Hello Folks. It’s been an interesting week. We’ve lost two small appliances this week, one we’ve replaced, one will have to be replaced later on. We also had an interesting critter encounter. All of this after several days of watching out for Dorian last week and dealing with that stress AND it was the first week of school for Bit. So yeah, interesting week.
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Monday Crimson Quillfeather
Tuesday ejoanna
Wednesday Pam from Calif
Thursday art ah zen
Friday FloridaSNMOM
Saturday Gwennedd
Sunday loggersbrat
School has gone well enough. We start slow, with only 4 subjects, so we don’t get overwhelmed from the start. This also allows me to make minor adjustments to things to ensure we won’t get overwhelmed later on. We’ve decided to do Life Span development only 2 days a week this year, because we’re doing the adult portion (having finished pediatric last year) and there isn’t nearly as much of that. We were going to do the medical terminology the other two days, but, she’s working on a college level course online, so she’s going to finish that first before we start medical terminology (which is another college level course online).
The two small appliances that died: my other half’s ice maker and the counter top electric burner. The ice maker started making noise early this week, and then it started making sounds like something was sparking inside while it was turned off. So it’s now unplugged and declared dead. He likes ice coffee when it’s hot out, so we’ll try to get it replaced by next summer and he will just deal the rest of this year. It doesn’t cost a lot, I think I paid about $80 for that one, so maybe for his Birthday, or at the very least Father’s Day next year.
Our stove top died last winter, so we bought a counter top electric burner. The oven still works, and we have a microwave, but some things you just need a burner for. That one died yesterday in the middle of making dinner. So no pasta for us. We had hot dogs and fries instead. Thankfully, due to a generous friend, I had $20 to buy a new burner, and the kids went out and replaced that today. $14 at dollar general. It may only last another 9 months like the previous one did, but it will do for now. The electrical system in this house is horrible, we have very few grounded outlets, only ONE set of outlets in the kitchen that works, and it's on the same breaker as one of the bathrooms and my son’s bedroom. You run too many things at once you pop the breaker. This house has killed 4 microwaves in 6 years, and countless toasters. So I'm not overly surprised. It’s the cost of being poor.
Oh, and Draco’s shoes died. The whole sole is flapping off, so he had to replace those too. For now he decided on flip flops and he’s going to go to Ross and get sneakers either later this month or early next month. He had to borrow my Crocs (which my mom bought me for Christmas, they’re actual Crocs, so they’ll last me years) to go to the dollar store for flip flops, but they didn’t have any sneakers that fit him comfortably. So that's fine, it will work. And hopefully they will hold up for a few weeks for him at least.
Then we had our.. visitor. Instead of ceiling cat.. we had Ceiling Snake. When the landlord changed out the light fixtures in the kitchen a few years ago he either left a hole or uncovered one that had been covered by the previous fixture. It’s only an inch or so in diameter. I didn’t think anything of it. Then, the other night, Draco comes into the living room rather quickly from the kitchen.
”Mom, there’s a reptile head sticking out of the ceiling, and I don’t want that reptile dropping on me.”
So Bit and I went in to see. It’s a snake. Luckily Caedy is the only one of us actually afraid of snakes. I would have been happier if I could have caught it and taken it outside, but I wasn’t grabbing it by the head to pull it out of the ceiling. Not a huge one, we think probably a rat snake though it’s harder to tell from underneath. Bit ‘booped’ it very gently on the nose with the mop handle and it pulled its head back up. We Gorilla taped the hole shut (which tape we’d bought for hurricane prep). Which was interesting because its a 10 foot ceiling and we don’t have a ladder. We stuck the end of the tape to the mop handle and got the tape stuck to the ceiling, then Bit went over it with the Swiffer Mop sans mop pad to smooth it out over the hole. (All the while yelling that it “better not have a nest up there, because [she] wasn’t raising no babies”.. which made applying the tape more difficult because we were laughing too hard) Then we added a cross piece. So we have a snake in the attic. The attic access is painted shut, and again, no ladder.. so I’m in no hurry to go up there to investigate. It can have the attic, so long as it stays up there.
So at least we won’t have a surprise snake in the kitchen, fighting with the cat or the dogs. A tall friend came over and declared it was secure, though he offered to foam insulate spray the hole closed for us if we felt it necessary. I want to wait to talk to the landlord.. who of course is on vacation at the moment. Spray insulation looks nasty, so I don’t want to do something like that without his ok.
Oh.. and another small issue; the latch on the back door froze up and won’t open. I’m going to have to take the door knob off and try WD40ing it at some point, when I’m having a better day than the ones I’ve been having. Seizing and twitching and not walking well doesn’t work for going down rickety stairs to the back door in the carport room and taking a door knob apart. We still have one door that works, we just had to bring the wheelchair up into the kitchen and have to carry it down the front steps every time I or my other half need to go out.
So that’s been my week. How has your week gone? Has Murphy been paying you all visits too, or is it just me? Oh, and today is Friday the 13th and full moon. So good thing I’m not superstitious in that way.. or a werewolf.