True Love

I'm in love. The object of my new-found and undying affection is my new dishwasher. In a stroke of good fortune (actually a blessing I attribute to our policy to pay a full tithe,) we found out that a friend of ours was selling their slightly used, high-end, so-much-better-than-our-1980-model-that-it's-beyond-comparison dishwasher for a fraction of the retail price.
The installation, which appeared to be simple and straightforward, did throw us for a loop. It would have helped if the owner's manual had said something more than "Do not attempt to install without a certified Miele technician." I did manage to feed the kids that evening with the water turned off, but when Ian had a major blowout on the living room rug and I attempted to clean him up with only wet wipes, (while keeping the other kids out of the living room until I could clean up the carpet in there,) it became somewhat hysterical. We attempted to turn back on the water in order to shower him and water spewed all over the kitchen, soaking our 1980 vinyl flooring and 1980 oak cabinets. In the end, we did figure out how to get the water back on without the spray--I just had to remember to dump a bucket every 6 minutes while Jared made three trips to Home Depot.
But Good Fortune continued to smile upon us and the entire Elders' Quorum Presidency showed up for a meeting and assisted with the install. They got it to run as long as the garbage disposal was turned on!! We finally unplugged the garbage disposal until Darling Brother-in-law Flint the handyman/electrician/mechanic came over the next morning and put a new outlet plug in so that I didn't have to choose between a dishwasher and a garbage disposal.
We still haven't learned to comply with the owner's manual instructions that we should not rinse the plates, but at least we aren't completely washing dishes before putting them in. And I am in the process of teaching the kids how to load the dishwasher, which is so marvelous.
Stay tuned--I am composing a sonnet to the new fridge that we are expecting any day now!