My poor, poor VitaMix!

It's been 'that kind' of a day.

My vitamix pitcher lept off the counter this afternoon in an evident fit of despair and overwork!

The spigot broke off the pitcher, making it useless for the time being. The VitaMix, however, is a simplicity devotee's dream. All of the parts are easy to replace and available at minimal cost. Sadly, while it is only $8 for a new part, our credit information was stolen over the weekend, so we don't have a card with which to order it, and so the poor thing may be out of service through much of canning season. I am *so* grateful that we already have a bushel of romas put by as sauce. I was hoping to make at least one more bushel, but we can do stewed tomatoes and chunky applesauce and count ourselves lucky. It also means no more baking for a while, but we're going to be pretty bust for the next few weeks anyway. (Ironically, the co-op just called to say that our latest shipment of wheat is in.)

I was looking over the company web site and realized that my poor old beast was discontinued in the mid 1980s. I wonder how much longer the parts will be available. It has crossed my mind from time to time that I would like to get another pitcher and a selection of spare parts so I will have them if I need them. They still supply some parts to models even from the 1950s, but they did eventually discontinue parts for the machines from the 1930 and 1940s.

This comes on top of our somewhat dramatic decision late last night to take one more step back toward the 19th century. We will be selling the spare car, and turning off the Internet and telephone. (We will be taking advantage of the very 21st century idea of going completely to cell-phones, but in this case only Rod will have a phone with a plan. My phone will remain on the pay-as-you go plan and be for emergencies only.)

We've decided that time has come to make more of a commitment to a simple lifestyle, and these are the steps we can see living with right now. It won' be easy, but I think it will be worth while.