The Tenth Post

Electrifying!

I know everyone is waiting with baited breath for the next post. You just can't wait to see what is happening in my world. Well, I am sorry to say that this blog follows real life and there are times when there just isn't anything to write about. Couple that with a three day holiday (see, I really shouldn't have written, it was a holiday), and writer's block, and you get dead space, like between my ears. But I am giving in: Even thought there is still nothing to write about, and have a serious bout of writer's block, I am going to attempt to write something here.

For starters, we just got through the labor day holiday. We were thinking about going places, but that's about all we did, was think about it. So in reality, all we did was stay at home and labor. I guess labor is debatable. There are members of this household that don't believe that we labored enough over labor day. We have several projects going. We have a bathroom that we are trying to tear out and is in an eternal state of demolition. There is a desk that has gathered clutter for over four years now that we have decided to take out, but needs to have the junk dealt with. And then there are our electrical sockets. When we moved in we discovered that many of them were very loose. They were so loose that they have a hard time holding in a plug. Why this wasn't discovered during our inspection where we paid some guy to come in and discover these things, I don't know. And then why I didn't take care of it under the warranty, well, there are several theories running around about that, most of which would require some type of therapy on my part to fix.

So this morning when Grandmama was blow drying her hair in the dining room (she has been doing it there for the past three years because the bathroom socket is one of those that doesn't work so well), she got exasperated and pleaded in a desperate voice, "I wish you would fix the socket so I could at least blow dry my hair in the bathroom." I immediately thought, "what a novel idea!! Maybe I could eat my Wheaties without getting hair in them anymore." So when grandmama went to work so did I. I immediately went out and got me the 39 cent plug in sockets, went home and went to work. And let me tell you, it was work!

The first thing I did when I got home was turn off all the breakers in the box that said bedroom. Then I discovered I needed light so went back and forth from the breaker box to the bathroom until I found the breaker that controlled the lights. I left the other breakers on because I figured there was no need to turn off the whole house when I was just working back in the far bathroom.

There was no problem taking the old socket out. The wiring was so old it just snapped off once I got the socket unscrewed. But now I had to strip wires. So, carefully, even though I had the electricity off, I took the wires one by one, handling them very delicately so I wouldn't get shocked, and stripped the wires. That wasn't very hard either. Then I had to attach the wires to the new socket. That proved very difficult. The wires in the wall were very short so I was pulling on them, yanking them, wrestling with them trying to wrap them around the posts and shove ends into little holes. By the end I wasn't cautious anymore. I had the power off and knew I was touching every wire lead there was. I wasn't getting shocked, so it wasn't long till I was barehanding the wires to get them where they belonged. After about a half hour struggle, I finally got everything attached and the socket screwed back into the wall. I went out and flipped all the circuit breakers on and went in and tested the socket with the blow dryer. The plug went in nice and snug, but when I turned the blow dryer on, nothing. It didn't work. "Oh well," I thought. "This is why I don't like doing handy man things around the house. I am anything but handy." I quickly picked up and hid all the evidence that I had done anything, except for the fact that the socket is beige and the wall is white. (I missed that when I was buying the sockets. There were two choices. When I was buying them I was wondering why they had two seperate displays of sockets that looked identical to me. And of course, for me, when given a 50/50 choice, I will always choose wrong. In fact, as choices increase, my chance at making the right choice always remains constant. I will always choose wrong. (Bob's Rule #51)).

After lunch, I decided to hit the desk again and work on shredding the old bills that clutter it. I pulled out the shredder and turned it on. Nothing. Now the shredder is plugged into another outlet across from the one I was working on this morning. I thought that was strange, because I had reset all the circuit breakers. But I went out to check again. When I looked again, I saw a breaker with a reset button. It was on the other side of the breakers marked bedroom. I thought I would give it a try. I pushed the reset button, reset the breaker, went in and tried the shredder again. It worked. Then I went over to the outlet where I was working. I plugged the dryer back into it and...it worked! But then, that means, I didn't have the electricity off where I thought it was off? Oh oh.

I only have about a dozen more sockets to replace.

At the end of one month we have had 730 readers. Or at least impressions on the blog site. Try to figure out the day we will have 1000. Post a comment on the most current post to be eligible for the grand prize...2 quarts of Bob's Own Gourmet Ice Cream at my house. Winner is responsible for travel. I am thinking about making the grand prize available at Disneyland, again, winner is responsible for travel. Of course the ice cream is worth it! Don't believe me? Come try it!