Can you see what Jill sees?

As I mentioned in my birthday post, I bought myself a subscription to the HOLMES Magazine: The magazine to make it right.

I didn't receive my December copy of the magazine,^* so I went to their website to see if there was a December issue. I was met with a surprising note to subscribers.

The Holmes Group regrets to announce that Dauphin Media Group has decided to cease publication of HOLMES magazine as of the December issue.

I almost cried. But instead, I kept reading and was slightly comforted that they plan on continuing publication once they find a publication house. I took a deep breath to exhale a sigh of relief, but then something struck me as being off.

If you have ever worked in publishing, you know that publishers produce the content and layout of a publication, but a production house prints and distributes it. Production houses are contractors hired by publishers. Again, production house = contractor.

If you have ever watched a show with Mike Holmes or read the magazine, you know that most of the nightmares he comes in to fix happen for one reason: Bad contractors.

See where this is going?

Now, the magazine features a regular column called "Can you see what Mike Sees?" This column shows a construction project, points out features that laymen would see, and then points out what Mike would see, highlighting potential problems with the project.

Lengthy set-up over.

Can you see what Jill sees?

So let me sum up:
The Holmes Group hired a contractor. They wound up in some kind of dispute that they apparently can't resolve. The contractor decided to stop doing the work, leaving the publisher in the lurch.

Sounds like the Holmes Group hired a bad contractor...the guy who has made his name by cleaning up after bad contractors has himself become the victim of one.

Hello, irony!

^*I did eventually receive my December/January issue on January 5. The "Can you see what Mike sees?" column is all about Christmas-time safety. Timely.

There was also a little problem with the spine. The December 2011/January 2012 issue reads "November 2011." Oops.

The lesson here is that it really is important to do your homework when hiring a contractor...any contractor. Maybe next time Mike's people will follow his advice.

2011 in Review

'Tis a new year and as most people do at the beginning of a new year, I'm looking back on the last year and, well let's be honest, thanking the Universe that both the house and I survived.

Let's take a look at some important lessons, shall we?

• Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey...usually. If you're working upside-down, remember to adjust.
• Shutoff valves are your friends. Know where they are and make sure you can access them and your pipes.
• If you're going to lubricate your oh-so-squeaky dryer drum, use the fluff cycle.
• If your boyfriend has offered to take care of the yardwork, let him. Raking leaves can be dangerous. Additionally, if you end up with a broken foot, get one of these scooters. It beats the crap out of crutches, and is pretty fun.

I'm happy to report that I'm back on both feet, no more scooter, crutches, or orthotic boots. That means I'm gearing up to get into more stuff, which always means more hijinks.

And if you're wondering what I've been up to while I was off the foot...'cuz you know I can't just sit and heal...check out the barrage of baby blankets I've been cranking out.

Next up, why Mike Holmes should really take his own advice.

Happy new year!

Bow down before her...the Queen of Clumsiness

A week ago today, I had a great idea. I would go rake the leaves in our yard. Usually DBF is in charge of the yard, but he was at work, it was a beautiful fall day, and frankly, I could use the exercise. So I threw on a jacket and went out to rake the yard.

Google Maps view of my street.

As I've mentioned before, my house was built in 1960. For me, one of the joys of these older neighborhoods is the older trees. Big, full trees with lots of character which usually means 2 things:

1. Lots of raking in the fall and
2. Massive root systems.

Massive root systems can be trouble for a few reasons...interfering with underground pipes, breaking up concrete, and my personal favorite, providing lots of things to trip over.

So there I was, trying to clean up DBF's yard (as he has since reminded me), getting some exercise, enjoying the fall day, and I stepped on a tree root, twisted my right ankle, and started to fall.

Here's a tip from me to you. If you start to fall, let yourself. If you try to catch yourself, you're likely to wind up more hurt than if you just let yourself fall.

Case in point: Imagine a really silly gym class relay race where awkward 12-year-old kids going through growth spurts are supposed to run to the middle of the gym and then run back to their relay race lines BACKWARDS. Sounds like a bad idea, doesn't it? Well, it was. But the worse idea was mine. My 12-year-old self lost her balance about halfway back and instead of falling on her ample rump, she tried to catch herself.

And wound up with 2 broken wrists.

So more than 2 decades later, I was raking leaves and I twisted my right ankle and started to fall. Did I remember my 12-year-old self? Of course not. I shifted my weight to my left side and brought my left foot down on (no surprise) more tree roots! But this second patch of tree roots was far more diabolical than the first so I ended up with a hyper-extended knee and 3 broken bones in my left foot. Not to mention the twisted right ankle.

At that point, I didn't know that my bones were broken, I just knew that I'd fallen (into the road, no less) so I jumped up and got back to the sidewalk. And since I had only raked about two-thirds of the front yard, I figured I'd just walk it off and I continued to rake.

Yes, I was in pain. But being me, with an insanely high threshold for pain and a near-pathological aversion to leaving things unfinished, I finished raking the front yard.

And then I swept the driveway that can hold 6 cars.

And then I swept the front porch and the sidewalk.

And then I put the tools away in the shed and picked up some stray branches in the backyard.

And then I went inside, took off my shoe and sock, and sent DBF a text message:
"I think I may have broken my foot."

