Add "Electrician" to the List

Cheryl, if you’re reading this…I’m still alive.

Last night, I decided to play electrician. It all started when I went to clean all the paint off of my hands before church last night. I walked into my bathroom and the lights wouldn’t come on. You could tell they would get brief momentary electricity, but nothing permanent. Because I have been trying to get so many other things done in my house, the bedroom has been neglected, so I didn’t want to call anyone for help. This has happened before in another room in the house and I watched Jay fix it, so I decided I could do this myself.

I went to Lowe’s, bought a new switch and cover, went home and proceeded to replace it myself (and yes, I turned off the power in the bathroom). I was doing okay until it came time to take the wires out of the existing switch. I couldn’t get them out and couldn’t figure out how…so once again I made a call and it was Roger to the rescue (at least over the phone). I was going about it the right way, I just needed to put a little more UMPH into it. Of course the old switch was nothing like the new one, but we got that figured out too. Thirty minutes later, I had light!

I’ve been wanting (in some cases “needing”) to replace all the switches and outlets in the house. Now I have the confidence I need to do it (that could be dangerous).

The Fun Never Ends

A comment from Tams made me realize I need to write an update to the dryer and the painting.

First the dryer…

I guess the fact that I was brave enough to attempt to take the dryer apart counts for something, but I wasn’t too successful. First I managed to get the top off with a little bit of effort. Getting the front off proved to be a little more difficult. There were these two sets of wires plugged into each other and I had to unplug them before I could remove the front panel. They were not made to unplug easily. This would count for the first phone call for help. Eventually, I figured out how to get them apart and got the front panel off without incident.

Now comes the fun part. I had to figure out exactly what I had to oil. Hence the second and third phone calls for help. I’m not very knowledgeable when it comes to motors, so I wasn’t sure what the shaft was. After doing some entertaining descriptions of what I was looking at, my brother managed to help me figure out what to oil (even gave me some helpful tips to make sure I didn’t get any oil in the motor.)

I then proceeded to put the front cover back on. Problem was, I didn’t pay close enough attention to how the drum fit around the door, so I made the fifth phone call for help to my Uncle Roger. Though quite mechanical, he had never taken a dryer apart before, so he wasn’t sure how the drum was supposed to attach either. I decided to do what looked logical and put the dryer back together and turned it on. The squeak was gone, but there were now two new sounds that sounded worse than the squeak! This resulted in call for help number six. I held the phone up to the dryer so that Roger could hear it. Thankfully, he offered to come over later in the week and look at it.

On Thursday when Roger came over, I began to take the dryer apart (showing off my VAST new knowledge). I took the first screw out, laid it in the cabinet above the dryer and then proceeded to take the next screw out. Not sure how, but some how I dropped it and it went down the lint trap (to which Mgam & Randy both later suggested I turn it upside down and shake it. Thanks guys.) I looked at Roger and said, “I did NOT just do that.” To which he replied (laughing), “yes, you did.”

So we got the rest of the dryer apart. The belt had slipped out of place when I was putting it back together. Roger fixed that and we also discovered that I had put the cover back on wrong…but it did take two of us to get it back on correctly – so I didn’t feel to bad about that.

So far, the dryer seems to be working – even though I’m a little paranoid about every noise I hear now, not knowing if it’s normal or not.

Now the painting…

This really didn’t go too badly. It was a fun bonding experience with the new roommate.
We got it done pretty quickly (probably would have gotten done faster if we hadn’t spent so much time talking). At first the color looked really good. It was supposed to be a warm yellow color…something neutral. By Monday night when the paint had a chance to dry good, it became evident that what is on the wall does not look like the sample or what is on top of the can. Part of the problem is you can still see shadows of the blue that was underneath (despite to layers of Kilz). The color now looks more like a flesh tone crayon than what I desired it to be. It definitely needs another coat, but there really isn’t time to do that before the new roommate moves in, so it will be fine for now (with furniture, you won’t even be able to tell). I’ll probably try a different color when I try painting it again.

For now, I’m just focused on getting the woodwork painted white in that room (half way there) and getting the cabinet doors and the door to the laundry room painted and put back up (also half way there). I feel like all I do is paint right now and I REALLY need to clean up my room. Maybe this weekend. =o)

Oh, and by the way, the edge paint roller from Shure Line is a big waste of money. Way too frustrating!

Strange Day

I am having the weirdest day so far. To start out with, my clock on my computer is on warp speed. It is currently 1:54 p.m., my clock says its 3:38. It is basically adding a minute about every 20-30 seconds. VERY bizarre, but my theory is when my clock says 5:00, I get to go home!

Then I ran home at lunch and when I got ready to leave, there was fire truck blocking my driveway! In my world, that’s better than winning a million dollars on Deal or No Deal (well maybe tie)! I’m not exactly sure why they were there, and they were just getting ready to leave when I opened my garage door. Not sure what was going on, but there was also a paramedic and a police car (oh, and a Channel 5 news truck). No one seemed to be in a hurry to leave, so I think it was a false alarm.

And if it couldn’t get any weirder, I’ve been on the phone off and on all day with Jayna who is a procrastinator and needed my assistance with her taxes =o)

I have a feeling there is still more strangeness to come before the day is over.

