Family, gardening, Kids, Uncategorized

Exciting Appliances

52 Comments

It has been an endless source of pleasure this summer to watch our son and daughter in law and their joy at the purchase of their first home. Son has sent multiple photos of the flowers, trees, and shrubs he wants to add to the landscape in their huge yard. The property is a quarter of an acre (or hectare for European and Canadian Baboons). Their new home is only three years old and they have rather nice, new appliances, all save for a washer and dryer.

Son researched all the best shades and grades of washers and dryers, who in his South Dakota town sold and serviced them, and who would reserve them for him until their closing and move-in dates in early September.

I advised him to go with a local appliance dealer, not the big box home improvement store, since they are neighbors and have to deal with them on a personal basis outside of the store. Son did his research and did as I advised, since the repair person for the big box appliances has to come from over 50 miles away, and the local dealer would set aside the ones they wanted until they closed on the house. The washer and dryer are really fancy-schmancy, and both have steam options for cleaning and dewrinkling. Who knew? We haven’t bought a new washer/dryer for more than 15 years.

There has been appliance excitement here, too, as Husband decided last night that we absolutely needed a grain mill attachment for our Swedish mixer, and that we would get it for our 38th wedding anniversary. This is slightly more romantic than the meat saw he got me for our 35th anniversary. He wants to make his own rye chops and coarse grain so he can make rye bread just like they did at the City Bakery in Winnipeg.

What is the most exciting appliance you ever purchased? What are your memories of you or your parents purchasing a first home

52 thoughts on “Exciting Appliances”

  1. I can’t raise much excitement over appliances that aren’t tractor powered.
    Isaac has finally activated his latent interest in baking, starting last year, at eleven. Jane was digging out her beloved 1960 Kenwood mixer more often, and was probably worried about preserving it, the plastic mixing bowl is yellow now, and we wash it with care. Anyway, the thing is heavy for getting in and out of the cupboard. It was Jane’s grandmother’s, and means a lot to her. So Isaac got his own mixer for Christmas, and doesn’t have to ask if he can use it.
    Jane saw one or two robots in use, vacuuming floors, and was really envious. But she didn’t think she could justify the expense, as the machine we have looks set for a good many years. So she condemned herself to a robotless life, which just didn’t seem quite the same any more. Sandra and I got together in extreme secrecy, and she really didn’t expect it on Christmas day, to open a package and find her new robot. Burst into tears in fact. Very gratifying.
    My Spanish teacher said, “But all your rooms are tiny. You won’t be able to use it.” True……

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

      1. Barbara, Isaac is my only child, born after nine years of increasing desperation on Jane’s part. We had one final, once more desperate try, and a miracle occurred. Jane was forty and I was fifty eight. I probably assumed you’d all read my mind, and knew that. (Easier than understanding what I write, I dare say).
        Yes, I have a wife called Jane, a sister called Jane, and used to have a heifer called Jane. A good friend I lost touch with was called Jane. My wife Jane’s one time best friend was called Jane.

        Liked by 2 people

        Reply

  3. WOT: I fell in love for the first time 53 years ago today. A tall, statuesque, beautiful girl called Debbie Peters. Unrequited. My sister didn’t like her, she told me recently.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  4. In ancient Greek drama the gods would occasionally decide to interfere in the lives of mortals. My mother did the same. She often swooped in to fix problems her children otherwise could not solve. Like the Greek gods, she sometimes bungled things, but usually her interventions had happy outcomes.

    The problem she wanted to fix in 1976 was the surging cost of local home ownership. The soaring cost of starter homes kept many would-be homeowners out of the market.

    My wife and I were examples. My job editing a shabby little magazine paid badly, and my wife was a grad student with no income. We stood the risk of being renters forever.

    That’s when the gods–in the form of my mother–stepped out of the clouds. My parents proposed to buy a home that they would rent to us, promising to keep the monthly payment low.

