got our very own 7-pound chocolate cake from Costco. (If you get the chance, I highly recommend picking one up—but make sure you have lots and lots of room in your tummy!) They gave me two lovely parting gifts—a gift certificate to a fancy restaurant and a denim shirt that has a small hand painted bunch of flowers on the front left side.

On Friday morning, I spent 2.5 hours with my arch-nemesis. Two and one-half hours. That's 150 minutes. That's a long effing time. It's about 2.5 hours too long. I ran the meeting, and took minutes (go ahead, call me a Rock Star). She knitted. The good news: we both still have our eyeballs.

Finally, 2.5 hours into the bullshit, I said, “Well, since were done and today is my last day, I intend to type up these minutes and I also have a lot of other things to do, so I'll see you all at a later date.” And I was off. But, I came out on top, because I knew it was the last time I had to deal with the bullshit.

Then I left my meeting and went down to the basement (don't get me started on the fact that the HEALTH DEPARTMENT is in the BASEMENT). I typed up the minutes and emailed them out to the people at the meeting, just like a good little solider.

When I was finished with that bullshit from the bullshit meeting, I packed and cleaned and filed and dusted. When it was all said and done, my office looked less like a tornado went through and more like an office. I impressed myself. My boss even made a comment about the cleanliness.

I only cried a couple of times: once when I took my boxes out to my truck, but only a little bit. And a second time when my boss gave me a big hug and said she is confident that I'm going to be a great Early Childhood Development Specialist.