You did say that you didn't know her well and that she was new to the choir. It seems to me like maybe she likes her new acquaintances and would like to get to know you better. It's not necessary to give a gift every time. You could attend the wedding, take a few minutes to greet her, welcome her to married life, the church, the choir and invite her to call on you in the future when she and her new husband are settled. Back in the good old days when calling cards were the norm, it was also considered an honor for a young bride to be invited to call on an "established matron" after her marriage. It was a matter of being accepted in local society. Not necessarily high society, but older folks were prepared to provide young marrieds with their wisdom and an occasional small gift. Young married women who eschewed the invitation were rarely if ever invited again. Now since this is 2009, and the young bride probably hasn't been raised to recognize the signs of graceful society, she might be forgivven if she doesn't come around. But I think that through time, she may well come to recognize you as a wonderful person, and since you go to the same church you may still have opportunities to share the wisdom of your experience with her.

I think nowadays washers are pretty much designed to last 5 years. The extended warranty people won't sell a warranty that lasts longer than 5 years from purchase date, and they know their business. They've no doubt got it all graphed out and five years is where the average expenses involved in keeping machines going starts to climb steeply. Right now I'm waiting on delivery of a Bosch frontloader. Old top loader machine is six years old, the five year warranty has expired. Getting someone to look at it would cost AU$110 before they even dropped their tool kit down next to the machine. I could open it up myself and tinker with it, but I've a fair idea what is going wrong and it would need a moderately priced and somewhat fiddly to install new part and since I'm not terribly good at such things there's a chance I'd balls it up so bad as to make it not repairable at all. A large machine is also difficult to handle when doing repairs, and both my partner and I have had back injuries in the past. And quite frankly, the old machine was OK but it had it's problems. New machine cost AU$745 delivered. I get AU$200 of that back from the city because they run a rebate scheme for buying high efficiency water using appliances. In every year of use I'll probably save about AU$100 on my water bills. And it's a nicer machine in general, with a better choice of cycles. And I get to buy a five year extended warranty for it for just AU$99, thus securing myself from most unexpected expenses associated with the machine, an option I no longer had for the old machine. What happens with the old machine? It gets taken away by the delivery guys and delivered to an appliance reconditioning center that will look at whether it can be repaired and resold economically. Since this occurs at their timetable rather than as a call out, they can do this rather cheaply. Maybe it gets fixed up, maybe it gets broken down for parts to fix other washers, maybe they pull all the stuff that can be sold as scrap out of it and junk the rest. I would prefer that the expected lifespan of a major appliance was ten years or more, but that's just not how things are any more.

Hi Barb, My son was in the process of deciding on a Whirlpool Duet pair last week at this time, and we came to the same conclusion as you. One appliance was described as white and the other one was described as being a silver metallic. If you are spending this much money-you very much want them to look good and match. My son wasn't wild about getting a steam washer. The reason for this was because this steam washer thing is new technology and sometimes, you are just asking for trouble-the more features an appliance has. He did, however, want the steam dryer. The benefits seemed to out weigh the drawbacks. Again-more technology-more potenial service calls in the future. He eventually decided on the 9500 Whirlpool Duet Series in the steam washer and steam dryer in the Tuscan Chestnut color. He wanted a matching pair-and the 9600 Duet series in the green color was just too much to spend. As it was, the 9500 Duet series was probably more than he should have spent, too.

So does this mean you will have a kitchen iPad and another iPad? I personally like that I can carry my iPad anywhere, or sit on the couch with it. If it was permanently affixed to the kitchen cabinet, I wouldn't like that at all. But I hardly think I can justify 2. I guess you can take it in and out of the case, but won't that get old?