11/20 - a weekend well spent.....

This is actually last Saturday night's dinner...but it's proof that just because you live alone doesn't mean you can't feed yourself well. The wine that you barely see is Macchia Barbera - Delicious.  Yep - that's the name  -  you might think they are being a bit cocky - but if I had named it - I would have chosen Awesome - its that good.  (And Lisa, its a Lodi).

After a few days of brrrr weather - the temperature warmed up nicely - it made it to 68 on my back porch.  I probably should have taken better advantage of the nice weather with a long walk - but my outdoor adventures were limited to grocery and home improvement store shopping.

That said - I did get my turkey which I'm going to try brining this year.....screws to install the wine glass rack in my new bookcase converted to wine cabinet....and some electrical odds and ends to help with my latest project - improving the horrid lighting in my basement.

Which finally brings me to this point.  Some things you can just do - some things you have to understand first......and electricity falls into the latter catagory.  I generally don't have a problem switching out one light fixture for another - I just pay attention to how the old was hooked up and do the same for the new.  But this time, I chose to boldly put light where there was none before - I added a new fixture next to an existing one.

And it worked.......so on to the next challenge.  I have those stupid pull chain lights all over my basement - in a couple of places, I want a light switch.   This required study - the short version is that power is like water in a hose.  If you want to be able to shut it on and off, you have to put a switch somewhere in the middle....but of course that's probably not where you want the switch so you have to figure out how to run cable etc etc etc.

It took time and and a couple of redos (and much cussing - particularly when I shocked myself).....but it is done.  I now have a light switch controlling the laundry room light.

And as this weekend draws to a close, I remember what my friend Susan said about wringing every second out of every day.  I didn't quite manage all that, but it was a weekend well lived and that makes me happy.

Hope all of you had a great weekend as well.

November 26th - Black Friday indeed....

Yes, this morning began drizzly and dreary.  At least that's what I saw at 7 am - I don't know what those midnight or three am shoppers experienced.

Me, I was up because I had a repairman scheduled to arrive between eight and noon to replace my faucet.  They called me about eight fifteen to say he was on his way  - and I guess he arrived about quarter to ten.

Not the same guy as before but still a very nice and competent plumber.  He really liked  my house and the neighborhood - seems he'd lived across the river back in the eighties, so he knew a lot about the area.  But like most people, he didn't know this street existed.

He appreciated company as he liked to chat while he worked, and although I probably could have saved money and replaced the faucet myself - considering it took an expert about an hour to get it all finished - most of that time spent rather contorted under the sink -I'm just as glad I splurged and paid to have it done.

So now I have hot as well as cold water which makes handwashing greasy pans much simpler....I only hope the oven repair goes as well.

The repairman left about 11 am, and I decided to go see if my hairdresser was working.  For some reason my hair is growing really fast, and so even just six weeks between appointments is too long.  Although I had to park at the far end of the lot, all the shoppers were at Best Buy - the Hair Cuttery wasn't busy at all.

While she worked on me she told me about how for the first time she'd gone shopping at midnight at Walmart where she broke a nail struggling over bargain towel.  At least I "think" that's what she said - her english isn't the greatest and my vietnamese is nonexistent.

If I was to come into a lot of money, I think the first thing I'd do is hire her to blowdry my hair every morning, because I always leave there feeling good.


So then I had to head over to the liquor store because I was out of rum....and that just cannot happen.


The winetasting wasn't anything exciting, but of course I took a few samples anyhow....which must be what gave me the idea to try a bit of shopping.....that, and the fact that I found a prime parking space right in front of Target.

Athough the store wasn't very crowded - it looked as if a bomb had gone off in a couple of departments, so I imagine it must have been quite an experience a few hours earlier.  I was really only in there to pick up some shoe inserts (I'd read an article suggesting they might help with my knee pain) and a loaf of bread.....but as I was wandering through the grocery section (ours has fresh fruit and vegetables and meats)...I came across a nice sirloin steak already on sale for 4 dollars a lb and then marked an additional 3 dollars off because it was close to the sell by date.   It ended up costing me 1.63.

