Dirty dishes

I am steaming mad and have been for several weeks now. However, it has escalated to the point of no return. Something has got to change. What am I at war with? I am at war with my dishwasher and the four weeks worth of white film that has been accumulating on my dishes. 

 Let me preempt this story with--I have a very loyal personality type and I’ve been told I’m very patient (however I don’t think I am). I am very loyal to family, friends, and products until they let me down or change the formula. I don’t like changing products even to try new things. My thoughts are if it works or tastes good; why change? My husband doesn’t always understand my philosophy, but deep down inside he appreciates my almost never ending loyalty.

Something else you need to know up front about my situation--I have never like my dishwasher. We purchased it four years ago when we did a total kitchen remodel. I was days away from delivering baby #3 and didn’t care what kind of dishwasher we purchased. I just wanted the construction to be over and the dirt out of my house. There are two things I dislike about it…okay three now that I think about it:

1. the vent thingy at the bottom doesn’t lay flat. It’s almost like the glue dissolved and it’s curling up

2. chunks of food get stuck in the holes that’s suppose to spray water out in order to wash the dishes

3. it doesn’t have an off button so if you need to open it (because food gets stuck in one of the arms, you have to open it up and use tweezers to remove the food)

You can clearly see the vent lifting up on the left and right side.

 I’ve been removing chunks of food from my dishwasher for at least two years probably more like three years. My dishwasher vibrates to let me know when there is food jammed in the holes. Unfortunately, it happens every time I run the dishwasher these days. I honestly think it has to do with the vent thingy not being glued down, but what do I know?

On top of all of this, for the last few weeks I have had issues with locating my favorite dishwasher detergent. I have always used Cascade Complete Gel with a dark green lid. I have tried several other versions of Cascade—Cascade Complete with Bleach, Cascade Complete with Dawn even Cascade Complete Powder. Nothing works as good as my Cascade. I’m not saying this product is perfect, but I feel it works the best with my dishwasher and I have never had noticeable issues with lime/hard water build up until recently.

Four weeks ago, the store where I shop was out of my dish washing detergent. Luckily, I’m a planner so I wasn’t completely out and could wait until the following week before I was completely out. Week two, goes by, the shelf was still empty—still no Cascade Complete with the dark green lid. They had everything else, but not what I needed. Isn't frustrating when a store doesn't have what you need?

So, it was either hand wash dishes for my family of 6 multiple times a day for a week or purchase something else so I told my husband to purchase the powder form and he also let an employee know they were out of our product. The employee was kind enough to check their inventory which showed they should have had 6 left on the shelf. My husband kindly (I hope) let this employee know the store had been out of the product for several weeks and asked them to order more.

Just like I expected, the powder form left a white film on my plastic dishes and some of my pots and pans. So the next time I ran to the store I purchased a rinsing agent to add to the dishwasher. It may have temporarily helped, but three weeks later I still have a white film on the majority of my dishes.

I also picked up a dishwasher cleaner. Maybe my dishwasher needed to be cleaned, right? Still nothing and the hard water stains were getting more noticeable every time I emptied the dishwasher. Nothing seemed to be working.

Week three, still no Cascade Complete with a dark green lid. The powder didn’t work, the rinsing agent wasn’t helping and my dishwasher was officially clean. However, I was still fighting the hard water stains. It was completely ruining my dishes. Not to mention it was taking up a lot of time washing, rewashing, hand washing, cleaning it over and over again.

Now, we are in week four of this war against hard water. For the record, the shelves were still not stocked with my favorite dishwashing detergent. So, we purchased the packet version of the dishwashing detergent. At this point, I’m completely fed up! Are these expensive packets going to be the magic answer that solves our hard water build up on our dishes? Of course not. We spent close to $15 on them (not to mention the money we spent on the all the other products) and they aren’t cutting it either.

A few days ago, I broke down and ventured out to a different store to purchase the detergent. (Why didn’t I think of this before—b/c I’m a loyal person I guess.) Not only did they not have the detergent; they didn’t even carry it!! So I purchased yet another dish washing detergent; this time, a totally different brand. *Sigh* Same white cloudy issue.

