When I started this post last week, we were headed for a brisk 1 degree morning, -14F real feel (that’s -17/-25C). We’ve had an unusually warm fall/winter and my silly daffodils were up in the front garden and getting ready to bloom, so I cut all the unopened flower stalks and brought them inside. They are looking cheerful on my kitchen windowsill (cover photo.) Sometimes it’s the little things, like flowers in bloom, that get me through January.
Anyway, I decided it was time for another “little things” post – those small items in our lives with maybe daily use that bring us outsized joy, and perhaps are way better or more useful than we’d anticipated. I would love to hear some of yours in comments!
mine look exactly like this
Who knew about rubber gloves for doing dishes? Okay, everyone but me … I think of those awful yellow ones that are waaaay too big and clumsy for my doll-hands. But I do a lot of dishes, and combined with the dryness here my hands and nails were taking a beating. I finally ordered these, fully expecting to hate them and think they were stupid. They are great. Doing dishes is almost (almost!) a pleasure with these on, and my manicure lasts a full week.
While we’re at the kitchen sink – the one in our rental house looks fabulous but is also sort of big and flat and dumb, and I was spending a ridiculous amount of time with the sprayer, chasing the debris in the sink to get it down the drain. Then I bought these – little angled squeegee things that I use as needed to scrape everything to the drain. I can toss them in the dishwasher as needed. They’d probably be great for other things too, like foggy bathroom mirrors.
I have a bunch of houseplants as well as the outdoors garden. I bought these wee snips on a whim last year when I was getting some larger Fiskars (i.e., the scissors people) gardening tools, because I thought they were cute. And they are cute, but they’re also incredibly useful for very precise work, keeping my houseplants in shape. I use them almost every day.
serious entertainment value, I tell ya
A robotic vacuum. Look, I didn’t buy the thing – Carolyn’s dad got all his kids one for Christmas. Again, I thought it was dumb (are you sensing a theme here?) It’s one of the fancier ones with a mop feature, and I wasn’t confident we’d even get it set up. Did I trust a robotic vacuum with water it could dump all over the floor before vacuuming up my dog?
WELL. First of all, we did set it up fairly easily, including the app you need on your phone, and then I watched it map the house. I figured out what tweaks I needed to make (e.g., hiding extension cords) so it could do its job. It’s entertaining to watch (because I’m a strange nerd who needs to get out more?), and it does a darn fine job! Would I buy one? No, probably not. Am I glad we have one? Yes, emphatically.
Okay, your turn – what gizmos or doodads do you appreciate having, maybe way more than you thought you would?
images via Pexels
Hmmm…
I am currently enjoying actually HAVING A SINK! again. So, for me, it’s the lack of a gadget (in this case, the garbage disposal from HELL!) that I am celebrating.
To be FAIR, it’s not really even the disposal’s fault – it’s the fault of the line, which has a flat spot (unfixable, nowhere to re-run it), so anything other than … water?… tends to settle in that flat spot. Now? Fully running drains!
I also just found out that I can ask my Echo Show (?) which is in my office what the song is that’s on my Echo Dot (that’s in the LR, playing ambient music)… huh. Who knew? apparently my sister did, because she clued me in. I can also do other stuff on it – but I’m probably not gonna because dunno.
Like you, I have a pair of nips – and I use them every morning when I do the houseplant rounds! They are very elegant and make me feel like Morticia Addams.
I bought a Keurig Express in A
Black Friday sale and now I have coffee in my hands in sixty seconds. Just bought the refillable cups which I refill at times I am actually awake.
Hey March,
I’m not really a gadget person but Jin has the gamut.
One thing I opened and started using this week is a 1970s YSL Y soap. It came in a perfume and soap pack bought years ago on one of the auction sites. O M G! out of this world gorgeous in smell and usability. Every hand wash has become an event to cherish.
Portia xx
Mine are Leighton Denny crystal nail files. I bit my nails for decades. That plus decades of handwashing between patients has left my hands & nails utterly knackered & bone dry. These files are a god send at stopping snags.
I’m a big fan of both my Ninja Airfryer & Multipot
You’ve mentioned those before — I need to look for them, thanks! I have some crystal files but I feel like it’s time to replace them. I wonder if I have the same Ninja air fryer? It’s awesome.
Side by side drawers? Bloody love it. Not yet done a roast dinner in it though
I have debated getting the mopping roomba for the same reason as you. We installed wood laminate last summer that replaced the previous water-damaged flooring (a very bad decision on which I was out-voted), so I am a bit nervous. Things that make my life easier? A gas convection oven, a stand mixer, a huge microwave (I am the queen of microwave cookery!), a West Bend slow cooker (not crock pot, it gets hot enough to brown meat), the (non-mopping) roomba, a really great dishwasher (I only wash crystal by hand, all else goes in), an air fryer (we use the heck out of this thing), and a good quality chef’s knife.
Oooh, I need to check out that West Bend .. I do like my crock pot but I have to brown everything first. Knives are SO important. Good knives. Sharp knives. I have a solid relationship with the knife sharpening guy at our farmers market up the street.
Ok, I’ll play. First off, a decent peeler. It was a revelation when I got one a few years ago right before Xmas. All of a sudden peeling potatoes was a doddle. Number 2 would be the dishwasher installed when the house was refurbed. I think back through the houses in which I’ve lived here without one (that would be around 20 years of washing dishes by hand). Of all the mechanical items in the house this has got to be the one dearest to me.
Ha! As an adult w kids I have never lived without a dishwasher. A broken dishwasher constituted a plumbing emergency in my house. I washed my dishes by hand for 2 years after moving here (alone) and studies say I was still using more water than if I’d used the dishwasher. Now that I have a housemate and we both cook/bake, it gets run every couple of days. Also, she has a GREAT peeler from OXO that’s so much better than my crap one.
A couple of years ago a friend gave me an InstantPot cooker. It’s like a pressure cooker but you can brown in it too. I like it but don’t use it as much as I probably should in the interest of eating good food rather than microwave burritos. Same friend gave some Anyday cookware: glass pots with lids that go in the microwave. Those are brilliant for veggies and poaching fish (and the whole apt won’t smell of boiled cod) and are easy dishwasher safe. I like things that last- I still have the same blow dryer I got when I was 16!
I somehow bucked the Instant Pot, but I did get an air fryer last year lol. It’s sort of the same thing — it’s great for crispy snacks etc. but the “real” cooking gets done in my trusty cast iron most of the time. I will say it’s great for reheating leftovers and crisping up bacon.
I’ve thought and thought about an air fryer. oven thing for a while. I like the idea of them but think it will just be another gateway to junk food. And even now I have to rotate counter space for things- usually the Instant Pot lives under the sink.
I forgot the best thing I ever got- an electric kettle. Boils water much faster than a pot on the stove since the element is in the water rather than heating a burner to heat a pot to heat the water. Mine was only $20 at Bed Bath & Beyond with a coupon. And it has auto shut off, which is great. Since I did forget a kettle once that had a broken whistle.
My kids have an electric kettle, a fancy one that you can set to different exact temperatures because they’re coffee/tea snobs? They LOVE it. I have a whistling one but if that stops working I’m getting an electric.