Rituals and weight loss

We have a ritual in my family.  It is not limited to Christmas, just the major holidays that involve a lot of eating. A major electrical appliance crashes just before or even during the holiday, and our local Lowe's delivery man gets a call, brings a new appliance to our house, greets our dogs by name, asks to be remembered to any family members not present and then disappears until the next holiday, next appliance crash.

Last time, our refrigerator checked out the day before Thanksgiving (this was a year or two ago) while entrusted with our turkey and everything else  I was planning to serve.  This year, our dishwasher gave up on Thanksgiving, refusing to pump adequate water to distribute the soap. It made a brief comeback so that a repair man said it might hold up a while longer. Repair was possible for an estimate equal to the cost of a new dishwasher. It did hold up, unrepaired but with our fingers crossed, until the Sunday before Christmas. Our faithful delivery guy delivered a new dishwasher today, Dec. 23, but alas, no installer will be available until the week after Christmas.

I'm OK with washing dishes, but with four major meals in a two day period, my husband has undertaken to install the dishwasher himself.  He is more than moderately handy and installed a dishwasher in another house not long ago, so you might ask why five hours after wrestling it into place (and removing the old dishwasher), and leaving a wake through the living room, den and kitchen, we are not hearing the comforting swish of dishes being washed .

One word. Instructions. No mention of how to hook it to the electricity. Internet not helpful. Suggestion of pulling it back out until an installer can come, not well received.

I'll leave this saga here, since I plan to go to bed soon, but I'll let you know how it turns out.

In other news, three days ago was my one year weight loss anniversary.  My goal was 100 pounds. I succeeded in losing 75, so I have the rest to look forward to in the New Year.  Since I  gained a lot of muscle, and muscle weighs more than fat, the result size-wise is a somewhat slimmer me than the loss of 75 really indicates. But, anyway, it was a full time time job to work with a trainer, completely restructure my nutrition, and retrain my brain. Time well spent, in my opinion.