Needs & Wants

If you look back through my posts, you will see several instances where I documented how God had come through and met our needs.  Sometimes at the last minute (or so it seemed) but it always worked out.  Lately I have been noticing how He gives us some “wants” too.  A few months ago, I saw on the Acura Owner’s forum that people were changing their license plate bulbs to LEDs.  Makes the plate show up whiter and brighter and looks pretty cool.  But each bulb (there are two), were about $10 each!  That is an extravagance we don’t need.  So I filed it away in my mind and went about my business.  Wouldn’t you know that about two weeks ago, in my daily “super special electronics sale” email, there was a set of TWO LED bulbs on sale for $3.99 including shipping?!  Ha ha  I thanked God and bought them (and they look great!).

I have to be respectful to the Creator of the universe, but at the same time, I often think of Him as “one of the guys” who feels what we feel and knows what it is like to have wants – as frivolous and unnecessary as they may be.

Ghostly

We had this house built so I know it is not built on an Indian burial ground, no workers were killed during the construction and no little kids were walled up inside.  That being said…  Many times at night we hear walking sounds above us while we are in the living room downstairs.  Both dogs are with us and no one is up there.  No one up there.  Of course it is the house settling or something but we laugh nervously and move on.  About a year or two ago, I went up to bed and found that a small picture frame that is kept on top of the bed headboard was on the ground and there was a dent…  in the ceiling!!  How in the world did that thing jump up on its own and leave a mark in the ceiling?  Weird.  Last night I finished a book so I set it on the credenza to put away on the bookshelf in the morning.   I put my bookmark on top of it to put in the next book I was going to start.  (see the picture that I "ghostified")  When I got up this morning, the bookmark was gone.  I clearly remember putting it on top of the book when I set it down.  I looked high and low.  I even thought maybe it got caught in Mocha’s tail as she walked by so I re-traced her steps all the way outside thinking maybe she carried it out there.  Nothing.  Weird. I started tearing things apart looking for it.  Finally I found it – under the comforter at the foot of the bed.  But the strange thing is, the comforter was off and on the floor last night when I got into bed to read…

Online Shopping

I have had some hits and misses lately with online shopping.  Overall a big hit, but not without it's issues.  Before Christmas, I purchased something from Best Buy and later called to see if they would price match a competitor's lower cost.  They wouldn't but that call led to a two-month ordeal that never did fully resolve.  After multiple calls, emails, and online postings, we finally determined that the BB rep who took my call left my account information open on her screen and then took a call from someone else placing an order.  His information ended up on my account history.  To make a long story short, BB determined they couldn't remove it from my account, sent me a generous gift card, and the guy who placed the order (that ended up on my account) is now my email pen pal...  Another miss:  rebates.  I bought several computer items that were on sale after rebate and each one of them requires cutting the UPC code off of the item box and mailing it in along with receipts and forms.  What century are we living in that we have to do that?  Surely there is a better way.  Out of about 10 recent rebate submissions, 8 have worked out fine, one was lost (luckily the box actually had 2 UPC codes so I was able to re-submit and confirm it was received) and one is probably not going to work out - there were actually two rebates for the same item but each requires an original UPC.  I will send the original UPC to the bigger rebate and a copy of it to the lesser one and hope for the best.

On a positive note, I have found that purchasing online for store pickup can be MUCH cheaper than buying the same item off of the shelf.  Wal-Mart is my favorite for this.  Bought something online for $50.  Same item (that an employee went and pulled off the shelf for me to pick up) sells for $88 in store.  Just last night I bought an HDMI cable online for $10.  Hanging just feet from the pickup counter is the same item - $17.  I think I am on to something here...

Start With The Basics

Yesterday I was working on Lucie's laptop - I made a rescue CD to use to restore her computer if something should go wrong.  I figured I better test it while things were working to be sure all was in order before I needed it.  So I put it in and rebooted the computer.  The laptop SHOULD have read the CD and booted up from that into recovery mode.  Nope - skipped right on past and booted up like normal.  Which is not what I wanted.  So I tried again.  Nope - goes right on past it.  So I checked the usual settings and the laptop was set up properly to read the CD before the hard drive in the boot up sequence, etc. etc.  I took the CD and tried it in another laptop - worked fine.  I re-made it anyway.  No better.  I put in a music CD and it played just fine.  Hmmm.  Now I am getting a bit concerned.  So I updated the BIOS and drivers and this and that.  Uninstalled and re-installed the CD drive.  Nothing.  I went onto the forums and did some research and posted my dilemma.  Others who had the same problem wound up sending in their computers for motherboard replacement.  I wound up calling the manufacturer and had to go through the usual checklist that the rep has to go through.  Bear in mind that each time I try something new, I have to re-boot the computer and wait for it to get fully operational - which takes a lot of time.  During that whole troubleshooting process, I took a look at the disk and another one I was trying.  Remember - I had tried them with success in another laptop so I was sure they worked.  But they were a bit smudged so I rinsed them off and on a whim, I took a quick swipe of the CD drive reader lens and blew out some dust.  Wouldn't you know that fixed it?!  Only took 5 hours of my time to try the basic, 3 second fix...  Then I went back to the forums and made my post of shame.  Maybe it will help someone else.

