OMO? Oh no!

When we first arrived at our new house I was a little wary about using the new appliances because I wasn't sure exactly how they worked and I didn't want to hurt them. However, after a few days I finally decided that it really was time for me to try out the dishwasher. I looked under the kitchen sink (next to the dishwasher) and located two packages of soap tablets. I wasn't sure which one to use so I waited another day before I finally got up the courage to try one. I looked at both of the packages but couldn't decide which was best. One had a picture of a shiny glass but I thought that it looked more like a rinsing agent (our dishwasher has two little compartments for soap) so I figured that that one probably wasn't necessary. 

The other package (OMO) had packets containing two soap tablets each, one of which was opened and partially used. I figured that was probably the best type one to try. I pulled out the other tablet and tried to stick it into the soap compartment in our dishwasher. It didn't quite fit so I crumbled it up a bit and managed to close the little door over it. I closed up the dishwasher and started it running.

But then I looked back at the box of soap and it hit me... Maybe that wasn't actually dishwashing detergent? Why didn't the soap tablet fit into the compartment? Why does it say "color" on the front of the box? After thinking about it a bit, I took the box over to Woodley and had him translate the Norwegian using Google Translate (I didn't quite have the heart to do it myself). All too soon it became clear that I was washing our dishes with laundry detergent! Oh no!! 

Woodley then spent the next half hour looking up all of the horrible things that can happen if you use laundry detergent in your dishwasher - it can void your dishwasher's warranty, you can end up with soap suds all over the house, it can break the seals on the dishwasher, it can release volatile chemicals into the air... Since the dishwasher still had over an hour to go we sat around tensly and watched for signs of bubbles. 

Thankfuly, none appeared and the worst thing that seemed to happen was that it seemed strange to smell something like laundry detergent coming out of the dishwasher. The dishes appeared clean but I washed them again using a tablet from the other box that Woodley determined was in fact dishwashing detergent. 

It has been a couple of weeks now and the dishwasher is still going strong. (Yay!) The smell has now disappeared as well. I still wonder how I could have been so silly as to not realize that the OMO box was laundry detergent. I guess I'll just have to blame the jetlag, general lack of sleep, and the fact that I had never seen laundry detergent in tablet form. Oh yes, and the fact that the box was found under the kitchen sink instead of downstairs in the laundry room! I mean, really, who stores laundry detergent in the kitchen and not the laundry room? I returned the box to the laundry room but I can't bring myself to use it. The smell of OMO makes me feel a little sick now. 

I'm just so glad that the dishwasher is ok! 

~ElizabethRose~

A Stormy Monday

Above is a picture of my linen drawer. I somehow amassed quite a collection of kitchen linens, but I love using them so much that I really appreciate having so many. After having learned about the bacteria that like to live in sponges, I decided not to use any in my kitchen. Instead I have a large collection of dishcloths that you can see in the bottom right hand corner of the drawer. Each day I get out a new one to use for the day. At the end of the day the dirty cloth gets hung up on the oven door to dry over night. Then, in the morning, I toss it into the kitchen laundry pile. To the left of the dishcloths are the dish towels. I use a fresh one or two each day - just like the dishcloths. In the back left corner go the cleaning rags that I use for cleaning pretty much everything around the house. And in the back right corner are my aprons. Someday I hope I can find somewhere to hang them up but for now they do very well in the drawer.

Today the weather was very rainy and windy. It was a perfect day to stay inside and get things done. I didn't make it quite all the way through my to do list, but I got pretty close. Here are some notes about the list I posted earlier:

1. I did catch up with my email. It took me much longer than I had expected. But I suppose that is natural considering I had completely neglected it all of last week.

2. My loaf of bread is in the oven and should be out within a half hour. It smells good so hopefully it will taste good as well. (see photos of the process below)

3. I did gather a little bit of info about the California Use Tax. Namely, I figured out that we didn't pay sales tax for items we purchased from Amazon. Tomorrow I hope to go through our records and find out how much we spent last year through online vendors. That should be fun...

4. Yay. I washed, dried, folded, and put away all of the linens.

5. Sadly, the bathroom did not get cleaned. That will have to happen tomorrow.

6. I did plan menus for tonight, tomorrow, and Wednesday. I learned part way through the day that we will have 3 guests for dinner tomorrow and that one is a vegan. That made menu planning a little more challenging, but Epicurious came through as always. We will also have guests for dinner on Wednesday so I planned out that menu as well.

7. I didn't make it to the store. I'll have to head out early tomorrow morning. I suppose that will be a good thing though since the ingredients for tomorrow's dinner will be even fresher.

One thing I did that I hadn't planned on was updating our monthly calendar. I try to do it around the first of each month. Below is a picture of our calendar area. We have a large whiteboard calendar that I update each month. To the left of the main calendar is a monthly birthday/anniversary calendar which reminds me to send cards to our friends and relatives. To the right of the main calendar is our paper calendar which I keep on the next month that is coming up so that it is easy to write down any dates we need to keep track of for following month. At the end of each month I go back and mark down any additions to the previous month that haven't yet been recorded in the paper calendar that way I can look back at our paper calendars from each year and remember all of the things we did on the days we did them. Our main calendar is now updated for March 2009!

Below are some pictures of my bread making experience today. I followed the recipe for the Learning Loaf in "The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book" which our friend Maud had gave me a couple of weeks ago.

In the above picture I flattened out the bread to get ready to shape it into a ball for its first rise.

Above is the sphere of dough, ready for its first rise.

Above is the loaf after its third rise, in the pan, in the oven - ready to start baking!

Above is the finished loaf. It turned out very well!

We ate a few slices with dinner and they were great! It has been quite awhile since I made a 100% whole wheat bread but this turned out so well that I hope to make it several times a month!

And now, we are off to see "Our Vines Have Tender Grapes" at The Stanford Theater.

~ElizabethRose