Storms it is

The snow somehow held off until we had finally gotten the yard stuff taken care of.  Since then there has been a whole series of domestic disruptions.  I've only just now gotten the house more or less in order, aside from the washer being broken.  

I happened to have picked up a short RV water hose from someone's curbside a few weeks ago, and so I  experimented with siphoning water out of the washer.  It sort of works if I get all the air out of the hose and bring the lower end down to a basin on the floor; it needs the difference in height to create enough suction for that size of hose, and it only worked for the top half of the water.  

After that, I experimented with using a short hose from the dehumidifier as a flexible water container:  lower entirely into the water, and then lift by both ends.  This worked, but the amount of water it can carry is very small.

I did wash a load of laundry in the bathtub using my antique Rapid Washer-style metal laundry plunger, and experimented with setting wire shelving over the laundry room sink as a place for draining water out of the laundry.  However, really, a stronger force than gravity is needed.

Future loads are waiting until the landlord deals with the washer in one way or another, or until I finish recovering from this cold.

I am appreciative now of two projects I did a while back, which was to take some free-from-a-neighbor bathroom tiles, and two wooden panels from a deconstructed TV armoire, and make two tiled panels:  one for the kitchen behind the wastebasket, and one for the bathroom between the toilet and the side wall; both protecting the walls against family members with bad aim.  Both panels are just leaning against the wall, not attached.  One I finished with grout in the tile joints, and the other with white caulk and a band of paint along the top edge.  Both are much easier to scrub clean than the wall paint, and being speckled white instead of weary beige, they help to brighten the rooms.

The painted wooden frame in the living room now has large red Christmas bells hanging from it.

The apples are for the most part keeping far better than I expected, given their condition when we picked them.  I haven't done much more than sort through them every week or so to pick out the ones that are going bad, and cook up the ones that are partly salvageable.

I realized a year or two ago that the purpose of food is not to be eaten, but to be available to be eaten.

The second fridge discovers its destiny

The second, "stupid little apartment" fridge was due for a cleaning and defrosting, and then a child left its freezer door ajar for long enough that there was too much frost for it to close.

So, an unscheduled defrosting.  The good part is that wiping the ice and water off the interior more or less took care of the cleaning part, although I did also clean behind and under it.

There's been a bit of a dead mouse smell around, which I thought might be from back there, but it wasn't.  The smell was worse outside, and we looked all over along one whole side of the house several times without finding anything.

It seems to have been in one of the gutter downspout extensions; it went away after we finally got some rain.

Anyway, after getting the fridge dried and plugged back in again, I had an idea.  Instead of being The Overflow Fridge, or The Weird Ingredients of My Husband's Fridge, it could be The Leftover Fridge.

It is smaller and shallower, so there's not room for things to be lost in the back.  Also, if it gets full, I can easily see what can be thrown out to make room.

So far, this is working very well.

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For the toy bin, I found a fabric basket/bag I had made some years ago.  It sits in the bin and holds most of the toys.

Appliance woes

It's the Two Laws of the Modern Household:

1.  All plumbing will eventually leak, and

2.  All appliances will eventually fail.

We had trouble this summer with our refrigerator. Similar trouble to before:  the door gasket on the freezer compartment partially fell off, but it wasn't visible, because the freezer is on the bottom. Plus smaller children tend to open the freezer, and then not quite close it completely, which isn't very visible either.

So humid air got into the freezer compartment, condensed, froze, and blocked the air flow up to the refrigerator compartment.  Yes, it has a fan to send the cold air up.

We didn't lose much food, because we have a chest freezer, and several coolers. We also had three bags of ice left over from the church picnic. I did find that one cooler had lost its drain plug, but I was able to dig through our hardware stash and find a rubber cap that fit. I put it into the hole from the inside, so that pressure on it would only push it in more tightly.

Our dehumidifier also was not working well...two days after the warranty expired. But apparently we won the dehumidifier self-destruct lottery, because after a couple of days it started working normally again.

I say "self-destruct" facetiously, but really I do think in some cases these electronic appliances are designed to quit working prematurely.

Better engineering also can lead to products being designed to just barely survive the warranty period, mechanically.

If I were an unscrupulous manufacturer, I would direct some of my advertising budget into making a small percentage of my products built so well that they would last for years and years.  Our refrigerator has a 10-digit model number, with both digits and letters.  I have to wonder what information is being encoded in it.

Friends of ours moved into a new house two years ago, and since then have had to replace four major appliances, and have had half a dozen service calls on a fifth.

