January 03rd, 2020

There are all sorts of accomplishments.  Big 'A' Accomplishments like getting a promotion or buying a house.  And little 'a' accomplishments like managing to eat a spaghetti dinner without getting any sauce on your white shirt.  Some folks might strut a bit over a big 'A'... hey, if you win a gold at the Olympics you have earned some serious strutting rights.  The small 'a' stuff is more a thing of personal recognition. Both are genuine positives, just one is a much bigger deal than the other.  I don't think anyone would really argue with me about this.

But I think that there should be a mid-level of accomplishment.  Not the sort of thing that you quietly notice to yourself but also not the sort of thing that people brag about either.  Further,  I believe that most of our accomplishments lay quietly in the middle, unrecognized for their significance. And I think that is a shame.

I thought about this recently.

The above  photo is my kitchen sink.  I have this awesome porcelain farm house sink that is massive! I just adore it.  From the very beginning of the reno, I knew that was the sink I wanted. It was, in fact, the very first thing I chose.  The faucet, however,  I didn't put nearly as much thought into.  I knew I wanted that brushed nickel, non-shiny surface and something easy to clean that had a sprayer.  Left the field wide open there.  Tim suggested that particular faucet and I said, "sure fine".  Because that is exactly how I felt about it.  There wasn't another faucet that I was lusting after.  I felt very Meh about faucets in general.  As long as it had a sprayer, was non-shiney and wasn't elaborate in design making it hard to clean, I honestly didn't care what it looked like.

To my surprise I also ended up with something I had given even less thought about - a soap dispenser.  I just never considered one.  But Tim was certain that I would end up really loving it and since it seemed to be important to him and I honestly didn't care, I now have a kitchen soap dispenser.  And it turns out, Tim was right.  I really do appreciate the ease of use with it. And the fact that I don't have a bottle of Dawn sitting on my kitchen counter all of the time ever at the ready. 

However, the dispenser is not a bottomless well of dishsoap. Nope.  Eventually comes the time when it must be refilled and that, my friends, is major pain in the arse.  First I have to take off the pump .  And it will want to drip everywhere because of course there is still some soap in it. So I must think ahead and have a place to set it down that is OK to then have completely saturated with dishsoap.  I chose the sink itself.

Next I had to take everything out from under the sink.  Fortunately, I already was smart enough to keep everything in a plastic bin.   Well everything except the fire extinguisher.

Ok, so I removed the bin on the right side and then I crawled underneath the sink to lay on my back  unscrew the dispenser.  And by the way, , it's not at all comfortable to lay underneath the sink.  It's about six inches off the floor so my back is  arched the entire time in a very unnatural, awkward and exceedingly uncomfortable manner. It is absolutely a task that your body encourages you to finish quickly.  But it also requires a delicate touch that means going slower than you really want to.  

Next up is actually unscrewing the bottom of the dispenser.  Because my sink is ENORMOUS, there is a rather smallish space where the dispenser fits.  And because I am lying down at this point, it is also above my head. 

Okey dokey. At this point I must unscrewed it and then crawl out from under the sink making sure to keep the bottle level. I do not want to have to clean up spilled dishsoap after all. Cleaning up dishsoap is a battle that feels as if it will never end.

Now then, normally I actually do realize that the remaining dishsoap in the tube is now going to dripdripdrip unless I remember to put something down to catch it.  And on this particular occasion of course I forgot. Dang!    

But before I discovered that I forgot to do that,  I refilled the dispenser and poised myself to crawl back under the sink to screw it back in and found the puddle of dishsoap.  Ratz!  Stopped to clean it up.  Then once again, I must crawl back underneath being very careful to not spill.

Now comes the trickiest part.  Threading the bottle part back into place without being able to see what I'm doing.  I am absolutely flying blind this entire time.  The first couple of dozen times, it took so long to find the sweet spot that my arm went to sleep and I had to take a break before achieving success.  This time, however, and for the very First Time,  I nailed on the first try. Woohoo!

I crawled back out with the biggest smile on my face!   I put the bin-o-stuff back under the sink, closed the door, replaced the pump and did a victory lap around the kitchen!  I just felt so very, well, accomplished is the word.  For me it was quite the achievement.

Now I fully recognize that for some people, successfully refilling and replacing the dishsoap dispenser in their kitchen is cake.  No big deal.  A breeze!  But for me, it was akin to getting an A in 4th  semester Algebra (which never happened by the way). 

In celebration I had a dish of ice cream.  It was, afterall, a mid-level achievement and deserved some sort of recognition.  After I polished off my ice cream, I squirted dishsoap into the bowl to wash it and basked in the glow of my success.

​Mission Accomplished!