If you have ever owned a home with a garbage disposal in the kitchen, then you know they don’t last forever and will eventually need replacing. The person at Home Depot said they last about 10 years. We’ve been in our home for 14 and we just now had to install a new one. We don’t know how long it was in the place before we moved in. A mid-range new unit runs over $100.00. ($149.00 to be exact.) If you are anything like we are, you will want to save on the installation if possible. My husband and I spent some time replacing our garbage disposal yesterday, and I wanted to share a few things that we learned in the process. .
1. Watch this video before you start. Make your husband watch it too. If he is anything like mine, he will not want to but he admitted afterwards that he was glad he did. It gives you a list of all of the tools and materials you will need in order to install your new unit.
2. Look at the unit you will be replacing and how it is connected. Determine the correct size of the unit you will be replacing before purchasing a new one.
3. Will you need to purchase an installation kit as the video says? Don’t let the salesperson at your local home improvement store talk you out of it if you think you need one. If you end up not using it, you can always return it. It will save you a trip to the store in the middle of the process.
We purchased our new disposal without doing any of this beforehand and it resulted in two trips to Home Depot while we were installing the new unit. The first trip was for the salesperson to talk my husband out of getting an installation kit, and the second was actually to purchase the kit. What should have taken an hour at the most, took four instead.
4. Read the installation instructions that come with your new unit. Again, your husband won’t want to do this, but trust me…he won’t be sorry if he does.
5. Do not believe the person at Home Depot when he says it will be simple. In theory, it is, but you know the person that made the video I shared used the art of editing before he posted it! Duh!
In retrospect, the most difficult part of the installation was hanging the new unit. They are heavy and neither my husband nor I were able to hold it up in place long enough in order to connect it. I have no upper body strength, and my husband has a physical condition that prevents him from lifting his arms over his head. Just as I was admitting defeat and calling my son for help, my husband gave it, one last shot and got it connected.
6. Learn to cuss. As a young child, I used to watch my father do things around the house like work on plumbing, etc. Things always seemed to go better when Daddy cussed. I tried this myself once and it worked. I think my husband cussed just as the disposal unit finally slipped into place.
7. Maintain a sense of humor throughout the process.
So, four hours, a migraine and a stiff neck later, I have a new garbage disposal! We saved at least $100.00 by installing it ourselves.
8. I almost forgot to mention one last thing we learned while replacing our garbage disposal and you should remember while you are replacing yours. When the old unit is disconnected and the new one not yet attached…remember…DO. NOT. Turn. On. The. Water! Unless, of course, you mean to mop your kitchen floor in the process.
So here is my creation for today. It uses an oldie but goodie stamp set Thoughts and Prayers.
Hope you enjoyed your visit here today. Until next time…
It seems the last two months have been a whirlwind of activities. I haven’t had much time to stamp, and I have missed it quite a bit. I’ve thought about it every day. The whirlwind started with our first time trip to Cancun, Mexico the week before Thanksgiving. Remind me never to take a vacation immediately before a major holiday again. We returned home the Monday just before Thanksgiving. I was fortunate in that I didn’t have to prepare Thanksgiving dinner as we were invited to a friend’s home for the event.
Shortly thereafter, Christmas preparations began with decorating, baking, and shopping. It seems we always make such a fuss for such a short amount of time. But, Christmas was excellent this year. We were lucky to have all four of our collective children home for the holiday. Only one, my daughter, lives out-of-town and she was able to be here. She doesn’t live that far out-of-town; she’s only a two-hour drive away in Ft. Collins, Colorado. I was able to spend four entire days with her, as her boss allowed her to work from home one of the days, so she worked from my home. Unfortunately, she had to return to work early the Friday after Christmas, so she had to leave here by 2:00 p.m. on Christmas day in order to miss the snow storm that was due to arrive. As it was, she hit snow just 5 miles north of Denver and had to spend the last hour of her trip driving in it.