Some of the products I've tried

I can not continue serving food to my family on dishes cover in a white film. I’m beyond asking the question “is it unhealthy for them to ingest the powdery substance?” As you can imagine I’m beyond fed up at this point. Nothing is working!! I feel like I have tried everything in my power to get this white film off my dishes so I begin to wonder…is it time to purchase a new dishwasher? I’ve only had this one for four years!! That’s insane right?! A dishwasher shouldn’t need to be replaced that soon.

More frustrated then ever, I load the family up in the van and we drive 30 minutes to look at dishwashers. I am mad I’m spending time and gas to get us there! I am furious I am considering replacing it! I’m irate the store isn’t stocking their shelves! I am angry at the stinking EPA for making the dish washing detergents Phosphate-Free!! (I bet none of the folks that run the EPA have hard water issues—they probably don’t even wash their own dishes for that matter or they wouldn’t have banned phosphates from our detergents!) The entire time we are at the store looking at dishwashers, I couldn’t help but think my parents had their dishwasher for 15+ years and NEVER had this problem. They just don’t make things like they use too do they?

We didn’t purchase a dishwasher that night—I was only there to educate myself. Adding to my frustration was the fact that not a single employee asked if they could help me. Guess they didn’t like the look on my face or the fire coming from my ears or maybe they saw the broom I flew in on!?

 

As a last ditch effort to save a few bucks, I contacted the local appliance retail store. We live in a small town and I know the owner. I explained to her my issues and all the things I have purchased and tried to try to fix my hard water issue.  She told me the following things:

1. Try using vinegar which is an acid to flush out the lime build up. She told me to pour the vinegar into the dispenser and some in the bottom of my dishwasher. (So I used a liter of vinegar. Couldn't hurt the darn thing.)
2. If the vinegar didn’t work, she had a product (*sigh* yes, more products) that might work.
3. If neither one of those things worked it might be time for a new dishwasher.
4. She also mentioned gel/liquid dish washing products are not good for the machine. The gel doesn’t dissolve well in hot water so always use powder.
5. If you have a front loading clothes washer, you should use a liquid detergent because your machine rinses in cold water and gel dissolves best in cold water.
6. Lastly, she told me if I did need to purchase a new dishwasher not to spend $1,000+ on one because with our horrible Kentucky hard water, I would need to replace it in a few years due to lime build up. (I appreciated her honesty.)

With my new dishwasher/hard water knowledge, yesterday’s trial of using vinegar really helped. I did exactly what she told me to do and I could tell it helped as some of my dishes came out clean. I also went ahead and purchased her product (it certainly wasn’t going to hurt to try one more thing). This morning I ran a load of lemon juice in it as well. Can you tell I'm desperate!? 

After weeks of trying 10 different product--it looks like I will be getting a new dishwasher. The last load of dishes turned out to be the worst yet. 

So once I get a new dishwasher--will my dishes ever come clean? I’m not sure. All I know is I’ve spent a lot of money on detergents and cleaning products not to mention time and effort.

Loyalty and patience…not sure they are good qualities to have during a war against hard water and a dishwasher which was never worth saving but I can’t help it because I AM loyal and somewhat patient.

A Fish Tale

Anthony and I have never seriously considered getting the boys a dog. Don't get me wrong, we love dogs, however we don't want the hassle and cost of taking care of something else. We don't want to have to worry about the messes a dog can leave in the yard nor do we want to have to find a place to take it if we want to go somewhere for an extended period of time. So we started the boys out with a fish. Her name was Goldie and she was a Goldfish. We quickly realized we needed an algae eater so we added it to the tank as well. When the algae eater wasn't doing it's job we purchased two snails. When all three (1-algae eater and 2-snails) of them died we tried a crawdad. After the crawdad crawled out of the tank, yes, it crawled out of our fish tank, it was time to try something else. We now have "Robinhood" which is a type of an algae eater but he's bigger then the ones we've had before and there is a reason for this which I'll get into later.

