Praise the Lord!

Mom, James and I have arived safely at Kryna's house. I was begging the Lord that border crossing would go well. I've never been to Canada before and had pictured that it was a foriegn land. As it turned out crossing the border was less stressful than paying toll during rush hour. Hallelujah! Every 100 Km or so they have these wonderful little service centres much similar to our rest areas only these are complete with gas station, fast food, and of course Tim Hortons. All through our trip I was dieing to stop at one just because, well we don't have them. Every time we came to one James was sleeping, about to sleep, or in the last case he opened his eyes as we whizzed past at a mear 140km. At this point there was only one more service centre before we got to Kryna and I wasn't going to miss it. By the time we rolled up to it our gas tank was empty and I was about to burst seeing as I had been holding it since just over the border. I pulled up to the gas pumps and looked up at the signs, one stating Self Serve and the other I swear said Self. Ok, simple enough. Then I spotted signs above the pumps one said 1/2, the other 3/4. What? 1/2 self serve! What is 3/4 self serve? Moooooommm! Oh wait...oh no, never mind. As I tried to hide what had just happened, Mom burst out, almost histerical. Yes, the signs were for pump 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. Ok, so we have those in the States too but how was I to know most everything is the same in Canada.

Man and the Dishwasher

Buying dishwasher detergent can be overwhelming if you let it be. The choices are endless and each product seems to offer its own set of benefits. Powder, Liquid, Gel Pack, Powder Tab, With Jet Dry, Without Jet Dry, Eco Friendly, Chemical Laden, which will it be? The gel packs offer the added convenience of a dissolving outer layer while most powder tabs are individually wrapped in an ordinary wrapper very similar to that of hard candy. I prefer to buy Seventh Generation powder detergent that is both effective and eco/human friendly. Mom prefers Cascade Gel Packs with Dawn. What I prefer and what I buy are often two different things. Nowhere in Harrison carries Seventh Generation products so in order to buy this elusive powder I have to travel a half an hour to the nearest Target. This is neither practical nor cost effective so in most cases I buy whatever is cheapest at my favorite local scratch and dent discount grocery store. Through the course of our marriage we have probably used every kind of dishwasher soap on the market. Recently we ran out of Seventh Generation so I picked up a damaged box of Electrasol PowerTabs on my next visit to the Discount Grocer. The performance was spotty (yes pun was intended). Sometimes were better than others but honestly this was disappointing. Tim commented on the problem as well and we decided we had just become accustomed to our new found favorite. This was our conclusion until a few days ago I was unloading the dishwasher and found a PowerTab in the bottom of the dishwasher neatly wrapped in its wrapper looking like it had just showered but forgotten to towel off. I tried not to laugh as I hauled the mangy little thing over to Tim and asked if he realized that these wrappers did not melt and needed to be removed. He smiled at me sheepishly and stammered "How am I supposed to keep up? Melts doesn't melt, powder, liquid?" I smirked and asked how long he had been doing this. He thought just this once. Today I laughed out loud when I found no less than three more PowerTabs still in their wrappers lurking in the bottom of the dishwasher.
I'm thankful we have the chance to laugh about this, some men seldom help out around the house, but Tim jumps in taking out the trash, loading and unloading the dishwasher, changing diapers and giving bathes. I must give credit where credit is due.