Rebel

Ron has been helping finish our friends' basement, and they paid him yesterday. How much is not important, but let's just say that we now have a couple of new "luxuries": 1) a washing machine and 2) a dishwasher.

I will confess now that we've jumped back into the 20th century, our washing machine's motor broke, and it was going to cost MORE to replace the motor than to just buy a new one. We could never justify it before, but I spotted some used appliances in someone's driveway (one benefit to living in Wyoming) and we checked them out - a washing machine in perfectly good shape for $60!!!. Needless to say we went to my parents' house, got the truck, and I was doing laundry AT HOME that night.

Our dishwasher has been out of order for a while. I can't even remember how long. I think Lucy was still in my belly. Anyway... Ron was sanitizing bottles for a batch of home brew when it started leaking all over the floor. No soap involved in that process, but clearly something was wrong. We bought a bargain corner replacement and that leaked too! Word of advice: used dishwashers probably have a bad gasket because it dries out and becomes brittle. Buy new. So that's what we did... and it works! (Queue the "Hallelujah" chorus of Handel's Messiah). Those two additions should also help our house sell.

The other purchase is a new Canon Rebel XTi, which will be nice for more "professional" looking photos... which I'm hoping to get more into. I still love my handy little Canon PowerShot but this is going to give me some different options, as well as quality. The price listed on that site is not what it cost us, because Ron and I searched around enough to find a great deal, and it's not even a used one! I just wanted to show which one I'm getting. It should be here later this week and I can't wait to test it out! I'm so grateful because this is something that I would never allow myself to get, because there are more "important" things to spend money on, but on the other hand, sometimes it's nice to do something fun and I hope to put it to good use (and maybe even make money someday).