    The first home we looked at was what I’ve sometimes called “the most charming bungalow in Mac-Groveland.” We bought it. I fell in love with that home and lived there happily for 37 years.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

      2. Bank of mom and dad did well by me too. When wasband and I first moved to the Twin Cities, mom and dad lent us the down payment for our house. Considering that it took us a decade to pay off that loan , it means it would’ve been a decade before we would’ve been able to get a house on our own.

        Liked by 2 people

        Reply

        1. My parents never opened a branch on this side of the Atlantic. When they were here the month (the WHOLE MONTH) before before we got married, they stayed with my friends in Chicago for five days. They deemed Tia and Bob’s house so much nicer than the shack I had bought, and never missed an opportunity to remind me of it, but never stopped to consider that Tia’s parents gave her $5,000.00 toward the down payment (not a loan, an outright gift), and that I paid every nickel of mine.

          Liked by 1 person

    1. I’ve pinned it down to 1973. I worked in a chipboard factory for a few weeks. There was an infra red oven in the canteen, warmed up your meal in no time. I’d never heard of such a thing. (Down on the farm and all).
      Came in one day and there was another new fangled thing NO ONE had ever heard of. A microwave. I don’t remember if it was faster and better, but I never saw another infra red oven.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. Back in the 80s wasband and I got a call from my parents that we neededbto go pick up our Christmas present from the bus depot. We tried to gas all the way down town and were very surprised when it was a microwave. Now back then, I was all into the Laurels Kitchen, cooked from scratch, never usedconvenience foods and we literally sat around thinking about this microwave for three days before we figured out where it came from and returned it. We just couldn’t envision what we would use it for. And of course today I can’t imagine living without one. And when we returned it, what did we get instead? A Trash80 computer!

        Liked by 2 people

        Reply

  6. We are in the first and only home we purchased, with help on the down payment from my parents. We helped son and dil a little bit with their down payment. They had done a great job eliminating their credit card debt and paying off a commercial loan, so financing wasn’t too difficult.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  7. Looking at header makes me think my mother might very well have said that once we got electricity it was the electric sewing machine. I have told before how she was not happy when my father bought her an electric range. Took 2-3 years to do more than make coffee on it.
    What a night I just had!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  8. I’ll have to say the most exciting appliance may be the new Vita Mix that step-son Mario bought us recently. Can go from settings 1 (like a textured tomato sauce) to 9 (tomato juice where you can’t even find the seeds) at the turn of the dial. I’ll be able to use it as a food processor, once I have time to get out the guidebook…

    Husband bought first house in 1979, and we moved into it with his sister Rose and another renter. (We were married in 1980.) Rose left, and other renters came and went for the next two years till we moved to the farm with our friends J & C.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  9. I get excited about how many things have become battery operated / cordless. We inherited a leaf blower from my in-laws many years ago and mostly just used it to blow off the deck and around the house. This summer I got a cordless one and it’s even better! Now I need another so I can have one in the house and one in the shop.
    Back in the 1980’s when I first started doing theater Makita cordless screw guns were just becoming popular. They had a battery as long as your forearm. I now own several cordless screw guns, impact guns, impact wrenches, cordless grease guns, the leave blower, and on my wish list are cordless grinders and cordless jigsaw. I’ve heard good things about cordless chainsaws too. Most of my stuff is the red Milwaukee brand. But I’ve got some Dewalt and Makita too. The multiple batteries and charges are a hassle.

    In the house, I think we’ve gotten pretty excited about some vacuum cleaners. As a kid I remember being interested in the flour sifter. We don’t have one now, but as a kid, if it had moving parts, I was playing with it. Which I think is OK to foster an interest in the kitchen.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    2. I borrowed a Milwaukee impact driver from the tool library. It helped me assemble some shelving recently. Having a drill AND a driver and not having to continually swap out bits is heavenly.

      Like

      Reply

  10. We are thinking of getting a roomba for our laminate floors. We are just too busy the sweep and vacuum as we need to. I wonder what the cat will make of it?

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    2. We bought a Roomba two years ago. Her name is Rosie. She’s kind of fussy and she gets hung up on things but we love her.
      we have two dogs in the house. Yet I still can’t understand where all the dirt comes from! She vacuums three times a week and the bin is always full. My goodness! Where does it all come from??

