Weigh In, Birthday, Bad Luck/Good Luck, Personal Trivia

Weigh In:
I haven't allowed myself to step on the scale since last Monday. The first couple of days were tough but I got over it. Anyway...after a little over a week of spotty exercise and less than stellar eating I am down to 163.2 lbs. That's -2.6! Yay!

Birthday:
Today is The Boy's 10th Birthday! Such a neat kid, that boy. Love him to death. He came 3 weeks earlier than predicted weighing in at 7 lbs 13 oz.  On Christmas Day 2000 he was admitted to the hospital for jaundice b/c the ER Dr didn't think the home health care folks would come set up a bili-blanket on a holiday. I knew at the time jaundice wasn't a huge deal but between being severely sleep deprived and the post-natal hormone fluctuations leaving him at the hospital so I could go home to sleep and shower was the hardest most heartbreaking thing I've ever done. He came home again on the 27th much to our relief. He's been a thorn in his older sister's side ever since.


Good Luck/Bad Luck:
Hubby got pulled over last weekend for doing 60 mph in a 45 mph zone. I'm just surprised it hadn't happened sooner as he is a notorious lead foot. Thankfully he was let off with a warning. Get this, the cop asked where he was going and he told him duck hunting over at such and such. Cop says. "Oh they're not over there anymore. You need to go over the the next town and go to blah blah place." Only my husband could get off with a warning AND get hunting advice at the same time.

We had a minor disaster in the house this week. It started when I  threw a bath mat in the wash along with a small amount of socks and hand towels. Now keep in mind I've washed this bath mat 100 times, but ALWAYS with the other 2 that go in that bathroom and never had a problem. Hubby and I left his mom with the kids to go dump her trailer tanks. When we got back he told me the washer had made an awful loud noise and shook the whole house when it went into the spin cycle. She powered it off and left it. I pulled everything out and noticed the drum wasn't sitting right and the rubber gasket around the door was all twisted up. I also noticed a couple of huge dents in the side wall, punched from the inside. I pulled the ring off the gasket hoping it was just shifted. Nope, and releasing the gasket made the drum hang even more lopsided. Not good, not good at all. Hubby and I pulled the machine out and I crawled behind it to open the back panel. I found a giant spring just laying under the machine. OK so we need to reattach that, but I can't reach through the tine opening. After examining it further I notice that the top of the machine appears\ed to come off. So we unstack the dryer and take off the top. Pfew made reattaching that spring a whole lot easier. Put it back together, reattach the gasket (45 min ordeal, btw), re-stack the dryer. Run a test cycle. I decided on a tub clean cycle. Silly me, walked away and did some other chores in my bedroom. I walk into my bathroom and hear running water. Not good, not good at all, the sound is coming from the AIR DUCT! Run out to the laundry room to find the washer completely full of water and still drawing, water squirting out the bottom of the door, an inch of water covering the whole floor, water pouring into the air duct, water running into the guest bathroom adjacent to the laundry room. Bad, bad, bad! I held the door tight to stop it until it could drain while yelling for help. 1 hour, 1 shop vacuum, and every bath towel in the house later and it's cleaned up. The laminate flooring in the kitchen is a little worse for wear since the water got up to the edge of it but all in all I think the damage was minimal. I ran a fan on it for 24 hours to help it dry out. I scheduled a service call thinking this little problem was beyond our limited appliance knowledge. Hubby mentioned our ordeal to a co-worker whose dad happens to be an appliance repair tech. (Hubby didn't know that prior to the conversation.) He passed along his dad's contact info and hubby called him last night presuming he was going to schedule an appointment. Instead he suggested we check the air tubing to a pressure switch that regulates the water level first. So we pulled the dryer back down so we could get the top off again. Sure enough, a hose no bigger than a pencil was disconnected from a pneumatic switch. I popped that sucker back on, we put everything back together, and ran another test load. This time we both sat in front of the machine for the entire 53 minute cycle. And it worked. That man saved us $$$ with a 5 minute phone call. I am so glad people are willing to share their knowledge.

Either one of these things could have easier cost us upwards of $200. That's about $199 more than we have to spend. Merry Christmas and Happy Anniversary to us!


Personal Trivia:
Hubby and I got married December 25, 1996. We followed in my maternal grandparent's footsteps, this year they will celebrate their 67th anniversary! My cousin and his wife also followed suit and they will celebrate their 8th anniversary this year.