Let there be light!! - Part I
Mom and I stayed up late last night, after I had posted the previous entry. We were working on a project in the kitchen that I had thought would be pretty straight-forward and easy. I really ought to have known better... We were installing a range-hood over the stove, less for the fan (it doesn't vent outside, just recirculates the air through a filter) but more for the light. I hate working in shadows, especially when I'm cooking so having a light over the stove was pretty important.
Few things in the farm-house seem to have been built properly, unless building it properly means that it would cause me issues. This was one of those situations: In installing the range-hood, the theory was to just drop the power-line down the wall to a power-box that I had mounted just above the floor. Should have been simple enough, but every time that I tried to feed the wire down, something was blocking it. A scan with a stud-finder showed that there was a horizontal brace between the wall studs, just a few inches down from where I needed to feed the power-line through. Great... The only was to pass the cable through was to cut a large hole in the drywall above the brace so that I could fit the drill in, and drill a hole through the brace. Fortunately there's a light metal back-board behind the range that will complete cover the hole. Reading this entry makes it sound like it was pretty simple (and in retrospect, it was) but actually have to do it, when you didn't really know what you were doing, and it was past midnight, made the entire process take a couple of hours. The important thing is that it works, and I now have a light (and fan) over the stove. I'm going to need to get a bottle of contact-cement to put the back-board back up on the wall though.
As promised, the weather was a lot warmer today (well, relatively) so after feeding the horses trixstir and I got the last of the stuff off the back of the truck (two large metal desks). I had to go in to town to pick up some contact-cement, and Jack had called to see if I could give him a hand with thier computer. I also needed to pay some bills online, so I had planned to take a couple (ie, two. no more, no less) of hours to get these things done. Riiiigghhhtttt....
The initial problem with the computer was pretty straight-forward; There was a button that had to be clicked on several menus deep in the program, and then it was all better. Then came the "while you're here..." part. These folks have helped me so much since coming out here that I really couldn't (and wouldn't) say "no". The request was to install an update on their accounting software. The only glitch along the way was that the license-number provided by the company wouldn't fit in the registration boxes, but a quick call to tech-support got that resolved. A quick (but very tastey and hot) lunch was also provided while the computer chugged along with the update. Now two hours behind schedule, I arrived at the bowling alley (the only place we currently have Internet access) to pay the bills.
With that taken care of (which also took longer than expected) Trixstir suddenly remembered that it was Thursday, and she was supposed to get the kidling signed up for Curling after school. I volunteered to take care of that, and the kidling and I headed off to the rink to get him signed up. We got there a little too late for him to start today, but he's signed up and will begin next Monday. Joining was his own idea, and he seems very enthusiastic about it, so I really hope he enjoys it and keeps it up.
It was getting close to 5pm by now (I was supposed to be back at the farm by 1pm!) and I got to the co-op agro-centre just before closing. I got the contact-cement, and headed back to the farm. Mom had been painting the kitchen all afternoon, and just had a "little more" to do. I went about feeding the horses, as the plan was to head back to town for the "Parade of Lights" that would be starting a little before 7pm. It wound up being nearly 7pm before Mom and I even left the farm again, and we managed to catch the last half-dozen floats at the end of the parade. Ah well... Next year, we'll actually have our own float in the parade! :)
We had supper in town (this was in lieu of the supper we had originally planned for my birthday) and finally returned to the farm around 10pm. Tomorrow I have got to get the Christmas lights set up around the horses' paddocks and get the lights up in the garage!