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. We haven’t named our Roomba; she also gets stuck on things. The cat doesn’t care at all about the Roomba but the dog can’t seem to understand why rushing it and barking at it doesn’t seem to scare it.

        Liked by 3 people

        Reply

        1. Our little dog Allie is deaf so she doesn’t hear it coming and is started when it bumps into her. Humphrey just gets up and moves.

          Liked by 1 person

  11. My most exciting appliance purchase was a modest little outdoor grill that we put just behind the house. It was connected to our natural gas line, so we never had to fuss with briquets. That grill was so convenient we used it virtually every month of the year, even standing out there in winter boots and an insulated jacket to grill chicken breasts the way we came to love them.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  12. I’ve never owned new washers and dryers. The ones we have now were in the house when we moved in sixteen years ago. The good thing about older and more basic laundry equipment is that you can fix it yourself, which I’ve done once or twice.

    We bought our first house in 1975 without help from either set of parents. As it happens, that house is about eight blocks from our current house.

    Probably the most engaging and possibly the priciest appliance we have ever purchased is Robin’s spinning wheel.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

      1. Our washer has self dispensing soap. It’s pretty nice.
        However I washed clothes for my mom a couple times before I remembered to put soap in it…

        Liked by 4 people

        Reply

  13. I was looking at the sewing machine in the header photo and thinking it looked a lot like the Singer model 15, which was made, with progressive improvements but basically the same shape for many decades starting, I think, in the 1870s up until the 1940s. It was also copied by Japanese manufacturers and appeared under many brand names.

    I had never heard of the Jones sewing machine so I looked it up. The Jones machine, despite its resemblance to the Singer, was all British, manufactured near Manchester and used mechanisms that were distinct from the Singer patents. Established in 1859, the Jones Brothers Company manufactured sewing machines until 1968, when they were acquired by Brother Industries of Japan.

    Robin’s first sewing machine after we were married is a Kenmore we bought shortly after we were married. We still have it, even though she also has a more modern machine. I like the Kenmore. It has a few less features than the new machines but it’s built with all metal gears and it’s practically bulletproof. It’s the machine I used when I used to make myself cowboy shirts. I just recently tuned it up and balanced out the tension. I’ve been thinking about making something with it, just for fun, but what?

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    2. Update on my own tomato enterprise. After a late sowing, thirteen plants finally made it through, and grew as fast as they could. No shortage of sun and water. But the shortenings days have told the plants it’s time to die now. They’ll just be allowed to survive until the fruits ripen, of which there are three. One each for me and my little family.

      Like

      Reply

      1. Maybe it is too hot. I was under the impression that the growing season in Spain and other Mediterranean countries was in the winter.

        Like

        Reply

  15. We’re still waiting for the back-ordered motherboard that operates the electronics on our stove, so we can’t use the oven. I don’t use the oven much during the summer months, but husband can’t bake bread, so he misses it more than I do.

    I just used my favorite appliance, my food processor, to whip up a large batch of salmorejo. Gotta do something with all those tomatoes that are ripening at the moment. I’ll have to freeze some, I’m sure. Such an embarrassment of riches to have.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  16. Knock on wood. My washer and dryer that I purchased when I moved into this house 30 years ago are still going strong. Dishwasher as well. We did have to buy a new fridge about eight years ago. YA was all excited to go shopping for this new refrigerator. We wrote down our wish list (side-by-side freezer, ice and water on the door, and had to be magnetic for all of our magnets) and the size specifications on Post-it note, went to the local appliance store in our neighborhood, showed the guy the note, he showed us three refrigerators and we chose one. It took 15 minutes. YA was really disappointed. I think she envisioned a whole afternoon of shopping at different stores.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  17. I remember my parents buying a window air conditioner when I was about four. It was quite an extravagance at the time; few people in Minnesota or Wisconsin had one. It was installed in a window near the kitchen, where it could cool the food preparation area and blow chilled air into the living room.

    About the header photo…did Jones make left-handed sewing machines?

    Like

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.