Things We Love to Use...

Rocks in My Dryer hosts a wonderful fair (carnival, whatever) every Wednesday called Works For Me Wednesday. It's a great place, if you're not already familiar with it, to find tips on just about every topic under the sun. I could spend all day following the leads from there every week! This is my first attempt to add my two cents to the fun.

You'll find me there under "Lisa ~momof11," or something like that. I messed up my link information (I'm a real genius at these things!), and then I couldn't figure out how to go back and fix it...

Anyway, if you're starting from here, pop over and see what you can learn. If you started there and found me here, Welcome! And it's a miracle you clicked on me, considering... &:o)

Following is a short list of some of the things we really appreciate. I'm concentrating on appliances (big and small) this time. Admittedly, none of these products is absolutely perfect and completely without drawback of some kind. But, we find they function well for us, which is saying a lot, considering everything we use... well, it gets used A LOT!

On weekends, our coffee pot is cycled through at least 2 to 3 times a day (If they made as good coffee as the maker we have, I'd consider getting one of those industrial, large-gathering percolators like they have at church, just to handle the sheer volume)

Our washer and dryer are in constant use, Monday through Thursday (As a rule, I don't do laundry on weekends...). When the boys are home on holidays, I run at least four loads a day. Big loads.

Our stove has to be able to handle large pots and skillets, and have at least enough space for four jelly roll pans in the oven ~ or one 24 pound turkey, and then some. Not that we use up all that space on our range at all times, but we do upon occasion, especially during the holidays.

Anyway, here's a shortlist. I'm sure I'll think of more, but here's a start:

We love our programmable Cuisinart grinder/coffee maker. It makes good stuff and is easy to use, if a little awkward to clean up.
You can set it up for morning coffee the night before if you have a techno-person available who remembers how to program the silly thing. The carafe on this model is awesome; it keeps coffee hot for an eon. We wish it held more, but you can't have everything. We love the quality of the coffee this maker produces, though. Coffee flavor is a very personal thing, I know, but, one thing we've discovered ~ you can't beat freshly ground beans!


We've also been very pleased with our front-loading Maytag washing machine. It really has saved on water, and also has a "max extract" setting that wrings things amazingly dry, thus saving on drying time, as well. Ours is very large capacity, too, so works well for comforters or 20 pairs of dirty jeans during camping season. Ideal for large families all the way around. Economical, efficient.

As is our dryer, though I couldn't get a picture of it to print on here, but I love it, too, as it's humongous, and does an excellent job. It's not a twin to our washer, as that's just not something that's important to me. Nobody sees my laundry room but me, and I'm more interested in performance than having a matched pair. Anyway, we have a large capacity Whirlpool "accudry," that has settings for jeans and towels. It's so big, I keep a raquetball raquet next to the drier to reach into the back to pull clothes out!


After about a year of trying to cook on an apartment size stove when we first moved into this house (I'm talking itty-bitty stove!) , this range with the wonderful griddle in the middle (Though this pic doesn't actually show one), was like a gift from Heaven. I like having the broiler in the bottom, separate from the stove, so I can brown garlic bread, while I bake lasagna, for instance. Or broil fish, while I bake bread. We use the griddle practically every day. It cleans up easily and comes in handy for tons of stuff. And the large oval burner underneath the griddle is ideal for large canning pots, or vats of mashed potatoes.

There are larger, industrial ranges and double ovens that I dream about, but for the money, this GE range has fit the bill very nicely.


Coming Soon: Our favorite foods to feed a crowd.