Where to hang the dish towel

I was reading an interior design book a while back, and noticed that many of the kitchens had an awkwardly-placed dish towel in the picture.  About two-thirds of the visible dish towels were hanging on oven door handles--which could be a considerable distance away from the sink and dishwasher, given the layouts of these oversized, high-end kitchens--and the rest were hanging on the edges of the sinks.

It was a surprise to see such ad hoc solutions to such a basic need, in such thoroughly-designed kitchens.

In my own kitchen, there are false drawer fronts in front of the sink, and I can hang a towel on a drawer handle.

What I don't have, but do need, is a place somewhere to hang wet and dirty towels to dry before they go downstairs to the laundry room.

Read the manual...again

At the beginning of the new year, I was reading my sewing machine's manual and reviewing all the fancy stitches and features that I never use. I noticed in the basic instructions, that I had been making a small but consistent error in threading the machine, by not pulling the thread fully into one of the thread guides. I've had the machine for six or seven years, and I've been making that error the entire time. Sometimes it caused problems with sewing, although usually not.

There was another one, a few months ago. We received a steamer/rice cooker as a wedding gift. I memorized the amounts of water and rice needed, after a few uses, and used it for years. Then my husband came along and read the instructions, and pointed out that I had been using the recipe for a different kind of rice than I was actually cooking. The correct recipe yields a somewhat larger of amount of rice, and works out better for our now-larger family.

Cleaning the oven with baking soda

A lot of The Work is dealing with things as they come up. I made it through most of my before-baby task list, but I didn't get around to cleaning the oven. Then recently there were some spills in it that made it set off the smoke alarm when I tried to use it.

But I didn't want to use oven cleaner on it, because it is the middle of winter, and none of us, least of all the baby, needs to be breathing oven cleaner fumes. So I used baking soda instead.

The advice that I've read from cleaning professionals is that if you are going to use cleaning chemicals, don't skimp on the quantity, and give them plenty of time to work. So I used a good amount of baking soda, mixed in a little water to make a paste, and applied it to the oven. And also to the racks, separately.

I left it for a few hours, and then rinsed and scrubbed the baking soda off. It didn't get everything, but with a lot of elbow grease it got the worst of it off.

The racks came out somewhat better, as I was able to scrub them with very hot water in the utility sink. They're not perfect, but are shiny enough to "read" as clean now when I open the oven.

How to fix a cracked vacuum hose

A while back, my vacuum's hose cracked, right near the end fitting. I poked around on YouTube, and learned that some hoses are easy to disassemble, trim down, and reassemble, but apparently mine wasn't one of them.

We were out of duct tape at the time, and my chewing gum repair attempt failed to ever completely harden, so I kept on thinking about it. I looked through our hoard to see if we had a length of pipe in the right diameter that I could put in, but we didn't.

Finally, I worked out a solution: gluing in a tube made of leather, to bridge the gap. (Remember, old-fashioned materials are often very good materials.)

For leather, I had a scrap of medium weight leather, about five inches long, left over from other projects.

For glue, I had Barge Cement, which I have recently found at Hobby Lobby in the leathercrafting section for about $8 a tube. (Disclosure: no one pays me, so I have nothing to disclose.)

The tricky part is that Barge Cement is a contact cement. That means you coat both surfaces with it, let them dry for a few minutes, and then press them together firmly, and that you shouldn't count on getting a second chance to position them correctly....so how do you do that when you are trying to maneuver a leather tube into a just-slightly-larger plastic tube???

My solution for that was to not actually seal the edges of the leather tube together, but to cut the circumference of the tube a bit wide, put on the cement, roll it up very loosely lengthwise without gluing it to itself, push it into the hose end, and then use a stick to push the leather against the inside of the hose. Repeat with the other piece of the hose; not too difficult because my break was so near the end. There would be a small hole where the leather bridged the gap, but I could live with that, if the Barge Cement would hold onto the plastic--something I wasn't sure about. Or perhaps I could patch that up later with a little more leather.

So that was the plan, to be carried out outdoors, because this stuff has fumes that are not at all good for you.

In practice, this sort of went well, right up until the point where it didn't, and I was almost in a Brer Rabbit situation of getting inextricably glued into the hose myself, despite wearing latex gloves. But I pulled myself loose enough from it to work, and I found that I was able to reposition the leather just enough to put it where it needed to go.

Since then, I have been using the hose and putting the repair to the test. There is a small hole where the leather overlaps itself, which reduces the suction of the vacuum somewhat as it pulls in room air. The repair held through a couple months of regular vacuuming, although I was trying to be more gentle with the hose than before. Finally, we reached a point where replacing the hose was more fiscally appropriate.