There it is, my broken foot. The second, third, and fourth metatarsals are all fractured. The fourth was so badly displaced that it required surgery to realign and pin it so it would heal properly.

Now, a week after my "great idea," I sit at my desk with my pinned and splinted foot propped up, sharing my symphony of clumsiness so complex that only I can achieve.

Oh, and the day before surgery, it rained...and brought down so many more leaves that you can't even tell I raked. That, my friends, is the Universe, in its best Nelson Muntz voice, saying, "ha ha!"

My house smells like lighter fluid.

Okay, so sometimes I do some really stupid things. And the really, really stupid things are usually things I try when I think I'm being clever.

Jill being clever = trouble.

Case in point: The day I tried to fix—or "fix"—our dryer. We have a stacked washer/dryer and by "stacked" I mean "temperamental, abused, holy crap how soon can we get rid of this thing, oh wait we have to pay the mortgage, so I guess we keep it since technically it still works". One of the joys of the machine was the hideous squealing noise that came from the dryer. At first it was sporadic and you could only hear it if you were in the vicinity. Then it got louder...and louder...until one day, when DBF came home, he greeted me with, "What in the hell is that noise? You can hear it outside!"

So I decided I needed to eliminate the squeal.

Remember when I said you need to keep WD-40 around? Here's why...you can usually silence squeaks and squeals with it.

These are our dryer innards. My first plan of attack was to lubricate the belt because sometimes they get squeaky. Using the little red straw that's now conveniently attached to the WD-40 can, I applied the lubricant to the belt.

You know, while the dryer was running.

It's important to do this while the dryer is running so that you get the WD-40 on the whole belt. At least that's the general rule of thumb when lubricating belts, I had never tried this on a dryer.

Unfortunately this squeak wasn't coming from the belt. Next plan of attack, lubricate the drum.

As you can see, the drum is much bigger than the belt. Instead of trying to apply the WD-40 to the drum with the little red straw which would take a very long time, I folded down the straw and went full on sprayer.

Better coverage faster.

Again...with the dryer running.

Now, the smart(er) way to do this would have been to have the dryer running on fluff cycle...no heat. The belt and drum still turn, but there's no flame.

Flame?

Yep...it's a gas dryer so there's going to be a flame.

And lots of lint and dust.

And Jill sprays a flammable liquid into the innards, with the flame going...and sets them on fire.

Well, just a little.

It wasn't a big fire, it was just a little one fueled mostly by the dust and lint that had accumulated over time. Fortunately I was able to blow out the fire pretty easily, so no harm was done.

Interesting thing about WD-40: When you torch it, it smells like lighter fluid.

Interesting thing about torching WD-40 in the room adjacent to your HVAC system: It makes the whole house smell like lighter fluid.

Fortunately the lighter fluid smell dissipated in a couple of days...and I killed the squeal.

The hole in our house.

We have a very old-fashioned kitchen exhaust fan. It's a hole...and it usually has a fan mounted in the hole, but in this picture, it's just a hole.  The fan's on/off "switch" is controlled by that dangling metal ball chain which also opens and closes a spring-loaded door.

Like I said, old-fashioned.

This picture with the fan removed and the door open begs the questions: Why did we remove the fan? And what's with the pot o' beans?

I'm so glad you asked.

Just a few nights ago, while making dinner, DBF tried to turn on the fan but the spring-loaded door was stuck. Spinning fan + closed door = bad. So I tried to un-stick the door by gently tapping on it with a long-handled spoon...to no avail.

"I know how to fix this," came DBF's voice from the next room. He came back with the broom.

I should tell you that he had just gotten home from an 11 hour day, so he wasn't at his best. I should also tell you that while part of me knew this wouldn't end well, a much louder part of me was screaming, "I'm hungry!"

You see where this is going, right?

DBF successfully knocked the door loose with the broom handle. But he also popped the ball chain out of the connector, leaving us with a hole in the house we had no way to close.

**sigh**

Sometime after dinner...obviously neither of us was going to get much done on an empty stomach...we figured we should try to at least close the opening since it was 45 degrees outside. Fortunately once we removed the grate and the fan, it was simple enough to reach through the hole and pull the door shut.

Unfortunately, when we took the whole thing apart, we realized that the fan wasn't actually black metal, it was just black because it had 50 years of kitchen ick on it.

All together now... EEEEWWWWWWW.

Time to break out the big guns.

Krud Kutter. It works. Seriously.



Tools we used to fix this ick:

1. Krud Kutter. It works. Seriously.
2. Hammer. If you leave something in one place for 50 years, moving it is going to take some convincing.
3. Flat head screwdriver. Apparently DBF would rather use a real screwdriver than my pocket knife.
4. Bent-nosed pliers. Sure I bought these for jewelry-making, but pliers are pliers and when working in small spaces trying to pinch that little ball chain connector shut, these will certainly get the job done.
5. Pocket knife. I'm totally cool with using my pocket knife's screwdriver when the knife is closer than the toolkit.
6. Tongue and groove Channellocks. While we had it apart, DBF tried to adjust the switch to make it a little less finicky...he gets points for trying.

As for the pot o' beans, DBF made Boston Baked Beans from SCRATCH.

That's right people, not all baked beans come from a can. Who knew?