When the boys were younger, each goldfish we purchased was the traditional golden color. After Goldie (#8) died, Anthony took the boys to Wal-Mart to purchase their next fish. They came home with three goldfish--the first one was orange, which they named "Nemo"; the second one was red, which was "Lighting McQueen" and third one was gray, which they named "Bruce". If you remember, Bruce was the Great White shark on Finding Nemo. I hadn't seen a gray goldfish before, but they were happy so I was happy.

Lighting McQueen died fairly quickly after we got him and Nemo followed a month or two later. Bruce however has been around for 3 years! We purchased him from Wal-Mart for $0.25 (yes, twenty-five cents!) 3 years ago. None of our other fish have even come close to living that long.

About six months after bringing him home, Bruce changed from a gray goldfish to an orange goldfish. I'm not sure what happened but over time, his color started changing. In fact, he ended up being a very bright orange. Not only did he change colors but he also grew. When we first brought him home, he was probably an inch long. Three years later, he was well over 8 inches long! He was a big fish!

At one point, we were having trouble with algae in our tank and I had asked for help from the "fish lady" at a local pet store. When we were discussing our tank and the issues we were having she asked me how big our goldfish was. I'm not good with estimating and like most things in my life, I tend to down play and underestimate things so I held out my fingers and show her how big I thought Bruce was. She recommended I go with a smaller type of algae eater so I took her advice.

It wasn't until I got home and took a good look at Bruce that I realized I wasn't even close to telling her how big he was. Our goldfish was HUGE! Anthony transitioned the new fish into the tank just like she told me however two days later I found Bruce sitting at the bottom of the tank with the algae eater's tail hanging out his mouth!! Bruce had eaten the algae eater!!

Luckily, the fish lady had told me that if the smaller algae eater didn't work out to bring it and the receipt back and I could get a refund/credit. I was so embarrassed to tell them our goldfish had eaten the algae eater. The fish lady also suggested that we think about putting Bruce in a goldfish pond since he was so big. I left the store with Robinhood, a $7 algae eater, which has worked perfectly. Bruce and Robinhood have been good mates from the beginning. Robinhood hasn't tried to eat Bruce and Bruce's mouth wasn't big enough to eat Robinhood.

Notice the seashell in the background and how big Bruce is compared to it.

 Robinhood is on the left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fast forward, several years to June 20, 2011. Anthony was out of the state for work, the older three kids were attending Vacation Bible School at our church and Robert was home "helping" me pick up the house. I was hanging shirts in the closet when I heard him say, "Bruce is sleeping". It took me several seconds for it to sink in and I thought to myself, that can't be good so I turned around to find Bruce on the bottom of the tank with his fins down. Not thirty minutes later he was floating, belly up but still breathing. I knew it was only a matter of time before he would die.

So I began to plan, because I'm a planner. Bruce was 8 inches long at least and who know what his girth was. I had decided months earlier two things were going to happen 1.) he was going to die while Anthony was traveling and 2.) he had gotten to big to flush down the toilet. And with my luck, if I tried, he would clog it and I would either have to plunge it or even worse I would have to make the embarrassing phone call to the plumber. Can you imagine what that conversation would be like!?!  You tried to flush what!?

So, as our goldfish was dying, I began trying to figure out what I was going to do with the darn thing. My options were 1.) I could take the risk and try to flush him, 2.) I could dig a whole in our yard or 3.) I could throw him away in the trash can. I'm not a risk taker nor do I like to be embarrassed so flushing him was not an option. I couldn't bring myself to throw him in the trash. I realized that it would be the easiest thing to do, but seriously, I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

To me, throwing him away in the trash was sort of like me signing my organ donor card. Hear me out, I am an organ donor. I'm proud to be an organ donor, when the good Lord calls me up, the Doctors can have every organ and tissue that they can possible take from me however I do not want to donate my eyes. Some of you may not understand and I honestly can not give you an answer but I do not want my eyes to be donated (not that anyone would want them, I have astigmatism, higher then normal eye pressure and bad eyesight) but still. There was just something about throwing Bruce away that I couldn't bring myself to do it.

