Ahhhh, back to writing, if only temporarily.
Lots to write about, but this entry is solely about looking at the
bright side of things and recognizing the positive things that happen.
We bought a new house in the far southwest suburbs of Chicago and
have had a few issues: one of the stoves suddenly didn’t work, the dryer wasn’t
drying, the kitchen sink was clogged at 5:30 and wood boring bees had infested
the play set in the back yard. That’s a lot to have happen while you’re trying
to unpack and settle in. None of those things created the impetus for this
entry though. Here are some pics FROM the house, but I couldn't load a picture
OF the house. It will come.
My car, a 2002 Camry, has had its check engine light on for about
6 months. Initially I thought it was due to topping off the gas, which has led
to a sensor being tripped in the past (an ongoing problem with that model of
car from that time frame). It was time to change the oil though, so I
took it to Pepboys to get that done and see if anything else was the matter.
They wanted several hundred dollars to fix one of the oxygen sensors. This was
a big problem as I couldn’t renew my license plates until my car passed the
emission test, which wouldn’t happen with the check engine light on. Ugh.
Then, later that day after the oil change, the light went off!
Yay! I couldn’t get to the emission testing facility for 3 or 4 days, but I
went as soon as I could and the car passed. The next day, the check engine
light came back on. Wow. That was really fortunate and saved me a bunch of
money.
But what about the dryer, sink, stove and bees?? How are those
things positive? It’s not so much that they are positive things in and of
themselves, but you can look at them two different ways. I chose to see the
bright side. The dryer didn’t work because it hadn’t been used in seven months
and was 10 years old. Before I had the necessary part replaced, I pulled the
dryer out to see if it was venting properly or if lint had clogged it up. I
found the hose leading to the vent had fallen off and any lint making it past
the lint trap was going under dryer, not to mention the hot air filling the
upstairs. Did I mention our laundry is upstairs? It’s very convenient, but
would be dangerous if not vented properly. Anyway, the dryer not working led me
to find and fix that problem, which could have caused bigger issues. So that
was a positive.
The stove worked at our inspection, but the next day the cleaning
crew used the self-cleaning function and overheated the thermostat. Since the
stove is built into the wall, it doesn’t vent quickly enough to use the
self-cleaning function, which I don’t normally use anyway. Good to know!
Fortunately, we have two stoves in the kitchen, so it was a minor inconvenience
and now we know not to use that function. We’re fortunate to have two stoves
and fortunate to not be entertaining when it went out. It’s all good!
The bees. Well, the bees are these wood boring bees who chose to
take up residence in the playset that came along with the house. The guys are
about the size of your thumb or maybe a slightly smaller. Like a flying
smokey-Joe hot dog if you know what those things are. Formidable to say the
least. However, they don’t sting, except for the queen. So you can use
insecticide or a tennis racket to get rid of them. They make really cool,
perfectly circular holes, which is kind of shame to remove them. I wouldn’t
mind them if they were in someone else’s wood!!
So that’s my entry for today: make lemonade out of lemons, see the
bright side of a situation, realize that sometimes bad things happen for a
reason; you just need to take the time to figure out what that reason is.
And now, some family pics!
