Friday Night at the Appliance Store

My first "official" day in the nursing school building, and my brother and SIL's adventures in home improvement. 


Thursday was my test commute to Villanova. I walked from the apartment to Suburban Station, where I got on the Regional Rail. Most of the 45-minute walk was very familiar at this point, but Broad St. and Suburban Station were surprisingly lively. It must have been because the weather was nice. Though the Villanova train station is not perfectly convenient to the nursing school building (15 minute walk), the train ride itself was very pleasant. The seats were in much better shape than those on the Boston commuter rail, and I snagged the quiet car.

As for the laptop distribution, the overview of Villanova's IT services was pretty straightforward. The main piece of good news is that if my Villanova laptop ever has a physical issue or a virus, the IT staff will fix it at no cost (with some exceptions for stuff that is clearly due to the user's negligence). Coming from Brandeis, I was mainly surprised with the differences between my nursing program classmates and my classmates at Brandeis. Let's just say that there are many jokes at Brandeis about how socially awkward the student body is. However, most of my Nova classmates seemed very bubbly, outgoing, and easily excitable. It took a long time for people to settle down for the IT representative, but I think being surrounded by more outgoing people will be an interesting change of pace. (I love my fellow introverts and/or shy people, but it is easier to break the ice with people who are less shy than me).

Friday mainly revolved around getting the new house ready. In the morning I went to the house to be there for a delivery, and in the afternoon Brother and SIL were there for an installation. I ended up joining them for the installation when the apartment building fire alarm went off, thinking the house would be quieter. That wasn't the case, but I did get to help with the window measurements. After dinner (at IHOP!)* we went to look at appliances, carpet samples, and paint colors.

Having done appliance shopping (and browsing) with my mother, I expected the appliance portion to take a long time. When Mom went out to get an oven, she had a very clear picture of what she wanted, but found that many the ovens available had features she didn't want or had objections to (such as the "chicken nugget" button several of them had). It took almost an hour to find out which models fit her guidelines (there were only 2 or 3 that were electric, flat top, had a space to store pot lids, and didn't have chicken nugget buttons).

But the appliance shopping was easy. One of the consumer picks for best washer was quickly eliminated because it was too deep for SIL or I to reach the bottom. (Does Consumer Reports ever feature "Appliances for Short People"? Because I would buy that issue in 10 years). We then picked the carpet after touching a sample of a corn-based carpet in the front of the carpet department. It was incredibly soft. I don't know how one can get fibers like that from corn.

While Brother waited to put in an order for the corn carpet, SIL and I browsed paint chips (light blues and light greens). Most of them were greyish light blues and sea greens (light green with more blue and grey hints). When it came down to deciding which blue and which green, Brother reduced a pile of about 20 chips to 2 in just under two minutes. So in one trip we picked out a washer/dryer set, carpet for the living room and paint colors for the guest room and my room.

* = When I was a kid, my family had diner breakfasts 3 times a week, so I love getting eggs and hash browns at places like Perkins and IHOP.