The disturbing noises have become less disturbing. I don't know. There's a lot of dust being kicked up, so I'm hiding in the bedroom with the door closed.

I wish electric dryers could run on normal outlets. Stoopid dryers.

I do at least six loads of laundry a week. I am so very happy to have a washer and dryer in my house.

I do at least six loads of laundry a week. I am so very happy to have a washer and dryer in my house.

And it's comments like this that make me think it will all be worth it in the end. No more climbing up and down 4 flights of stairs to do laundry!

I have no DVR. Nor do I have cable. I have a digital tuner that has no remote, and has to be manually fiddled with whenever I want to watch off-air TV.

I don't exactly approve of this set up, but I only watch the one TV show, and I've been vetoed on DirecTV every single time I've brought it up.

At this point I couldn't live without the cell phone - there's too much to coordinate with Emmett in one city with his mom, JZ collecting the baby, both of us sharing the car, plus Emmett calling me from after care or rounding up my coaches or players for a Little League game.

In fact, Emmett has a cell phone now since he's starting to have days after school where he goes and hangs out with his friends instead of going to after care and I need to be able to reach him. And he needs to be able to reach us too if anything goes awry.

Eeep! It's scary giving him freedom even though Albany is very small and pretty safe and he knows where he's allowed to go. There's traffic! There's big kids!

On the other hand, I had much more freedom growing up than Emmett's ever had and he's going to be in middle school next year so we had to start letting out the rope now.

We could give up our cell phones, and if I'm just cooking for myself I often skip the dishwasher and just handwash. My DH would tell you that he'd give up the TiVo before the dishwasher, but you shouldn't believe him.

One of the things I'm very much looking forward to once we get our house in Michigan is having a washer and dryer. I will happily do laundry EVERY DAY if it means I don't have to hoof it over to the laundromat with its "might work, might not" washers and dryers.

I mean, I like Vegas and gambling can be fun...but trying to guess the spread on dry underwear is going a bit far.

I just remembered one of the really PIA things about line-drying: our part of town had mulberry trees. And grackles. Purple bird poop.

On the other hand, I had much more freedom growing up than Emmett's ever had and he's going to be in middle school next year so we had to start letting out the rope now.

I'm boggled by how much freedom I had growing up when I look back on it. Things parents would find unthinkable were beyond routine. Granted, there are aspects of being a kid today that are beyond routine that would be unthinkable when I was growing up, so I guess it's a trade off. I'd say I had more physical freedom but less cultural freedom (mostly because the technology was what it was then vs. now).

Granted, I also grew up in a town rather than an urban environment. It may be the largest town (as opposed to city) in Maine, but it's in Maine so in the grand scheme of things, not so large.

And it's comments like this that make me think it will all be worth it in the end.

Yes, Jessica! It will be worth it all.

In non-related commentary: Don Imus, Shut the fuck up.