So that brought me to my third option which was digging a hole in our yard for the fish. I have never had to dig a hole for an animal. I don't know that I have ever dug a hole for anything for that matter. Was I really going to go out into my yard at 10:00 pm to dig a hole for a goldfish? So as I thought about that for a while, different versions of that plan came to mind...I have a brother-in-law that lives a couple minutes away. Should I call him to bury the fish at 10:00 at night? hummmm...I would hear about that one for years. Should I ask my neighbor whom I barely know to bury the goldfish at 10:00 at night? hummm...maybe...but do I really want to stand and watch a man that I barely know bury a goldfish... not really.

After a few hours of processing it all I decided that I would strategically place the fish in the trash can and then I would remove the bag and immediately take it outside. I had also decided that I would need to do it while the kids were asleep. Robert, who is 2 years old, has the potential of making the whole situation worse. Once all the kids were asleep I took our kitchen trash can into their room. At that point, I decided I wanted to measure Bruce to see how long he was so I went back to the kitchen to try to find a paper plate. All I could find were dessert plates so I grabbed two b/c I knew he would be longer then one and I didn't want his tail hanging off and touching things or dripping fish tank water everywhere.

We had a fish net but he was too big to scoop him out so I decided I would have to use the net like a shovel and he would have to hang off each end. Everything was going perfectly, the kids were snoring, I had raised Bruce out of the tank on the net with one hand and placed him on the paper plate with the other when all of a sudden I had a Sandra Bullock clumsy moment. Sure enough, his tail was hanging off the plate so as I went to bring the other plate under his tail I must have moved my hand and Bruce slid from one end of the plate to the other which was by my finger. I should have known Bruce was going to be slippery and we all know those paper plates are and two slippery surfaces aren't a good mix. Bruce touched my thumb, I did a silent scream and dropped Bruce into the trash can below! 

Although I didn't plan for it to occur like it did I couldn't have asked for a better outcome. Now my thoughts were "please don't let me see him in the bag." As I pulled the trash bag out of the trash can I kept repeating to myself, please don't let me see him in the trash bag. Thankfully, my Sandra Bullock moment was over! Bruce was somewhere in the bag of trash and I couldn't see him not that I was looking for him but I did a quick glance as I was walking the bag out of the house. I took the bag outside to the trash can and breathed a sigh of relief. Once again I did something I thought I couldn't do myself.

The dreaded conversation about the "S" word

I know one day the dreaded conversation about the "s" word will mean something totally different but I have a 6, 6, 3 and 2 year old. The "s" word that I'm talking about is SHOTS!! Allergy shots to be more specific. Joseph, my oldest child, has severe (environmental) allergies and after several years of trying to control his allergies with oral medication the doctor has decided we need to consider shots.

A picture of Joseph when his eczema was under control

Here is how it all started: When Joseph was a baby, he developed eczema on his cheeks. No matter what we tried, whether it was a different body wash or moisturizer, nothing seemed to help get rid of it. As the months went by, we noticed a pattern developing. His eczema always got worse when he stayed at his grandparents house. Our first thought was he had a food allergy however, after keeping a food journal for him we still couldn't pinpoint the cause. Around this same time, Joseph was placed on Claritin for seasonal allergies which he received year round. The guessing game went on for at least two years.

We quickly realized Joseph's allergies were not just your typical seasonal allergies during the summer of 2008. Joseph spent the weekend with my aunt and uncle. My aunt and uncle have show ponies and horses and Joseph had helped my aunt clean out the horse trailer before they brought him and his twin brother Joshua home. By the time they made it to our house, his eyes were swollen shut and itching him like crazy. The next day, his pediatrician referred him to an allergist. After describing the event to the allergist, he stated that Joseph had a severe allergic reaction. Looking back now, I should have taken him to the ER however I didn't. I treated it with Benadryl and eye drops. It all ended up fine however looking back I should have been more cautious. Hindsight is always 20/20, right!?