Something else was thrown into the mix to make life a little extra hectic around the holiday. I started a new part-time job as a bagger at one of the local military commissaries the Saturday after Thanksgiving. For those of you that don’t know, a commissary is a grocery store on a military installation. Only active duty or retired military personnel and their dependents are allowed to shop in it. Government employees work in them as cashiers, butchers, etc. Only active duty or retired military and their dependents can be baggers. Baggers work for tips only. My husband put his name on the waiting list to be a bagger about a year ago. He thought it would be a good thing to do to keep himself busy since he retired from his civilian job. It has been 10 years since he retired from the Air Force. He started bagging in September. After his first day of work, he came home with $60.00. I said, “Hey, how hard can it be? It isn’t rocket science. Put my name on the list. I want $60.00 a day for bagging groceries too!” So¸ he put my name on the list. I didn’t expect to be called for about a year. But, the phone call came the week before we went to Cancun.
It is low stress, and those bags and buggies don’t talk back like kids (or parents and principals) do. LOL! How hard is it to bag groceries?
You would think it is simply putting groceries into a bag, but did you know there are thirteen rules on the How to Bag Groceries hand out presented to me at New Bagger Orientation! In addition, there are 34 items on the Line Procedures and Bagging Rules to Promote Equality for all Baggers handout. (Recently revised on September 19, 2014, so I know it is current). Moreover, I had to sign a Commissary Bagger Independent Contractor Agreement and the Defense Commissary Agency’s Bagger Standard Operating Procedures before I could start working. So is it NOT rocket science?
Some of the baggers I am working with have spent years perfecting their craft. Some have bagged for 10…No…20 years! I am not exaggerating. It is out of the bag now! Commissary bagging has been the life work of many. Imagine…20 years bagging groceries!
That is all I am going to write about this for now. Some of my experiences as a Commissary Bagger would, according to my children, make an excellent Will Ferrell movie. You will just have to wait until next time before you learn any more about my bagging adventures. I am sure you are waiting with bated breath.
I got the inspiration for my card from December’s My Paper Pumpkin. It’s a Valentine Card that uses a few new things that you will be able to order when the new Occasions Catalog goes live next month. It is a pop up shaker card. I think that’s what you would call it. The stamp set I used is in the Annual Catalog and it is called Groovy Love. I used the new Confetti Heart Border Punch and new Stacked with Love Designer Series Paper Stack that will be available in the Occasions Catalog on January 6th. It looks as if I punched some confetti hearts out of white paper, but I didn’t. You are just seeing the backs of some of the ones I cut using the Red Glimmer Paper. Hope you like my creation and you enjoyed your visit today.
As my husband and I were finishing dinner the other evening, he asked me to read the bill for him. The restaurant, dimly lit, made it difficult for him to see it. I sighed, pulled my glasses out of my purse, and looked at it.
“It’s $45.00,” I said. This wasn’t bad as far as I was concerned since we each had had two beverages and shared an appetizer along with an entre apiece.
My husband opened his wallet, removed his credit card and handed both the bill and the card to the server as she walked by.
When the server returned with his credit card and the check, my husband again asked me if I would write in the tip amount and total. I complied and in the process asked rather sarcastically,
“Would you like me to sign it for you too? I could, you know. I know how to sign your name exactly as you do. Nobody would ever know. I just have to make the ‘G’ look like an ‘L’ and write Lary …. I know your ATM pin number too, you know. If I wanted, I could clean you out.”
I like to tease my husband about this kind of stuff, because he once was married to a woman who did just that while he was on active duty and deployed overseas. When we married 14 years ago, we were sure to keep a few financial things separate. However, as time has gone on, we have mixed more and more of our assets together. I know it is mean to tease him, but sometimes he is so “tease-able” about this issue that I have to admit I get a little passive aggressive pleasure out of watching him squirm. Not a great quality of mine, I know.
“No, that’s okay,” was his response. “Besides, you can’t make the ‘C’ for our last name like I do.”
“Do you really think that?” I asked him. “I’ll just write your signature onto this piece of scrap paper and we will compare the two.”
Upon comparison, the two were similar, but my duplication of his signature in no way looked just like his. You could definitely tell which was counterfeit.
“I have told you the story about my dad being a forger, haven’t I?” I asked him.
I had, but I will retell it for you.
