We got back to our normal Shabbat morning routine with a quick walk, Torah Study, and Shir Shabbat.

After lunch, we talked to our son and made tentative plans for a visit to see him in Boston in a few months, and very tentative plans for him to join us in Hawaii in the fall (with a probable stop here).

And we are giving serious thought to a winter trip to Japan with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, replacing the trip we were supposed to be taking with them this summer to Sicily and Malta, which was a replacement for the trip we originally had planned to take with them to Japan and Korea last April.

We also set up our Seabourn accounts for the Antarctica trip later this year.

I think we’re getting interested in traveling again.

Our new washer and dryer were delivered today, bright and early. I had planned ahead and turned off the valves for the washer last night to make sure we could drain as much water as possible – that turned out to be a surprisingly good decision.

After the installer had put everything in its place and hooked it all up, he turned on the cold water valve and noticed it was damp – there was a teeny tiny leak. So he couldn’t officially install the washer – but since everything was connected, he left it in place and strongly suggested we get the valve replaced. When I called the plumber to make an appointment, they told me that I was lucky that the installer hadn’t discovered the problem earlier or he wouldn’t have connected the washer at all!

The new washer, like the old one, is a front-loader and wants High Efficiency detergent. The old washer’s manual suggested using HE detergent but said “if you can’t find it, use regular” – the new washer’s manual says “you MUST use HE detergent”. I thought I’d been buying HE detergent all along, but when we went to do our first load of laundry, I discovered that the last time I stocked up, I had bought regular – so we made an emergency run to CVS for HE. I’m sure we could get away with using the regular detergent but I didn’t want to start on the wrong foot.

After all of that, actually doing the laundry was blessedly uneventful.

Shabbat Shalom!