Haven't been around here much...
Mother fucker. I had half a page written and my computer decided to step back a page just for the fuck of it. Of course, the autosave draft feature hadn't kicked in yet.
It's not that I've been busy, it's just that I haven't had time to be here or anywhere else. Between the hotter than the fucking sun heat, the joys of home ownership, familial health issues, trying to plan a real vacation, I simply haven't had time to breathe.
Since there's nothing I can do about the heat but suffer, it does me no good to even talk about. At least it was only 104 today. With any luck, it'll start to cool down soon. We don't have any air conditioning and no plans to buy a unit any time soon. We're sticking to low lights and fans.
A few weeks ago, my dryer decided to snap it's belt. Wonderful. I stopped by the local home improvement warehouse to get a new one, only to find out that it was too small. I have a heavy duty washer, so the "universal" belt that they sell in the store is too short. I ended up ordering a "tune-up" kit. To the tune of $34. Apparently, the last person to "fix" the dryer forced one of the short belts on to it (unbeknownst to me) and broke the tensioner. The tune-up kit came with new wheels, clips, tensioner, and the aforementioned belt. It only took Alan and I about 90 minutes to fix, and voila, we were back in business. According to the website, we shouldn't need to do anything else to it for another 25 years. ... Except for replace it with something newer.
Well, about 2-1/2 weeks ago, my daughter decided to wash her stuffed animals. All of them. In one load. You guessed it, she broke my washer. Son of a bitch! Again, I have a super heavy duty extra capacity washer. Nothing standard there. Dryers are easy. They don't have lots of moving parts; washers, not so much. After taking a look at it and being told that the agitator wasn't working. I did a little research and everything pointed to the motor coupler. Yeah. That's the part behind the water pump, behind the motor, and in front of the transmission. All of that is under the tub, which means taking the whole fucking thing apart. I figured that I'd replace the hot/cold water mixer while I was at it. After all, my hot water hasn't been flow for a couple of months and I've had to wash everything in cold water.
Once again, I ordered my parts online. (Kudos to Parts Depot Online. They rock!) I got home from work on Thursday--I was off on Friday--and immediately got to work. The directions said it would take about 2 hours. I was prepared for that. I got all of the necessary tools ready and took everything apart; it seemed easy enough and went smoothly. About 30 minutes in, I had taken everything apart--case, unclamped the water pump, unclamped the motor, and reached the ... perfectly normal motor coupling. Uh-oh. If they're not broken, then why does my washer not work? Okay. I went ahead and put the new, super heavy duty motor couplings on then, to my great dismay, discovered why they projected that it would take 2 hours. For the life of me, I couldn't get those mother fucking motor clamps back on to save my life. I tried for about half an hour and then asked Alan to try. He tried for about 15 minutes, and FINALLY, the clamps were back on. Then I finished up with the rest of the clamps and completed the remainder of the assembly. Whew! Less than 2 hours ... but damn close. I swapped out the water mixer, finished the rest of the assembly, and I was ready to start it up and get moving on the 20+ loads of laundry that had begun to pile up. First thing I checked was the hot water. Woo hoo! It worked. And it flowed very freely. So far, so good. I started up a load and .... the agitator still didn't work. *groan* That's about the time that I realized that I could lift the top half of the agitator right off. There didn't seem to be anything hold it in place. Well, that's odd. I didn't remember it being like that before. I took a closer look at it, and then looked at the schematics (yes, I have the schematics, shut up), and I ended up realizing that the reason that my agitator wasn't working was because the whole unit had popped off of the screw that was supposed to be holding it down. *groan* I just spent two hours and $20 that I didn't need to. But, hey, I'll never have to replace those parts again. Now, my washer works perfectly, and I'm finally caught up with all of my laundry.
I'm proud to say that I did a good 99% of the work all by my lonesome. I think that's my new job: fix-it-mom.
I've been downright exhausted lately. I just can't seem to muster any energy. Probably the heat, it's incredibly draining.
In the bad news, we lost Alan's grandfather this afternoon. He's been in the hospital for the last couple of weeks suffering from kidney failure. He'll be sorely missed by all, but I'm grateful for the fact that my children have spent so much time with him. I don't know a lot of kids that have gotten to spend so much time with their great-grandparents. The funeral will probably be this weekend.
The other drain on my mental faculties is the whole Planning of the Vacation chore. Originally, we were going to drive up the coast to see the big trees. But, if we take the coastal route, it's a 16 hour drive ... with my kids ... arguing the entire time. Hmmmmmmm ... yeah, that's not sounding so good. Mix in the fact that the governator is closing state parks, and it's a recipe for disaster. Then we started to think, or rather, I started to think that my kids have never been out of state. Hey, let's go to Four Corners. Yes, I know, it's not exactly in the right spot, but the concept is there. That way, they can stand in four states all at the same time, and they can say that they've been to Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. We're planning on spending about six days driving the ~2500 miles. We were hoping to hit Zion, Mesa Verde, Four Corners, the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert, and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. More than likely, something will have to get skipped. Of course, some of it is just driving through and snapping pictures; some of it is gently hiking ... and snapping pictures. One way or another, it's a vacation.
