bentangle

A dishware replicate of this landmark had been forming in my kitchen.  For the past several weeks, my dishwasher has been little more than a glorified drying rack (and questionably effective at that).  Seemingly at random, this appliance had ceased to turn on at all.  And despite my best investigative efforts, I could not bear out any electrically rooted cause.  I recommended calling a repairman to look at it, but my wife would more readily spend the money on a replacement than a repair (it was a pretty cheap dishwasher – it came with the house).  And as it turned out, a decent replacement became available to me through a work colleague/friend at the best possible price (thanks again SK!).

So this weekend I went and picked up the replacement unit and spent much of Sunday attempting to swap out the old one.  There were various struggles and pitfalls along the way.  I shocked myself at least 2 times (thinking I had they right breaker off) before I just turned off the main breaker.  I went through 2 changes of clothes that got soaked by a combination of sweat, old dishwater, and a small amount of cleaning materials.  And once I managed to free the old dishwasher after a lot of disconnecting, cutting, and banging on things, I had to do some thorough cleaning as well as a certain degree of spackling (it seems the underside of our dishwasher had served at one time as a mouse hotel – hopefully my putty-work will fetter return visits).  I then had to make a run to Lowe’s to pick up some adapters and extenders to the hosed in order to connect the new unit.  Eventually I managed to get all of the connections hooked up, the dishwasher positioned and fastened in place, the power turned back on and …

Nothing.

After checking out the breaker box twice, it turned out that one of my breakers was half-tripped.  Not trusting the breaker to handle a job so vital as running half of my kitchen, I did some wire swapping with another similarly rated breaker (the questionable one is now sequestered to the less critical task of powering the smoke-detector array – at least with those I’ll know if the breaker went).  I got everything reassembled, went back upstairs and …

Nothing.  Again.

Luckily I noticed that the coffee maker also kicked out and saw that the outlet it was plugged into had its own breaker that was triggered (why such things would be connected in series I have no idea).  I pressed the reset button and EUREKA!  I have a working dishwasher again!

While it would be easy to chalk up the failure of the old unit to the circuit breaker, but I am not convinced that it was tripped the whole time (after all, I did get shocked by it twice).  So the old unit is still destined for the curb and the new unit is earning its keep as we whittle down the great wall of dishes.

Reciprocating saw – check!  Crow bar – check! Various other tools and hardware – check!  Two gimpy guys prepared for a fair amount of cursing – check!

Thanksgiving is a time for families to be together and to share experiences with each other.  This Thanksgiving I was able to share the experience of a 2-day battle to replace my front door with my Dad.  And with him suffering from a gout flare-up and my hip deciding to give me a hard time, we were quite the pair limping around Lowe’s repeatedly to acquire the various tools and supplies we needed to do the deed.  Given that our old door was crooked, had a single-pane window, and a 1/2″ gap underneath, it was due.  So we got our supplies in order, left our suspension of disbelief at what we would find within the wall at the door, and started hacking away.

Despite our best laid plans and our care in measuring things thoroughly, we had to cut almost everything twice and had to go back to Lowe’s three times for items we forgot or hadn’t anticipated needing.  We attempted to mitigate the loss of heat while the opening was gaping by tacking a tarp over the orifice, but the wind seemed to have other ideas – it only seemed to hang down over the opening when one of us was measuring or cutting something from the outer part of the opening (the wind seems to enjoy irony).

Also, regardless of our expectations knowing the age and history of the house, we were continually surprised by what we uncovered beneath the drywall.  First was the fact that in place of normal studs we found rough-hewn 4×4 beams (painted white).  Next was the apparent framing for an old window above the door where we expected a header … framed with old floor boards.  Also a beam that was above the door that we assumed might be load-bearing turned out not to even be strongly attached to anything.  And if the choice of lumber wasn’t odd enough, the fact that most of the nails we pulled appeared to have been made by a blacksmith was certainly unexpected.

