I woke up to a dishwasher full of clean dishes and kitchen counters still piled high with the dirty dishes from last night’s dinner. The leftover food got stored in the refrigerator right away last night, but the leftover clean-up took longer.

So I did what I do: I made coffee.

While the coffee dripped, I unloaded the clean dishes and put them away. Next, the dirty stacks found their way into the dishwasher, filling it almost to overflowing. I added detergent, pushed Play (our family’s way of saying “turning it on”) and filled the sink to finish the rest.

With the kitchen counters now piled high with clean dishes, it was time to have breakfast. The last piece of leftover homemade bread in the toaster with Nutella: perfect with fresh coffee. Leftover monkey bread was nearby, too, if I wanted dessert.

The next leftover wasn’t edible, but related to edibles. The freezer was slowly failing. It still made ice cubes, but ice cream was soft and squishy. This was not a good sign.  The refrigerator portion still kept food cold, though. What now? Or, as Chuck put it, why must this appliance choose to taunt us on holidays? You see, readers, we spent Thanksgiving weekend with a working freezer and a non-working refrigerator. With help from our good friend Google, we tried a few fixes and got it working again.

Now, Christmas time, the leftover part of the essential kitchen appliance was reaching its end. Google wasn’t helpful this time – at least it wasn’t helpful in providing a fix. The results of our research convinced us that we couldn’t make the leftover work any longer; we needed to buy fresh and new. Since we did the shopping type of research at Thanksgiving, Chuck was ready to buy. He didn’t even need me along, thank goodness.

The next project: empty the fridge before taking delivery of the new one on Friday. Deep breath: we can do this. Family, get ready to eat leftovers at every meal. Bunnies, your food will have its own cooler. La Petite, take home a cooler full of leftovers for your own dining pleasure.

Meanwhile, I’ll attack the most difficult project: emptying the refrigerator doors of leftover magnets and messages and art work. I sense a somewhat emotional post coming up – with pictures.

See you later, readers. I’m off to work on leftovers.