Dishwasher

Yesterday I received notice in the mail that my dishwasher had been recalled. Bummer! I was instructed to call a technician for a free repair, and not to use the dishwasher in the mean time, due to fire hazard.

Nice.

Well, there is no time like the present for the kids to learn how to do this job by hand. They have lived their entire lives in a home where machine washing was the way to acomplish this housekeeping task.

For the first two meals I washed and they dried. It was immediately evident that I have way more expertise in this area than they did. From now on we will take turns with the washing, rinsing and drying. Here they are, having their first go at it.

Fit

The poor Engineer has about 24 pairs of pants close to his size. We've been the recipient of generous hand-me-downs and a grandmother who likes to shop for her grandchildren. It is a humorous note to me that exactly five of these pairs of pants are a good wearable fit for him at the moment. Two are jeans and one is heavy winter material, so he will not be wearing those pairs to church now.Throughout the summer he's been wearing shorts most of the time. But on Sundays I've been watching more and more of his ankles show under his cuffs, hoping that wearing sandals has hidden the shortness of the pants and realizing all the while-- that is not really happening.

This morning is the big day when I've brought the stash of most likely candidates out of storage and the Engineer is, somewhat cooperatively, trying them all on. He likes to tell me his favorite pants fit and pairs he is not so fond of are too big. Unfortunately, he misleads me about 75% of the time, so I need to check the fit of each pair. The green pants in the photo above "fit," you see. I happen to know they 'fit' because they are green, not because they are the right size! In any case, he will need to get used to wearing his belt more this fall.

After all the dressing, undressing, redressing, his closet is in better shape for the upcoming fall and winter. It all shakes out to:
too many pairs back into storage awaiting the next growth spurt
short sweat pants making the move to the pajama drawer
several pairs of pants to pass along
one for the trash bag
and a record 11 wearable pairs in the closet, most of which are suitable for church. Hurrah!