After spending all day cutting, recutting, rasping, filing, and cutting again, we were finally able to fit the new door into the opening (and after taking it back out of the opening so we could remove the screws that fastened the door to the frame, we were able to put it back in and screwed it in place). And as a result I now have a three early Christmas presents from my parents:  a nice new front door, my own reciprocating saw (look out windows – you’re next), and pain and memories to carry me through the holiday season.  And eventually I’ll finish the paint and trim around the new door and put my tools away so my entryway and front porch don’t look like a small construction site.

One successfully executed home-improvement project (that I can claim on my taxes in the name of improving energy efficiency) – check!

I’m a foodie.  I like to eat, I like to experiment with cooking, and when there is nothing else to watch the Food Network is my natural time filler.  And one thing that I’ve noticed on the Food Network lately is a number of shows highlighting brussel sprouts as a side dish and doing anything but steaming/boiling them.  Due to my parents’ shared dislike of the, I never had either the pleasure or misfortune of eating them as a kid and thus far it hasn’t really come up as an adult.

Until now.

After noting yet another show where oven-broiled sprouts was on the menu, I mentioned to my wife that it might be interesting to try it (she HAS had them, but it had been decades).  Fast forward to the next day and my wife is IM’ing me at work to let me know that dinner will be chicken and brussel sprouts.  Fast forward another hour later and I’m home with a full plate including a nice juicy chicken breast and a generous helping of slightly charred little balls of green.

I have to say that I did in fact like them a lot.  They tasted like little grilled cabbages – not too pungent, not too bland, just enough salt and a slightly nutty flavor.  On the down side, my kids did not seem nearly as thrilled with them (which is a bit odd as they both LOVE broccoli and cauliflower).  So the likelihood of this veggie being in regular rotation is fairly low.  Ah well.  At least I gave it a shot.

For the past 5 days, I’ve been Mr. Mom.  My wife went away to a blogging conference in Asheville, NC and left me in charge of managing our 2 kids.  Being actively involved with my kids on a regular basis, this was not a daunting task, per se.  The hard part was not paying attention to work for that period of time – especially since my shine, new iPhone would chirp every few minutes telling me I have some new email to read.  But eventually I turned off that notification and got to the serious business of responsibly entertaining my posse.

First priority – getting them to school on time.  Grasshopper only just started going to daycare (2 days a week) and already being without his Mommy, he was very reluctant to go (though apparently his tears ended within minutes of Cricket and I leaving him there).  Cricket just started Kindergarten this year and has been loving every minute of it, but with the possibility of being able to stay home and play Lego Star Wars with Daddy she suddenly was on the fence about going as well.  But I got them there, they did there time, and got them safely home (all perfectly according to schedule).  But outside of that, it was play time – we went to the park almost every day, we went to a play place for the better part of one cloudy afternoon, and we spent a fair share of time watching a couple of movies and playing Lego Star Wars.

By the end of the long weekend, I was ready for reinforcements.  I love my kids, but I can only be jumped on so many times before needing to tag out.  I only took advantage of the in-laws once for a break (which I spent cleaning).  And I actually made semi-nutritious meals for them for all but 2 meals (pancakes are good for you, right?).  So all in all I think I did okay.  And today it was back to work … to deal with my other batch of kids.  Maybe I should go to a conference.

P.S. – Mywife (who now has 2 blogs) went to a blogging conference, but didn’t post anything the entire time.  Ironic.

You know that you’ve spent too much time fighting to get your kids to eat when you are arguing with them to eat their dessert.  That seems to be the position I found myself last night with my son over a bowl of lemon pudding.  We had made an instant box of it and divvied it up 4 ways evenly.  My daughter, my wife and I ate ours up pretty swiftly (it IS pudding – there isn’t really any chewing and what’s not to like), but my son seemed to eat about half of his and then proceeded to engage in one of his favorite past times – jumping on and dismantling the couch.

I only pushed him on the pudding to get a sense of whether he was even interested in finishing it – not to force it on him (the less sugar the better, really).  But he was too busy bouncing around to pay any attention to the line of questioning.  So I finally put it such that if he doesn’t want the rest, someone else would gladly finish it for him – to which my 5-year-old daughter responds “I’d like to volunteer to be that person.” I swear that not a week goes by that she doesn’t surprise me with some new word or phrase that she has seamlessly integrated into her vocabulary.