The Continuing Adventures Of...

Handy Husband!

With the temperature in the teen's and twenty's, our heater has been running almost nonstop all week.

It took it's toll on Saturday evening.

I smelled something burning, but I couldn't tell where it was coming from. I checked with Hubby to see if he was soldering something, but he wasn't. We went from room to room, checking outlets and power strips to see if anything felt hot, and sniff, sniff, sniffing, trying to pinpoint the burn.

No such luck.

After about 20 minutes, Hubby headed back to his computer workroom and I headed back to the family where I was cleaning and organizing (I know!).

I happened to walk directly under the air vent and got a strong whiff of the burning smell. When I mentioned to Hubby that maybe it was the heater and the smell was blowing out the vents and that's why we couldn't find it, he remembered that I had said the heater was making a funny noise that morning right after we got up.

He immediately went to work:

It took about 3 minutes for him to

decide it was the blower motor and to

start taking things apart.

He took it all apart,

then hit the internet.

He found the part on line, but it would have to be shipped here. After a little more looking around he found some local places that carried the motor. BUT they were closed Saturdays and Sundays. We would have had to go the rest of the weekend with no heat.

No thank you. It's not in the 20's, but it is far from warm.

So...

He vacuumed and cleaned and greased up the bearings.

Then put it all back together again.

It may not last, but it may buy us some time.

So far so good.

EditedToAdd: Well, it's official. It won't last. It is only buying us some time. It started making the noise again. I turned the temp way down, so it won't have to come on as often. Here's hoping it holds out until Monday at least. Then the place is open to buy the new motor.

Snow Days

It started during the wee hours of Tuesday. Rain. Then sleet. Then sleet mixed with snow. Then temperatures dropping to the 20's and teen's. Then the wind with gusts of 40-50 mph. Then the windchill in the negatives.

That all equals calling off work with a vacation day because: I don't drive on ice.

So I spent the day lounging in my jammies, watching tv, and doing a puzzle:

Wednesday there was still ice. It was still bitterly cold. The schools were still closed.

Another vacation day. Lazy Non-Teenager had a birthday the day before, so on the pretense of checking road conditions in preparation for me going to work on Thursday, we went and picked her up and went to lunch and a movie. Hubby drove (so he could play on the ice in the parking lots) so I didn't have to. The roads were slightly passable so I tentatively planned on doing a "late start" on Thursday. That way I would miss the morning traffic.

Thursday morning came and there was still ice. It was still bitterly cold. The schools were still closed. I decided I didn't want to do a late start. It just wasn't worth the risk of an accident.

Another vacation day. I was feeling a little guilty for not doing anything productive during all this at home time. So I caught up the laundry while watching all six Harry Potter movies. In my jammies.

I was definitely going to go to work on Friday. I made up my mind.

Until I got up Friday morning to this:

And it was still bitterly cold. And the schools were still closed. And while I know it is easier to drive on snow than ice, there is still quite a bit of ice under all that snow.

And I figured by this point, what the hell - vacation day.

I would like to report how productive I was Friday. How much organizing and rearranging and cleaning I did.

I would really like to.

But...yeah, another day in my jammies.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I have had the short hair cut for a few weeks now and...

The Good

I got lots of compliments on it.

I only need a dime sized blob of shampoo and not a fifty cent piece sized.

I don't have to hardly do anything to it, and it looks "styled".

It is much easier to color.

It feels lighter.

I don't have to continually push it behind my ear to keep it from falling in my face.

The Bad

I do have do something more than run a brush through it in the mornings.

My ears and neck are always COLD.

It never looks the same from day to day, I am just not good at hair styling, so when someone compliments me and says how they like my hair the way it is fixed today - oh well.

I really like the sensation of wind blowing through my hair and it really isn't the same with short hair.

The Ugly

I wake up with some seriously scary "bed head"