The first round of prick testing showed that Joseph has severe allergies. Luckily, his severe allergies aren't related to food, but he is allergic to "all things Kentucky" which is where we live. For those of you that don't know, Kentucky is known for its beautiful horses, rolling hills of bluegrass, timothy and fescue as well as ragweed. Joseph is severely allergic to all of those things. (He is also allergic to dogs.) He was immediately put on 5 different types of medicines to get his allergies under control. We are lucky in the fact that his severe allergy triggers can be somewhat avoided.

Joseph's grandfather has always worked in the horse industry. Joseph was being exposed (directly and indirectly) to horses and dogs every time he went to his grandparents house. Joseph has 3 uncles that live close by that also work in the horse industry and they all have dogs as well. Every time we know Joseph will be exposed to things he's allergic to, especially horses whether it's walking through a horse barn or going into one of their homes, we have to give Joseph medicine so he doesn't have an allergic reaction while he's visiting. Please hear me when I say their homes are not covered in horse and dog hair. Joseph is just that allergic to them.

His second round of testing came after he broke out in huge hives all over his body after eating lunch at a restaurant. I had never seen or dealt with hives before so after speaking to the on-call RN with the pediatricians office, she suggested we give him Benadryl.  The next morning, Joseph was still covered in hives and they had grown in size. He looked like he had three huge hives that covered his entire body. I called his allergist who met us at his office on a Sunday morning. At that appointment, his allergist gave me his personal cell phone number as well as his home number in case Joesph were to ever have a severe allergic reaction again. Needless to say, during the second round of testing, food allergies where on the allergist's mind. Luckily, he didn't have severe allergies to any foods that were included in the test. The down side to that is, we still don't know what caused Joseph to have the allergic reaction that day.

A few years ago, we were looking purchasing a bigger home for our growing family. I quickly realized that we have to consider the previous homeowners lifestyle before making such a permanent investment. The same considerations will need to be made if we decide to purchase a used vehicle. Joseph's grandfather allows their family dog to ride in the back seat of this truck however, it sends Joseph into an allergic reaction to take a 15 minute ride somewhere with him.

Joseph ended up being allergic to 29 things with 8 of those being severe allergies. I carry a gallon zip-loc bag of emergency medicine with me if I know he is going to be exposed to those 29 things. Over the past 3 years, we have been able to drop one of the five medicines. Joseph dosage has been lowered on others. Although it's been a blessing for him not to have to take so much medicine day in and day out, it also means he is more likely to have an allergic reaction. I don't think most people including family members truly understand the severity of his allergies and just how little his system can handle.

Having a child with severe allergies is extremely stressful especially when the allergies aren't controlled as well as they should be. This spring and summer have been extremely hard on him. He has had sinus infections, strep throat, ear infections and lots of wheezing. I would describe his allergies as getting worse instead of better and apparently the allergist agreed because we left the office today with an antibiotic for an ear infection--second one in a month, eye drops, another nasal spray and a note to increase the usage of both inhalers. Unfortunately and fortunately, all of this is a band-aid until his allergist can get him in to be re-tested to see if any of his allergies have changed in the past 3 years. Then, based on those results, the office will put together a series of shots which will take place over a 15 week period and will include several trips to the doctor each week for the shot to be administered.

It's easy for me to say "yes, it's time for the shots" however Joseph does not handle shots very well. In fact, I decided last fall when he was given his flu shot that it was the last year I could physically do it on my own. He kicked and screamed and punched...all of this from a child that normally isn't a physical contact type of kid.

I have started preparing him for the prick test and shots. So far he has taken it very well considering. And he is excited about the possibility of not needing all the medicines he's on. So, my question to you is, do your kids have severe allergies and if so, how do you control them?