Once we got the replacement hose, I gave the repaired hose a harder test, with a strong, straight pull, maybe 75% of my full strength. It didn't budge. I didn't try twisting or wrenching it, which would be more likely to make the adhesion fail, but it did get some of that as I used it.

Substitutions:  I think other leather and shoe cements, such as Tandy Leather's house brand (last time I checked, forever ago, they only sold Barge Cement on a wholesale basis, not retail), or Shoe Goo, might also work, although probably not as well. There is a contact cement is used for gluing down countertops; I've only tried that stuff once, but it might also be an okay option.

Just simple solutions

Our refrigerator still thinks it is a freezer...sometimes. That makes it hard to store non-freezable foods like lettuce; I just gave up on buying them for a while. Finally, I started putting them in a small cooler, and the cooler into the fridge. That has been working well.

The other thing is that we have a nearly-walking baby. We found that an empty five-gallon bucket, upside down, makes a good push toy on a hard floor. Baby is very happy to toodle around the kitchen pushing it. We always make sure to close the basement door first.

The best thing about the month of February...

...is that there is only one of them a year. And it's short. This year February has brought us a nasty cold and a stomach virus. But there have still been many wins:

1. Having quilts and soft pillows to cozy up with while ill.

2. The couch took a direct vomit hit, but it was easy to clean up, because there are three layers of washable covers on it.

3. The one Sunday that I made it to church, some ladies were giving away unwanted materials from their crafts and fabric stashes. I am getting pickier with age about what I bring home, but I did choose some patterns, fabrics, beads, and sheet copper. I've already made a bracelet, two child-size skirts, and a new flannel cover for a worn diaper from these materials. I also picked up a useful sewing tip from the sewing directions in one of the patterns; there's always something more to learn. (The tip was to sew down the seam allowances for the part of a seam that goes up into the casing for an elastic waistband--before sewing the casing--so that you don't have to worry about running into them when you're running the elastic through.)

4. Being able, thanks to the power of persistence, to fish a part from the tub drain cap out of the drain...oh, the things that gifted children will find to disassemble. A replacement cap would have been about $70, with shipping.

5. Investing in some real duct tape (shiny HVAC tape) to seal some gaps and gapes in the ductwork, so that the furnace doesn't need to run so long to get heat up to the thermostat. It is definitely making a difference. 

6. Being able to help some friends who are facing difficult circumstances.

7. Getting last year's paperwork sorted, and the taxes figured out...math is fun!

8. Working through a "punch list" of little details around the house: sanding a bare wood switch plate and giving it a light spray of acrylic sealer*, spackling some dings, painting the tiny space between the door frame and the ceiling in the basement bathroom to match the rest of the walls, figuring out how to remove a drawer from the bathroom vanity to get at the baby stuff that had fallen behind it...a bunch of five- and ten-minute jobs.

9. Taking in the seams on some of my clothes, as I have been gradually losing weight.

10. My husband set up a free, scrounged pegboard behind his workbench. We were also given some tools and books by a church member who is downsizing.

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*Edited to add:  The acrylic sealer very soon started to wear off; I ended up sanding it off and spraying the switch plate with a brand-name clear coat, which has been holding up to wear much better.

While the barbarians clamor at the gates...

...for me to provide them their bread (lunch) and circuses (Lego Star Wars video game), I will give a quick update:

The choice between fixing up the old computer and buying a new used computer was made for me, when the old computer died...in the processor, according to my husband's interpretation of the error lights. He went to the local FreeGeek for me, knowing my requirements, and picked up a computer...for only $10, plus a couple more for extra memory, because they were still selling rebuilt computers at half price to get them out the door. The new computer is a little slow sometimes, but it does what I want. It is also very clean inside; the old computer had a decade of dust and cat dander in it. I may do something to the outside of it; black isn't really my color.

In other projects, I pulled out an unfinished crochet project, and started making it into something else. Originally, I was crocheting irises out of acrylic yarn, and I had gotten to the point of having two flowers and some leaves. I like the technique of taking different colors of yarn and "painting" with them, but it takes a lot of mental energy. Also, I needed a new dishcloth. So I took the crocheted pieces for one of the flowers, and unraveled the others for yarn to knit around the pieces and join them together. This involved picking up stitches, knitting them, and using techniques like short rows to fill in the spaces and turn tilted edges into square edges. Now the knitting is done, and I have dozens of ends to work in. Some I will work in along the surface, for color and texture. Others I am going to have to just tie and cut short.