So I guess I did end up finding a Black Friday bargain after all.

Hope all of you had a great day......and even if you didn't - the good news is that we get two more shots at it before it's Monday again :)

November 24th - Lesson Learned.......

I know this looks like a faucet.....to be exact, it is a Moen Renzo faucet.

But it is also a life lesson, which I'll explain shortly.

Let me start by apologizing for my absence.....I've been a bit hormonal and didn't feel like sharing the rollercoaster ride with anyone.  In an attempt to improve my mood, I did some housecleaning to improve the view of my home, some shopping to improve the contents of my wardrobe, and spent a lot of time outdoors enjoying the unseasonably warm weather.  I had breakfast at Ikea with a good friend.....visited my Dad, bought some Thanksgiving supplies,  finished my homework for school, and then all of a sudden it was Monday again, and then Tuesday, and now we're into Wednesday and not a peep from me - bad Em.

Anyhow.......I think I'd mentioned that I had a repairman coming to look at my oven....and another one coming to look at the leak under the sink.  Both of those nice gentlemen showed up yesterday.....they both showed up at the end of the 4 hour window of noon to four pm.....and neither one could fix the problem in a single visit.

The oven probably would have been fixable except that somehow they got the wrong information on the ticket....and beyond that, they sent him to my old house first-go figure.  He asked about the symptoms (There is no temperature control - when you turn it on, it goes to uber hot), diagnosed it as a thermostat which he doesn't carry.......so he'll be back on the 7th to install the new part, assuming it arrives next week.  Fortunately, this is only costing me 60 dollars under my home warranty.

That does mean no turkey dinner tomorrow......but since I happened to have a couple of lovely T-bone steaks in the freazer, it's all good....no, I can't bake pies or bread but I shouldn't be eating that stuff anyhow.  Fortunately I'd decided to leave the frozen bird in the freezer until I was sure I had a way to cook it.

Then we move on to plumbing guy.  This is the third different contractor that has come out under my home warranty.  He wasn't quite as amusing as the last, but he was certainly competent enough.  It turns out that the leak is from my kitchen faucet, which is barely more than a year old, sigh.  Faucets aren't covered under my warranty.  However he did take the opportunity to replace my drainpipes from the dishwasher to the wall so I will no longer have to worry about the connection shaking loose and leaking the way it does now.  He quoted me a price of 150.00 to remove and replace the faucet (if he bought a faucet for me it would be another 300.00).....I thought about it for a moment and decided to pay and have the work done.

Granted, I'm pretty good at these things and I probably could replace the faucet myself.....but we're talking about laying on my back in the not very big sink cabinet.....and dealing with a single hole faucet - something I haven't had to work with before.   So  I figured it was worth the luxury of having someone else do it right .

I mentioned that the faucet which broke is barely more than a year old.  It's an offbrand that Lowes sells......in fact if you're a Multiply friend you might remember me blogging about deciding on a faucet when I was having my sink/countertop replaced last year.  I didn't worry about it being an offbrand because of the "Lifetime Warranty".

And there folks, is the lesson learned.  Yes, it's a lifetime warranty.  All I have to do is take the faucet out and send it, along with the proof of purchase, back to the factory where they will repair or replace it forever.

Except that there's no way I can live without a kitchen sink for a few days let alone a few weeks while I wait for it to be repaired or replaced.

So, like the vast majority of people who bought what my plumber refers to as "a piece of crap" I had to go out last night and buy another faucet so that on Friday I will once again have hot and cold running water from my kitchen sink.

I suppose I could have bought exactly what I already have - and then sent the bad one back for repair - and then once I got the replacement, return it to Lowes......but that seems unethical besides which karma would probably kick my ass by having the replacement break in a year.

Instead, I took the plumber's advise and bought Moen.

In the future , I will think before I let "lifetime warranty" convince me to try an off-brand home improvement product - no matter how pretty it might be.