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Joys of Home Ownership: Electricity

September 17th, 2008 § Leave a Comment

We’re having a little electricity problem at the homestead. Currently there is no power going to the air conditioner, the lights in the spare bedroom, the lights in the bathroom or the lights in the office. I’m not sure how all of those are connected, as I thought they were on different circuits, but I know very little about electricity and wiring.

I think the problem actually started a while back when the lights in those rooms began to flicker. It struck me as odd at the time, but I just figured I hadn’t noticed it before. The flickering got progressively worse until one night the lights in the previously mentioned rooms and the air conditioner all shut off.

I was fairly confident at the time that a circuit had tripped so I went out in the dark, with flashlight in hand, to check the circuit box. Unfortunately, when I got there I saw that nothing had been tripped. Not sure what to do at that point I flipped a few circuits back and forth just for good measure and headed back inside defeated. As I stepped inside the door and was beginning to explain to Erin that I didn’t know what to do the lights and air came on. Problem solved… although I had no idea what prompted the electricity to come back on, or shut off in the first place.

Since that night the electricity has played its tricks a few more times. One of the odd things about it, in my opinion, is that it’ll just shut off for a while and then come back on, as if nothing happened. Another odd thing is that the power outlets in the rooms affected by the power outage work. It’s only the lights that go out… well the lights and the air.

Anyway, I was ok living in this situation temporarily until the electricity went out, and stayed out. The last two mornings I’ve showered in the dark and haven’t had air conditioning. It hasn’t been bad, since the weather has cooled off but it’s a little annoying.

So, now I’m thinking I’m going to have to call in an electrician. I was hoping to avoid it, but I think rather than risk electrocution, it would be better to hire a professional. Ugh! Oh, the joys of home ownership.

Weekend Update

September 15th, 2008 § 2 Comments

The theme of this weekend was “relax.” It’s pretty rare that Erin and I don’t have a billion things to accomplish in a given weekend, and this weekend was pretty relaxed, as far as weekends go. Here’s my quick recap.

Friday Night

Erin and I straightened up the house a little, had a quick bit to eat at Porto’s and visited with a friend. It was a nice quiet evening.

Saturday

I had a lot of household chores to take care of so I worked on those after watching a couple episodes of Beverly Hills 90210. This is quickly becoming my Saturday tradition. It used to be that I would watch the VH1 Top 20 Countdown, but since I discovered BH 90210 reruns I haven’t been the same.

Sometime during my BH 90210 morning marathon I received a text message from my Dad informing me that the father of a friend of mine passed away in the tragic train wreck in Chatsworth on Friday afternoon. It was pretty disturbing news. My Dad and I texted back and forth for a while and I check in with my sister out at Pepperdine who is also friends with the daughter.

After my texting I worked on a couple household chores and then Erin and I went and watched USC demolish Ohio State with a couple friends. It was a fun game to watch, if you were rooting for the Trojans.

After the game Erin and I headed on over to the good ole AMC theater and watched the new Coen Bros. movie, Burn After Reading. The movie was laced with obscenity after obscenity and some graphic violence, but somehow it managed to be pretty funny. I can’t really recommend it to anyone, but I enjoyed it.

Sunday

Sunday was pretty normal. I taught the teen class and did announcements during the worship service. I followed that up with lunch and a devotional at the youth small group and then went home for a rare Sunday afternoon nap.

I awoke from my nap a little restless and ready to do something so Erin and I walked around The Great Indoors. We had never been there before. It’s quite a store. A little pricey for my taste, but there was a lot of cool looking stuff. While we were there I had my first Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino of the season from Starbucks.

After that little expedition we had dinner at NYPD Pizza and then headed home to catch up on last week’s TV. We watched the new 90210 and then Fringe. Erin had missed the first viewing of Fringe because she was out of town.

Our Little Driveway Project

June 11th, 2008 § Leave a Comment

A couple weeks ago Erin and I finally got around to finishing up our work on the front yard. We returned some dying plants to Lowes, planted the few flowers we had been holding off on, and trimmed our driveway with brick. The brick was actually what kept us busy that day. Here’s a picture of what our house looks like now.

You can view some photos of the brick laying process at thehimes.com.