I’m not generally an early, or enthusiastic, adopter of new technology. The words, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” typically rattle around my head when I see something shiny and new on the television or in stores. There is, however, one exception that I’d longed after for many years: a dishwasher.

Growing up, we had a dishwasher for a very brief period. It was a hand-me-down model that came from an uncle. The dishwasher needed to be hooked up the sink faucet for the water supply as it sat in the kitchen in front of the basement door, the power cord stretched over to an outlet. While, I was relatively young at the time, I remember Mom being pretty happy about having this modern-day miracle, so she didn’t have to stand at the sink hand-washing the dishes. I was pretty happy about that, too. And then, the machine broke down. I don’t recall the reason for it breaking, or even if it had been repaired, however, I do know that after that we went back to hand-washing the dishes.

Mr. Muse and I had a dishwasher in an apartment we rented early in our marriage. It was fantastic. The apartment even had a garbage disposal, the using of which led to me finding a great little product called “Plink” that you drop into the disposal to clean it. Of course, citrus rinds will do the same thing, but, I digress. The dishwasher was a saver of hands. It also caused for amusement as there may, or may not, be photographic evidence somewhere of Alex the Cat giving me a very judgmental look as he sat near my hastily-built towel moat holding back a rising tide of suds spilling from the machine.

And that was when I learned that if you run out of dishwasher detergent, do NOT substitute dish washing liquid.

We moved from that apartment to a house that didn’t have a dishwasher and didn’t have room for one. After some years, we sold that house and moved into our present Chez Muse. This house and property have needed a lot of work, and we spent a good part of the last ten years cleaning up outside of the house, from picking up junk (seriously, what is WITH people who just pile up refuse wherever??) to cutting down trees that had died. We remodeled a couple of rooms in the house, but late last year embarked on remodeling the kitchen.

Leading up to this point, Mr. Muse has been very vocal about his desire to have a dishwasher. He’s not a fan of washing the dishes. He’s a much more vocal non-fan of dish washing than I am.

Soon, there were declarations of, “When we remodel the kitchen, we are getting a dishwasher.” I would smile and nod, mentally say, “I’ll believe it when it happens.” He told me to pick out the features I wanted, my must haves. So, I looked online, found the features I had to have and left it at that.

And then one day after work, Mr. Muse got into the car and said, “This weekend we’re going to get a dishwasher.”

I laughed, but, recognizing that he’d made up his mind, knew that it was going to happen. Our Christmas present to ourselves in 2016 was a lovely, stainless steel, Whirlpool dishwasher that will hold my 22-quart pressure canner, has a food grinder, and a sanitize setting, the three must-have features I requested.

As a person who suffers from dry, splitting, bleeding fingers every winter, the dishwasher has been a tremendous blessing. Also, given the fact that one of my “happy places” is in the kitchen baking and cooking, the days of washing four or five sinks full of dishes are long gone.

Who says that embracing new technology is overrated?

The Amusing Muse is a writer and blogger who lives in Southern Wisconsin. She appreciates the simple things in life, like macaroni and cheese (gluten free of course) and the first dandelion blossoms of spring. She is also working on focusing on the task at hand and not being so…. Oh look! A squirrel!