A Full House

When I was growing up, my mom and dad worked outside the home which meant my sister and I had to go to a sitter. Our sitter was my mom's oldest sister, our Aunt Patty! There were times when I spent more time at Patty and Scotty's house then I did at my own. I loved it there for many reasons but for today's blog, I loved it because of the kid next door. He was my age and I loved him. I adored him like a brother and he was probably the first boy I ever had a crush on. I thought he hung the moon for many years.
When we were in early elementary school, he taught me about matchbox cars, baseball cards, how play t-ball and to "dig for dinosaurs". In fact, my Aunt still has my baseball cards somewhere in her house and I'm sure his little league baseball card/picture is still beside Eric Davis' card b/c that was where he told me to put it. He was going to be just like Eric Davis. He even signed his card for me b/c he KNEW he was going to be a famous baseball player one day. We spent hours together!!  His dad would be extremely disappointed if I didn't mention the fact that when we got older we would watch Little House on the Prairie, drink RC Cola and ate popcorn all while playing Monopoly almost every afternoon.
I share this because I have always been surrounded by boys and doing boy stuff even though I'm certain I did some of our activities in a dress. I found boy stuff to be fun. I was not a Tom Boy. I LOVED playing with Barbie's (which is what I did when I got home), dancing, cheering, picking flowers, but boy stuff was interesting too. I explain all of this b/c when our OB said that we were having twin boys, then another boy a few years later and another--I was okay with it. I know how to play with boys and do "boy stuff". After all, I grew up doing it.
Boys are so much fun but I have to admit, there are times when I experience huge "learning curves". I think the first "learning curve" came when the twins were younger and started asking questions about construction equipment and what each piece of equipment was called. So we learned about construction equipment together through books and driving past construction sites. From there, I've learned not to be surprised when I find rocks, acorns, sticks, etc. in the washer because boys tend to pick up cool things and cool things go directly in pockets.  I have also learned that anything dead is worth looking at! From a dead Blue Jay in our driveway to a squashed frog on the road, you will find all of us hovered over whatever it is checking it out. And what is it with little boys and water!? The twins love to watch the flow of water. Whether it's the water table at the Children's Museum or the path the water takes across our driveway when Anthony washes my car. It entertains them for hours!!
There have only been a few times when I have truly stepped back and thought, "Wow, I live in a house FULL of boys!" One of those moments occurred a few months ago when Anthony taught the boys how to make bodily function noises with his armpit at the dinner table. This particular noise is their favorite noise to make I think. They already make this noise with their lips as they walk down the hallway, they do it while they work on their homework, they place their mouths on their arms in order to make a louder noise and now, thanks to their daddy, they know how to make them with their ARMPITS. I have NEVER seen all 5 of them (Robert included) laugh so hard. I don't know why boys think those noises are so funny!?!
One of my favorite totally boy moments happened last spring. The boys had attended Pre-K and APPLE so when they came home from school, we took a walk. (Well, I was probably pushing a stroller and a tricycle while Joseph and Joshua rode their bikes but that's what we call a walk.) Before I tell you about the boy moment, I must explain that when it rains in our neighborhood, water collects in the curb along the side of our street especially in between the driveways. Joseph and Joshua know to ride their bikes close to one side of the street because of traffic. As they rode their bikes down the street, one in front of the other, they both tried to ride through the same puddle which was right before our driveway and both of them got stuck. Their training wheels where up on either side of the curb which allowed them to spin their back bike tire in the puddle. They couldn't go anywhere-they were stuck! Water was going everywhere!! Joseph was spinning water onto the back of his white uniform shirt and all over Joshua's face and down the front of his shirt as well. The front and back of Joshua's white shirt was covered in water as well. Keep in mind, this wasn't swimming pool water, this was puddle water. It was DIRTY! But they were having a BLAST!! I could have yelled at them for getting their white uniforms dirty or told them to stop, however, I let them have their memorable boy moment b/c only boys would have thought it was funny to get as wet and dirty as they did that day.
It was a boy moment and I am so thankful that God blessed me with five FUN boys!!

What's to Come

I've never had the urge to blog or tweet-although I have a twitter account. In fact, I don't like to read or write, but for some reason I thought I would try it out. You will not find my postings to be about a specific topic like some. It will be more like random thoughts and/or happenings that occur or have occurred in my life which is why I decided to name it "What's Koching?" My last name is Koch (pronounced "Cook"). I know, it would have been the perfect cooking blog, right?!?!

I will probably even allow the boys to guest blog about something from time to time. Joseph and Joshua already have their topics.

So with that said, here we go...