Dishwasher Woes

I've mentioned before about the issues with my dishwasher.  My lovely Mr. Delusional fixed it many times and has made me a very happy woman each time.

This time however - it was beyond his fixing abilities.  Sometimes it was filling, sometimes it wasn't.  There was no rhyme or reason to it.  We pulled the whole thing out thinking that perhaps the hose was kinked, but nothing worked. I gave up and have been doing dishes by hand for the last week or two.

Yeah, you read that right, I have been doing my dishes by hand!!!   


I know that there are people out there who don't have dishwashers and my complaints, to them, are likely whiny.  I did dishes by hand for far too long.  I hated it.  So, when we moved to our house and it had a dishwasher, I was in Lazy Hethr Heaven!  (too bad it also didn't come with maid service....ahhhh... that would be so sweet!)

Anyhow - back to me and my whining.  I've now been doing dishes by hand for a few weeks.  With the daycare kids here, that means that I usually do about 4 or 5 loads of dishes a day.  I. Hate. This.

So when I woke up this morning and saw the big red circle around today's date on the calendar, I did a little squeal of glee - today is the day that the dishwasher repair man was coming!!  The kids and I spent the morning coloring and baking and waiting for the moment the door bell would ring.

Finally - around lunch time, the van pulls up - the kids swarm him and the poor man is bombarded with questions:

• What's your name?
• What's in the bag?
• Why do you have a band-aid?
• You're not allowed to wear shoes in Hedr's house, you gonna take them off?
• Why do you have an orange screw driver?
• Can I see your screwdriver?
• Oooh - he has a flash light!  Can I play with your flashlight?

It went on for quite some time. Eventually I was able to feed them, wash them up and put them to bed -- meanwhile, Mr. Repair Man is tinkering around.  At this point, he's taken apart the entire machine - front cover is off, bottom piece is off, racks and screws and bits are all over the place.... and he's on the phone.  I hear him say "I've tried everything, I just don't know what's wrong with it."

Uh...so not the words I wanted to hear, hun!

A few (5) phone calls later, he's figured out the issue, and has to order a new part (water intake valve and also a new mother board 'just in case') and he leaves.

I still have no working dishwasher - I have to wait for the part to arrive and for a new service call to be booked.

Hethr's not happy.

Score 1 for Mr. Delusional

We discovered this weekend that two of the tires on our SUV had holes in them...one a screw, the other a nail. Mr. Delusional took it into the repair shop to get done. All that time, I was worrying about how much it would cost. Two new tires...at I don't even know how much a piece!!

He comes home and says, "Can you believe what they charged me for the tires? $80!!"
Me: "Really? That's awesome!"
Mr. Delusional: "What? Awesome? For a simple patch? I could have bought a patch kit and done it myself for less than that!"
Me: "A patch? Like Micky Mouse does on his cars??"
Mr. Delusional: "Micky Mouse....really??"

Touche, my love. Touche.

It's only Monday and my Eye's Already Twitching

I thought that I would have a myriad of posts during spring break...however, it was quiet here.  My mother came and took my kids for 4 days (yes, all three kids for 4 whole days!) and with one daycare child sunning himself on the beaches of Cancun, another too little to cause much disruption, and the third happy to have me all to herself, it wasn't that bad.

Mr. Delusional and I enjoyed some much needed husband/wife time together as opposed to the usual mommy/daddy thing.  There's a difference.  A big one!

Anyhow - my mother eventually brought my kids back (yes, she had developed a bit of a twitch!) and soon after, my chosen son was back here (nicely tanned and full of stories) we were back into the swing of things.  Again, it wasn't that bad because my older two were here and each on loves to be the little mother hen to the daycare children. I was more like an observer than a caretaker.

However, all blissful things must come to an end.  Spring Break is over and we're back to our daily routine...and we didn't miss a beat.  Iman and Isaac each asked to be woken at 530 this morning to exercise with me.  No, I didn't bother waking them that early (I'm not that delusional!), but thought I'd wake them at 630 so we could have breakfast together.  That didn't happen.  They slept through their 7 am alarm....they slept through my 715 "wake up, you're going to be late" and their eyes barely flickered at my 730 "get up now before I get mad!"

We then had the mad dash for "I have nothing to wear" and let's not forget that "there's nothing to eat."  Eventually we got through the hair combing, face washing and teeth brushing and they were off.

Apparently that was the sign for Adam and the daycare kids to go totally psycho.  They fought over toys, they fought over noise, they fought over spots to sit, they fought over who was fighting.  It was horrible.  Then, as if someone waved a magic wand, they were nice and wonderful again....and a little while later, it was back to the fighting.  Needless to say nap time came and there wasn't even a fight to get into bed.  Everyone was very happy to crawl under their covers and grab some much needed sleep.  

They should be waking up soon - I'm hoping they're in a good mood -- we're off to hop in puddles regardless of smiles or tears!