Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Progress report

When I consider how much work there still is to do on places that don't need any work, I'm very, very grateful we've never tried to buy a fixer-uppper.

Yesterday the plumber came and replaced the leaking garbage disposal with an honest and simple pipe. We thought he messed up the dishwasher in the process, but after much examing, testing, and a few calls to the home warranty people, DOB noticed that the GFI needed to be reset. He pushed a button and our dishes went merrily washing along.

DOB's dad then put in the water purifier, to our great delight. Hauling enough water home from the store is a daunting task. D2 has shown some signs of being a little dehydrated lately, so we are stepping up efforts to persuade him to drink from a cup. Meanwhile D1 is using her mattress as a flotation device, but it would violate our principles to encourage drinking less water.

Someone is supposed to come tomorrow to take out the old dryer. However, as long as the weather is so hot, I might limit using the dryer to keep saving on electricity. It will be nice, though, not to have to wait a full day to have dry training pants. And towels that have dried on the line just are not nice to use.

We're still showering downstairs until we get the shower rod upstairs. Since the basement floor still needs to be sealed, this means putting on shoes, which feels rather like camping. Nice, wimpy, air-conditioned, limited-bug camping. Suits me just fine.

In the interest of Conserving Energy (and saving ourselves money) we're gradually bumping up the air conditioning as I increase my tolerance level. I've made it from 74 to 77 over the course of the summer, and I can even do 79 at night. For me, that's impressive.

3 comments:

Meredith said...

Good for you! I can't function above 76.

Devona said...

you can dry your towels (and everything for that matter) on the line and then toss them in the dryer for 5 minutes on low.

It is still conserving energy and it shakes out the crispy dried-in-the-sun feeling.

I need to line dry more often, especially now that it isn't raining every day.

Mary Ann said...

I dry my towels in the dryer for 10 minutes before hanging out to dry. I set the timer, otherwise, I'll forget them. :-)

That's great about the temperature. Ours is at 74 these days and the air conditioner can't keep up; most days it gets up to 80 or 82 in here.