My Kind of Humor

I got this in an email today from a friend. You have to take time to do it. I'm even giving you a short cut to Google to help you out...

Follow these directions exactly:

--Go to Google.com

--Click on Maps.

--Click on get Directions.

--From New York, New York

--To Paris, France.

--And read line # 23.

Me vs. Power Roller (And I Think It Won)

Sometimes you just can’t win! This weekend I had all these things I needed to get done at home and only partially accomplished one of them. This coming weekend, the new roommate and I are supposed to get together and re-paint her room. This was going to require putting Kilz on the walls to cover up the previous color. So on Saturday, I pulled out the power roller and started priming.

The process started out well, but two walls into it the paint started dripping terribly which slowed down the process considerably. Three-Fourths of the way through, I stopped getting any primer on the roller and since the can was now considerably light, I decided it was time to purchase another can of Kilz. So I cleaned up, changed clothes, and went to Lowe’s (my home away from home). When I got home, I was tired and sore, so decided to put off finishing till the next day.

Sunday afternoon, the last thing I wanted to do was finish, but I knew I needed to. So after a brief nap, I put on my painting clothes and got ready to start working again. When I went and pushed the button on the power roller, it wouldn’t work. Since it runs on batteries, I figured they were dead (this was the 2nd room I had painted since I put the batteries in). I put the roller back in the Ziploc bag (to keep it from drying out), changed clothes, and ran to Walgreen’s to get some batteries.

When I got home 15 minutes later, I heard this strange noise. I ran upstairs and the power roller had started working on its own and the bag was full of primer (at least it wasn’t all over the carpet.) So I took a break to call my mom and whine (and cry a little because I’m just sick of everything that has been going on), and took the roller apart and cleaned it up a little so that I could actually use it.

I would like to say this is where our story ends, but it doesn’t. Once I finished with the big stuff (I still have trim work to do), I took the power roller downstairs to clean it up (this is the down side to the power roller…the clean up). This didn’t go as planned either. First, some part came loose and started dripping water from the base. So I fixed that, but I couldn’t get it to work properly after that. I finally decided to forget it and opted to throw away the attachment hose and just buy a replacement hose the next time I go to use it. This meant that the clean up process was a lot more difficult and took longer than normal.

I learned today from someone who is a lot more experienced with repainting over darker colors that I’m going to have to do yet another coat of primer if I don’t want the new color to come out with a blue tint. Yeah! I think I’m going to be taking off on Thursday just to get some stuff (including this) done at home.

Stay tuned for our next episode when I try to repair my dryer myself…

Just Info

Annoyed

First and foremost, I am SOOO annoyed right now with the girl that cut my hair. I wanted some of the length taken off, but still long enough that I could pull most of it up. I can barely pull any of it back. I guess it’s not bad and it will grow, but I really didn’t want it this short and with as humid as it is today, it looks…well, not good.

Frankly what it came down to was that she was in too big of a hurry to get started and really didn’t take that time to listen to what I wanted. By time she took her first snip with the scissors, I knew I needed to start preparing myself for a shorter than desired hair cut. At first I just thought it was because it was a change and it wasn’t as short as I thought it was. By time I did it myself on Saturday, I realized it WAS as short as I thought it was.

I have decided that has been my frustration with hair stylists since Leslie (the lady that cut my hair for about 10 years) left. None of them listen. I’ve done okay if I just want a trim, but if I want any change what so ever, I never get what I went it wanting and then 1) spend the next few months trying to get it to grow FASTER and 2) dreading getting it cut again for fear of what I will come home with. It would be so much better if they would cut less and then cut more if I want it shorter than to cut it too short. That was the funny thing this stylist said when she was done “do you want me to cut it shorter?” Uh, no.


Home Improvement Update

Yesterday I took the day off work (because I had to work most of the weekend) and put up the base boards in my living room. I still need to put up the quarter round around the fireplace and one other location (I would have done it yesterday, but changed my mind about what I wanted to do and didn’t have enough stuff to complete the job and didn’t want to spend any more money till I get paid again). I also have a little quandary about what do with both entry ways. I bought a riser to put between the living room and dining room, but I haven’t decided how to attach it. The ideal way would be pretty permanent and since I still plan on putting tile in there and the riser was pretty expensive, I don’t want to have to purchase another one later on. I also have the same problem with the entry way into the living room. It will require purchasing two risers and splicing them together and I don’t want to spend the money at this point. I’m thinking about just getting a long carpet runner and putting that in the entry way to cover up the space between the laminate and the carpet till I have the money to purchase the tile. Decisions, decisions!

I also had my first major home improvement physical injury yesterday. No, I didn’t cut anything off with a saw (though the land lord for the place next door came walking around the corner of my house and scared me to death as I was using the miter saw). I actually injured myself with a hammer. I was nailing the base board to the wall in an awkward corner and I guess my middle finger got in the way and I hit it hard. Really hard. So hard I split my finger open on the side. I debated about whether or not I should go get stitches (especially since it was gushing blood), but didn’t want to get there and find out that stitches wouldn’t do much good and be out the co-pay. So I cleaned it really good and have been keeping a band aid on it tightly. I’d take a picture, but it’s pretty gross and it is my middle finger, so I’ll spare you. Can I say it’s hard to type or wash your hair with a band aid on the tip of your finger.