Love, true love.

Nothing says love like a man on his knees, planting strawberries for his wife.

Ordinary. Just ordinary.

My kitchen got a little more ordinary today.

With a black fridge, a white stove, and a stainless steel dishwasher that had a personality all it’s own, my kitchen was the epitome of class. Which class, I’ll let you decide.

When the stubbornness of the dishwasher won out and the game to see who could get it to start became a losing game, it joined the pile for the metal scraps and a new one took it’s place. Turquoise, yellow, and pink were all viable options to keep the kitchen in it’s current state of mismatch, but alas, no. It’s replacement is black. Now resembling the colors of the non-comic page in the newspaper, we’re stuck with black and white. So boring. The colors, the games… we’re all back to ordinary.

Not for long though, rest assured. We cannot possibly stick in the ordinary category for long.

It’s all in the numbers.

One,

two,

not three, but four.

Four dresses, two days. One midnight, twenty-four pleats and eight ruffles finished in record (for me) time. Three opinionated girls, one opinionated but not on fabric choices, and one big brown button when the reason for those snaps on infant clothing became quite clear. Rippingly so.

Two boys are waiting their turn for something new. One impatiently.

Fun. So fun.

Our dishwasher is complaining. It has been for a while. It runs great, cleans the dishes great, but it has buttons. Oft-pushed buttons. So now, when pushed, they typically ignore you all together. No go, not gonna do it. It’s become a game to see who can get the dishwasher to start. If we all lose, we have to wash the dishes by hand, so it’s a vested interest on all sides to conquer the tired electrical mechanism and get it to go.

Add to this that two of the buttons have started speaking back in the form of electrical shock to any who dare to push them, and things get quite exciting. Visitor beware, “Spray” and “Rinse” will bite back.

Lately, Blaine’s even gotten into the thick of things. Last night, even he couldn’t get it. I stared at the overcrowded drawers of dishes that had been rotting in the spring heat for a day and did what any good woman would do.

I closed the door and decided to try again in the morning.

This morning, after fiddling for several minutes while the thing mutely sat there and ignored me, I offered up the job to Eden. The alternative being wash them all herself, she jumped in with ten fingers, ready to push buttons with vigor until something decided to go.

She got it. It’s washing. It’s also dinging. One ding per second kind of dinging. Perfect. Two hours of this and our ears will all be dinging for a week. So long as I don’t have to wash them by hand.

Dishwasher recommendations, anyone?

Pay attention, please.

Sterling Blaine, talented child that he is, can put an umbrella pole through the top of his head and take it out of his mouth.

Or something like that.

What a dirty bunch.

One hot summer spring day

we passed the (root) beer around

threw in some ice cream

a whole lot of littles

and a kiss, for good measure.

Caught blue-faced.

She’s been accused of cookie thievery. She’s pled not guilty. The evidence, however, says she’s lying.

When frowning and denying the truth didn’t work, she went for the clown act. I refuse to admit say if that worked or not.