Maybe I'll create a photojournal when I get back.
It's not that I've been busy, it's just that I haven't had time to be here or anywhere else. Between the hotter than the fucking sun heat, the joys of home ownership, familial health issues, trying to plan a real vacation, I simply haven't had time to breathe.
Since there's nothing I can do about the heat but suffer, it does me no good to even talk about. At least it was only 104 today. With any luck, it'll start to cool down soon. We don't have any air conditioning and no plans to buy a unit any time soon. We're sticking to low lights and fans.
A few weeks ago, my dryer decided to snap it's belt. Wonderful. I stopped by the local home improvement warehouse to get a new one, only to find out that it was too small. I have a heavy duty washer, so the "universal" belt that they sell in the store is too short. I ended up ordering a "tune-up" kit. To the tune of $34. Apparently, the last person to "fix" the dryer forced one of the short belts on to it (unbeknownst to me) and broke the tensioner. The tune-up kit came with new wheels, clips, tensioner, and the aforementioned belt. It only took Alan and I about 90 minutes to fix, and voila, we were back in business. According to the website, we shouldn't need to do anything else to it for another 25 years. ... Except for replace it with something newer.
Well, about 2-1/2 weeks ago, my daughter decided to wash her stuffed animals. All of them. In one load. You guessed it, she broke my washer. Son of a bitch! Again, I have a super heavy duty extra capacity washer. Nothing standard there. Dryers are easy. They don't have lots of moving parts; washers, not so much. After taking a look at it and being told that the agitator wasn't working. I did a little research and everything pointed to the motor coupler. Yeah. That's the part behind the water pump, behind the motor, and in front of the transmission. All of that is under the tub, which means taking the whole fucking thing apart. I figured that I'd replace the hot/cold water mixer while I was at it. After all, my hot water hasn't been flow for a couple of months and I've had to wash everything in cold water.
Once again, I ordered my parts online. (Kudos to Parts Depot Online. They rock!) I got home from work on Thursday--I was off on Friday--and immediately got to work. The directions said it would take about 2 hours. I was prepared for that. I got all of the necessary tools ready and took everything apart; it seemed easy enough and went smoothly. About 30 minutes in, I had taken everything apart--case, unclamped the water pump, unclamped the motor, and reached the ... perfectly normal motor coupling. Uh-oh. If they're not broken, then why does my washer not work? Okay. I went ahead and put the new, super heavy duty motor couplings on then, to my great dismay, discovered why they projected that it would take 2 hours. For the life of me, I couldn't get those mother fucking motor clamps back on to save my life. I tried for about half an hour and then asked Alan to try. He tried for about 15 minutes, and FINALLY, the clamps were back on. Then I finished up with the rest of the clamps and completed the remainder of the assembly. Whew! Less than 2 hours ... but damn close. I swapped out the water mixer, finished the rest of the assembly, and I was ready to start it up and get moving on the 20+ loads of laundry that had begun to pile up. First thing I checked was the hot water. Woo hoo! It worked. And it flowed very freely. So far, so good. I started up a load and .... the agitator still didn't work. *groan* That's about the time that I realized that I could lift the top half of the agitator right off. There didn't seem to be anything hold it in place. Well, that's odd. I didn't remember it being like that before. I took a closer look at it, and then looked at the schematics (yes, I have the schematics, shut up), and I ended up realizing that the reason that my agitator wasn't working was because the whole unit had popped off of the screw that was supposed to be holding it down. *groan* I just spent two hours and $20 that I didn't need to. But, hey, I'll never have to replace those parts again. Now, my washer works perfectly, and I'm finally caught up with all of my laundry.
I'm proud to say that I did a good 99% of the work all by my lonesome. I think that's my new job: fix-it-mom.
I've been downright exhausted lately. I just can't seem to muster any energy. Probably the heat, it's incredibly draining.
In the bad news, we lost Alan's grandfather this afternoon. He's been in the hospital for the last couple of weeks suffering from kidney failure. He'll be sorely missed by all, but I'm grateful for the fact that my children have spent so much time with him. I don't know a lot of kids that have gotten to spend so much time with their great-grandparents. The funeral will probably be this weekend.
The other drain on my mental faculties is the whole Planning of the Vacation chore. Originally, we were going to drive up the coast to see the big trees. But, if we take the coastal route, it's a 16 hour drive ... with my kids ... arguing the entire time. Hmmmmmmm ... yeah, that's not sounding so good. Mix in the fact that the governator is closing state parks, and it's a recipe for disaster. Then we started to think, or rather, I started to think that my kids have never been out of state. Hey, let's go to Four Corners. Yes, I know, it's not exactly in the right spot, but the concept is there. That way, they can stand in four states all at the same time, and they can say that they've been to Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. We're planning on spending about six days driving the ~2500 miles. We were hoping to hit Zion, Mesa Verde, Four Corners, the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert, and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. More than likely, something will have to get skipped. Of course, some of it is just driving through and snapping pictures; some of it is gently hiking ... and snapping pictures. One way or another, it's a vacation.
Maybe I'll create a photojournal when I get back.