I love dish towels…this is one of my secret obsessive compulsive disorders! Along with a few others…special pens and pencils and Post It Notes….scrap booking stickers…dinner and party napkins…wooden spoons, mixing bowls, and spatulas…just to name a few.
But I love dish towels…I have the set I ordered from Gooseberry Patch…
And my fun red, white, and blue set from Williams Sonoma (my favorite place to shop)…
Then I have the coveted set ordered years ago from the Martha Stewart Catalog…
Of course…my Christmas towels…
And these lovely pink and white ones with matching dish cloths… again from Williams Sonoma…I had a set of blue ones…but I can’t talk about them at the moment…
I have a set of red towels…
And my favorite rooster towels….
Until I married JR…I was still using dish towels I had received from my first marriage and I am proud to say…they were still in good condition even after 24 years! The very minute I used one to wipe up a spill or they were soiled in any way I knocked myself out to get it washed and remove any stains.
And then I married “Mr.OCD/Mr. Clean”. He drives me crazy vacuuming…he vacuums our entire house at least 3 times a day! He goes to pieces if I leave washed dishes to drain on the cabinet…he will run the dishwasher if there is no more than two or three dishes in it. He has been known to run the washer through a complete cycle with one washcloth or a pair of socks. We are talking neurotic…
He loves to brag about how clean he is and how he does everything around the house while I lounge around all day living a life of luxury.
But…this is the way things really roll in this house…
Yes…he vacuums…but only the middle of the floor and all the walkways through the rooms…I have to vacuum the edges of the room and God forbid that he ever dusts anything. Usually any dishes that he washes have to be washed over…he is just too impatient to make sure they are really clean.
But…when it comes to dish towels…never…and I do mean never…let him loose with a dish towel. Friends…for the life of me… I cannot fathom what he finds to wipe up with them! When we married he didn’t know paper towels existed…he just grabbed the dish towel when he needed to clean…and let me tell you…with his condition…that is about 20 hours a day.
He used them to clean anything and everything…
It was disgusting to say the least…and needless to say…some of the things that he did with them…well they would never reign again in my kitchen! They were banished to the “if you need a towel, JR, please use this one” stack or they were in the trash.
So at this point…you can imagine what happened to the blue striped Williams Sonoma ones!
We have fought…I have cried…and thought he would understand when I explained what lovely kitchen towels mean to me. I even trusted him with all my heart when I bought my blue striped Williams Sonoma towels and asked very sweetly that he just leave them alone and let me set them out in the kitchen to look pretty!
But no…he couldn’t help himself. In a moment of obsessive-compulsiveness his brain took over and he succumbed to using those towels no matter what the cost!
Because of this flaw to his character…I keep my secret stash of nice dish towels hidden far back in a kitchen cabinet where he would never find them. Sometimes on a holiday or special occasion I will bring one or two out to use and guard them ferociously from his wrath. I never leave them alone in the kitchen out of fear he might grab one. I use them for the occasion, wash them promptly and return them to their hiding place.
Every once in a while I will take them all out and look at them…and hope that maybe someday I can use them like a normal person. Heck….every once in awhile I even think…surely after 14 years maybe it’s safe to think he’s gotten the message.
Until today… I walked in my kitchen this afternoon and found this…
What could he have cleaned with this dish towel? Nothing in our house could be this dirty! Did he use it to wash the tires on the truck…or maybe his muddy boots from the garden?
And then it hit me…as long as he lives…my dish towel collection will have to remain hidden. So to satisfy my longing to see them once again…I went a step further…and took them all out and photographed and wrote about them…just so I could show them off to someone.
Leah
As some of you remember earlier in 2009 I told you the plight of my trusty Maytag electric range. It has been used like I had a commercial kitchen and enduring hours of abuse by my chaotic cooking episodes. It was my lack of responsible attention as I let pots overflow…teakettles boil dry…and baking dishes run over in the oven…many times! One day I left the teakettle to boil for an unknown time and it not only boiled dry but adhered itself to the glass-top burner and when I took it off the burner a hunk of the glass-top pulled loose attached to the bottom of the kettle.
But nothing compares to the horrors it has endured at the hands of “Mr. Fix-It”! Just to mention a few…he has pounded, drilled, and sawed on the oven door…scrubbed the self-cleaning interior with a variety of substances…tried to clean the inside glass door with cold water while the oven was hot and broke the glass. If you want the details and photos…check this out…but…be warned…it’s not a pretty site!
And through it all…my trusty little range…continued to cook faithfully through the abuse.
That is until the day after Christmas…the oven only works on broil. The contact board that controls the oven heating element is out. The damage is too costly to repair considering the age and condition of the abused appliance. It is still struggling along and we have to cook everything in the oven on Broil…which is challenging to say the least. But I will admit…something that can be done with an oven thermometer, a pizza stone, a piece of foil, and much attention to the temperature.
So after much research…and pondering about what I wanted and what I could afford…I am buying a new range.
I have decided on this one….it is reasonably priced…I ordered it from Lowe’s. They offer free delivery and installation and will dispose of your existing appliance. Also I found the identical range at a less expensive price online and took that information with me to Lowe’s where they not only matched that price but took a little more off their price.
It is a Samsung glass-top electric range with 5 burners, a large capacity convection oven with three racks and three fans for even heat distribution, a quick steam cleaning option, and a warming drawer to keep cooked foods hot. On top of all that information it is also rated with top reviews!
It’s here…and I love it! It was delivered on Wednesday about 1:00 P.M. and before the day was over I had made Homemade Oreo Cookies, Artisan French Bread, and Meatloaf with Mashed Potatoes.
Lowe’s even hauled off my pathetic and abused old range…probably to donate to the “Redneck Museum”… and hooked up the new one for me…
I’m off to cook…
Leah