The Elements of Surprise

Today is laundry day and I noticed that after one load of laundry, one bath (to soak my sore neck), and one shower, we were out of hot water.  That isn't right.  Gotta be the water heater.  A few years ago I replaced the thermostats so I figured they were OK - now it was time to check the heating elements.  There is an upper and lower element - pretty easy to get to and test with an ohm meter (YouTube is my friend).  So I tested them and one was reading on the low end of the approved range.  I figured I might as well change both if I am going to change one.  The guy on the video said there was no need to drain the water from the tank - just get your pieces ready and a towel and you can swap them out lickity split with minimal water loss.  He even showed how simple it could be.  So off I went to Home Depot and got the replacement elements ($12 each) AND I got the special element wrench to take them out.  You can see in the picture above what an element looks like (the new ones are nice and shiny).  I shut the power off and opened the panels and flipped the relief valve to let off the pressure and turned off the water supply.  All good.  I figure I would start with the top one so I would be practiced when I went to do the bottom one - which, theoretically, would have more water to drain out.  I removed two wires, put my wrench on and slid the screwdriver through (which served as wrench handle) and lifted.  Ugh.  Nothing.  Lifted and lifted.  No budgie.  Come on!!  Off to get the all purpose tool (the rubber mallet) and I proceeded to offer some persuasion.  Still wouldn't budge!  As my brother Lowell, and some guy named Archimedes once said, give me a lever big enough and I can move the world.  So I got my pry bar and started leveraging.  All that did was bend my screwdriver.  Alrighty then.  Another trip to the garage for the Liquid Wrench.  Gave the element a good hosing down of that stuff and started in on the lower one.  Same process - remove the panel, remove two wires, and start with the wrench.  But looky here - it is coming out nice and easy!  I got my replacement piece all ready and my towel and unscrewed it right on out.  And you would think I released Niagara Falls!  Water came shooting out like from a fire hose!!  So now I have to feed the new element in - against the tide!  It didn't take too long actually and it went right in.  Tightened up nicely. Put the wires back on (left the panel off to dry) and went back to the upper one.

I gave it some more encouragement with the rubber mallet, put the wrench to it, and gave it a whirl.  Loosened right up and started unscrewing!  Well isn't this nice?!  I figure most of the water was drained out from the bottom so this should be easy peasy.  Wrong again.  Had my replacement piece all lined up, pulled the old one - and the dam let loose again!  This time at chest level and she is a gushin'.  I am trying to get that new piece in but of course it won't get started on the threads!  If I cross thread the female threads inside the water heater, it will be time for a new water heater.  I am screwing and screwing and right when it is pretty finger tight - it spins free.  Uh oh  This is not good.  Backed it off, with the water jetting out, and tried it again.  And again...  Finally she took.  Tightened it up, hooked up the wires, and turned on the water.  It wasn't long after it started filling that I see it was leaking...  Dang!!  Ran upstairs for some Teflon tape fearing it was stripped.  Shut the water off, took off my soaking wet clothes (at least it was relatively warm water), and prepared for the immersion.  Undid the wires and backed the element out.  Lucie had been throwing towels to me like a Western fire brigade so I stuffed one in the hole and wrapped the tape around the threads.  Oh but looky here - there are TWO rubber washers on this one.  Turns out the old washer got left behind which made for the difficult threading and prevented a tight seal.  So I pulled that off, the towel out, and threaded her right back in there nice beautiful.  I was able to tighten it right up.  Turned the water on - no leaks!  Flipped the breaker on - no short circuits!  It is filling now but seems to be working.  Good for another 17 years I hope.

The guy on the video made it look so easy.  And so dry...

Bee Gone, Devil!

Today was a good day to do some yard work.  Just the usual edging, trimming and mowing but then I thought I would shape up the bush at the end of the driveway.  Went to the glove spot for my gloves.  No gloves.  The usual suspects all deny using them but finally, after some intense interrogation, Ashleigh broke down and admitted she had them.  So the mystery was solved but it didn't help the situation.  I went OJ and stuffed my hands in a pair of gloves that were too small and went on with the trimming.
 
With that job done, I gathered all the trimmings in the wheelbarrow and wheeled them out to the woods behind the house, dumped them and headed to the back door for a drink.  I felt something jabbing me in my Achilles, just above my sock, and there it was  - a yellow jacket.  He was pounding his stinger into me over and over for all he was worth.  (Actually, I don't think he ever broke through - later on there was no red mark or swelling or anything.)  So I took a swat at him and he flew off - about 2 inches, doubled back and started to make his move on my shin!  Whacked at him again and jumped back.  By now Lucie was at the screen door (she heard my girlish screams) and said she saw it fly up my shirt!   So that came off and went flying across the yard.  All was quiet.  Too quiet.  Lucie told me to jump into the house but I didn't want it following me in.  But we chanced it - she opened the door and I bounded in.  As we stood at the screen door looking out, I ran my hand through my hair.  BEE!!!  It took off toward the living room and now he was the hunted.  But I figured it was personal now and he had a vendetta against me so I just waited.  Sure enough, old BEElzebub came back at me.  We swept him to the screen where he got a close up reading of the latest Home and Garden magazine.  I laid him out in state on the top of the garbage can for all his friends to see.

Rebate Return

Just a quick update - our kitchen sink faucet has been leaking a steady stream.  Like it just won't shut off.  No amount of adjusting or tightening seems to work so we are watching $$ run down the drain.  We did some research and found a replacement faucet at Costco.  Looked perfect so we put that on the list of stuff we need to buy but can't afford.  (And my how that list is growing!)  The other day Lucie opened the Costco bill and there was our annual rebate check - within $8 of the cost of the faucet!  In one hand and out the other but at least our hands won't be wet from the constantly water drain.  Thank you Jesus.