Gadgets

This post is dedicated to household gadgets.  I am thinking about buying two things: one is an ice cream attachment for the Kitchen Aid mixer, the other one is a steam cleaner for the floor, to remove the bird poop that gets stuck on when dry.  I generally try to keep gadgets down to a minimum, but my minimum includes a lot of gadgets.  The top gadgets in my life include:
1.  the Kirby vacuum cleaner.  With the mess that the birds make, that vacuum cleaner works twice a day, and it creates a black hole vortex that sucks everything in.  I also used it to wash the carpets and the end result made me tolerate and even like the carpets for a while longer, as opposed to installing hardwood right away.
2.  the Kitchen Aid mixer.  I use it for baking extensively and love it.  It is involved in anything that I cook that requires mixing.  Lately I use it for mixing romaine salad leaves with the oil and vinegar, it crushes them just enough to get the salad dressing on each leaf, and it makes the salad taste soooo good.
3.  the electrical toothbrush, a very old gadget of mine, which I bought when they first came on the market. I never looked back.
4.  the Waterpik.  If you don't know what that is, it is a device that cleans your gums and the spaces in between the teeth with a strong water jet.  I love it.  I am crazy about dental hygiene, to the point of flossing every day before bedtime, and then flossing again if I need to have a night time snack (which sometimes happens when I am pregnant, 'cause I am hungry all the time and crave eggs and cheese and milk non stop).  I used to floss twice to three times a day before the waterpik.
5.  now I am quite happy with the sewing machine as well.  I hope to keep on using it.
6.  the juicers:  I have one for leaves and one for solid fruit and veggies.  It might look like overkill, but we do use both of them.
7.  the blender.  I use it daily for composting (if I don't blend the composting material it stays solid until the end of time), and of course for making food purees.
8.  my iron.  I have a steam iron and love to use it on anything.  It never burns, not even silk, even though I always use it on maximum heat.  I have an ironing board up all the time in the bedroom, and now when it was time to install the change table, I nearly panicked when we talked about taking down my ironing board.   Never!  I iron every day and the two seconds that it would take me to take the ironing board from its hiding place and mount it will easily add up to hours in one year.  Plus I have read of a person who got a concussion when the ironing board sprung open from behind the door and hit her over the head.  Who wants to risk that ? (just kidding, although the story seems true).
9.  Or I should say 9 through 15: my various hair devices.  I own a hair dryer, a hair curler in 3 inch diameter, a hair curler in 1.5 inch diameter, one hot rod without a clamp in 1 inch diameter, a straightener, a shallow crimper, a deep wave crimper, and a set of hot curlers.  Oh, and a hot air brush.  And yes, I use them all.
10.  the dehydrator.  A fabulous device that keeps things warm at a constant temperature.  It is meant to dehydrate edible food bits, but I use it for making yogourt (which I make at least weekly) and raising dough.  It works so well I could cry.
11.  my espresso maker.  Lovely machine.  It became part of my daily morning ritual years ago.  It even steams milk.  Yum.  (It might even be the reason for my insomnia?).  Although I limit the caffeine to one cup per day, and often drink decaf.  I prefer to grind the beans right before making the coffee, it does make a big difference in flavour.  With a grinder handy, one does not need fancy coffee, anything fair trade will do for me.

The devices that I do have and am not sure about whether I should have gotten or not are:
1. the microwave.  Although we use it,  I never really know how safe it is for the food and for the baby.  I am still thinking and researching the topic.
2.  the food processor.  I rarely ever use it, preferring a good set of knives and chopping everything by hand.
3.  the clarisonic.  It is a brush for washing the face, much like an electrical toothbrush, but it is softer and has a larger head.  It cleans well but it also tends to irritate my face a bit.  And I cannot tell yet if it makes any difference over regular washing with my fingers.
4.  the clothes dryer.  It is so dry in my town that things tend to get from sopping wet to dry in a matter of hours.  We usually tend to hang our stuff all over the living room and it gets dry in a few hours, plus it humidifies the air.  By contrast, the washing machine is a lovely tool that I use all the time, once a day perhaps, for everything including my silks and cashmere sweaters, and it never destroyed a thing.  It likes to occasionally eat a sock or two, when hungry, but otherwise it is a content little monster.
5. the handheld vacuum cleaner.  After the Kirby, simply nothing feels strong enough to please me anymore.  Although the Kirby is so bulky and heavy that the handheld vacuum should be a nice gadget in my life for the stairs and such, but I just don't feel that it does anything compared to the black hole suction of my monster vacuum cleaner.
6.  the toaster.  We never toast bread.  If anyone needs a toaster you can have mine.
7.  ditto for the indoors grill.  We hardly ever eat meat and when we do it is cooked in a casserole not grilled in a large chunk.
8.  also, I have a handheld clothes steamer for anyone who feels that they need one in their life.  My love affair with ironing gets in the way of any other loving feelings towards the steamer.

PS.  While I was typing this post, my parrot Max got into the food colouring bottles that I had on the counter top for colouring the Easter Eggs.  I am going to post a picture of my fingers and of his tongue.  He has a blue tongue that would be worth photographing if he'll let me.