I also took out the last of the dollar store cotton string, and crocheted a comet to go with the crocheted star, and stiffened it with white paint in the same way. (The comet is a circle, with a tail.) They are on the same wall in the bedroom now, and go together well. A while back, I put a frieze of paper snowflakes over the closet door, I am thinking of replacing them with something else soon. I also made a small copper star for the bookshelf, just by cutting the shape out of thin sheet copper with not-my-best scissors. (The copper is from a roll that I bought at the art store years ago.) I brought in a pottery bowl from the kitchen, to set on top of the bookcase.

I did some more drawing on my white vase with the blue permanent marker. It is fun, and if I were a professional designer this would definitely be one of my go-to techniques for developing new decorative patterns, but the marker tends to rub off if I'm not careful. I believe the art store has markers for ceramics that mark more durably.

A few things

I fixed a honeycomb shade that wouldn't raise. The hardest part was in figuring out how to take it down off its bracket, but I eventually found the installation instructions, which told me the magic secret direction to pull. After that, I just had to get a string wound back onto its spool, instead of around the shaft. As a bonus, I also learned how to clean them.

I fixed the toilet chain (inside the tank). The broken chain links were there, but there was not a lot of space to work, and I have large hands, so I used a paper clip.

The fridge has not been working well lately. We have identified several reasons:  1. Children not closing the freezer door all the way (it pulls forward like a drawer). 2. The gasket for the freezer door was falling off, on the bottom edge where it is hard to see. 3. Insufficient air flow. from dust in the coils and the air outlet, and because the fridge is crammed into an enclosed space without the recommended clearances. One night I finally managed to wrestle it forward enough to vacuum the air outlet on the back, and I didn't push it all the way back, but left it sticking out a few inches to help it shed heat. I vacuumed the coils again, but there is a lot of caked-on dust far back in that the vacuum can't budge. The fridge is still freezing some things in the refrigerator compartment. I am bracing myself for a high electric bill.

For another late-night project, we caulked the bathtub.

I've been slowly working on sewing a skirt, from rummage sale fabric. I have the pieces cut out and edge stitched, and I am sewing the seams now by hand, with crochet cotton, doubled. It is easy to pick up and put down, as I have the time.

At the state fair, I bought a leather barrette: a strip of leather with two holes in it, and a stick that passes through the holes. Not hard to make one yourself, but it had a nice design, and I am not that good at tooling leather yet. I did modify the stick by cutting it shorter and whittling a blunter point on it, so I don't poke the baby when I turn my head.

Increments of progress

Recently I:

Put up the clothesline. (This is a metal clothesline that I found on clearance at Walmart for $1 years ago, and bought, even though we were living in an apartment at the time.) Last winter, when we were without a dryer for some time, I figured that we saved about 75 cents per load by hanging laundry to dry.

Pulled out the receipt for our dehumidifier, which had gone from not working well to not working at all, and discovered that we had two days left to return it. I am going to mark these deadlines on the calendar, for future major purchases.

Started mending a child's favorite cotton sweater, which was unraveling in many places. This involves more or less re-knitting the dropped stitches with a pair of yarn needles, but I'm enjoying making skilled repairs--a little at a time.

Finished buying the most essential birth supplies and washing the sheets and towels that will be needed.

Looked up how to submit a claim to our health insurance company, as this midwife does not have a billing service. This company won't even put a blank claim form on their web page.

Put several coats of linseed oil on the top of the coffee table. Linseed oil is nice, but it's slow; each coat takes at least two or three days to dry (oxidize, actually). Three more coats to go. The oily rags are hung on the clothesline until trash day, to avoid spontaneous combustion.

Used a $5 off coupon to buy the Danish oil that I need to (finally) finish the armchair to match the couch. Danish oil is very fast, you can put on several coats in a single day, but that means you have to be extremely careful with the oily rags; read the directions.

Looked up the manual to the refrigerator online, and discovered that over-cooling may mean that the coils need to be vacuumed. Discovered that they certainly did need it; they looked like they had never been vacuumed. So far this has only helped the fridge to freeze our food more efficiently; there is an exhaust vent on the back that also should be cleaned. The fridge was installed into a niche with less than the recommended clearances, so it is very difficult to pull out, and it may be that we are stuck with overchilled food because of insufficient air flow around it.

Noticed that egg prices suddenly increased a lot here...to $2.99 per dozen for large eggs, and the store no longer carries flats of 30 eggs; a carton of 18 eggs now costs what a flat of 30 cost before. Instead, they filled the shelf space with several varieties of organic eggs that cost even more for only a dozen. Still, a dozen large generic eggs is 24 ounces (1.5 pounds) of very economical high-protein food.

Found a wood alto recorder at the thrift store, for $2, which must have been from God because I only saw it as I was making a quick second pass over the toys, before the store closed. (Soprano recorders are fairly common; altos are much rarer and more expensive.)