Both of my parents were born in the late 1920’s to early 1930’s. They both came of age and married each other in the early 1950’s, so you could say they were the typical 1950’s and 1960’s couple. My dad went to work every day, came home, and in the summer time worked in the garden. My mother stayed home with us kids most of the time. There was a brief period when my sister and I were very young that Mom worked at the soda counter in a local drug store. That didn’t last very long. It was just to help make ends meet while my father was laid off from his job at the steel mill in Youngstown, Ohio. He soon found a job again with the water company, and my mom quit hers. My mother especially, they both believed certain things were a “man or woman’s” role. Earning a living was a “man’s” job, and staying home and running the house was the “woman’s.” My mom eventually did go to work when both my sister and I were in high school, but she made sure her friends and family knew it was because she WANTED to go to work and not because she HAD to. She was always sure to let my father know that he was the MAN of the house. She strived to never do or say anything to make him feel otherwise.
My father did nothing other than going to work every day, and working in his garden when weather permitted. The routine, mundane household chores were up to my mother. Dad’s philosophy was, “Why should I have to do that stuff when I got three women living in this house?” The three women were first my mother, and then eventually my older sister and me. My sister and I were also his reasoning for never getting my mother a dishwasher until we were both grown and out of the house. He believe he and my mother had brought two perfectly good ones into the world.
That was my father and by the values of those times, he was a good one. He went to work every day, handed his paycheck over to his wife, and let her manage everything relating to home and children and finances the way she thought best. He could do that because my mother could be trusted, and she was good with money. My father loved us. He would do anything for us. We knew that then; we know that now. He proved it daily.
My mother was of the opinion that a woman should make her man feel like a man as much as possible. Mother did everything for Dad. From ironing his boxer shorts to pressing his hankies, she did it all. To prove even further that my father was the MAN of the house, the KING of his castle, the HEAD of his household, everything was always in my father’s name even though everything was in joint ownership with my mother. The car title was in dad’s name only, but it was their car. The telephone and utility bills were in my dad’s name only, but Mom always made sure she paid them on time. Their personal checking account…that was different…it was in both their names.
I mentioned earlier that my father went to work, and on paydays, he handed his check over to my mother. But, he didn’t sign it. He didn’t need to. I told you Mother did EVERYTHING for Dad. Whenever she deposited his paycheck to their personal checking, she always signed it for him… with his name, not hers. Whenever she wrote a personal check against their jointly owned checking account, she always signed his name, not hers. You know, you gotta make a man feel like a man! (I say with a bit of sarcasm.)
Mom always kept some cash stashed away in a drawer for day-to-day expenses. My father knew this, so when he needed or wanted money, he went to the stash and took what he wanted. After all, he had earned it. There were no questions from my mother, no arguments. As long as there was money to pay the bills, take care of the family, and save a little, Mom never said much.
One time my mother wrote a check for me to pay my college tuition, and she signed my father’s name.
“Mom, you can’t do that! Why don’t you sign your own name? Aren’t you on the account?”
“Of course, I’m on the account. But I sign your dad’s name,” she admitted.
“Mom, that’s illegal!” I exclaimed.
“Tell your father to have me arrested,” she chuckled. “Let me tell you something,” she schooled me. “If I wanted to, I could have cleaned your father out financially years ago, and he knows it. If your father ever went to the bank and signed his own name, they would arrest HIM for forging his signature.”
WHA….????????
God bless my mother and father! My father was the KING of his castle. My mother? She was NOT his minion! They were married for over 50 years. Maybe the rest of us could learn something from all of this.
Today I am sharing a card that I made using some of my favorite Christmas colors; blue and silver.
I love the way this turned out! Some things you need to know about when making this card. I used silver embossing powder on the doily. I had to versa mark quite a bit of the doily in order to get all of the lacy edge covered. You might even have to versa mark and add embossing powder several times to get it completely covered. I’ve seen this done before, but never tried it myself. Another thing you need to know is I embossed the stamped image of the ornament in silver powder as well. I did the center and the holly leaves and berries twice, cut and punched each out, and attached them using dimensionals to add depth.
Hope you enjoyed your visit today. Until next time…
Admit it. We all have head friends or friends that exist only in our heads. (Don’t deny it. You know it’s true!) It might be a famous movie star or sports figure; heck, it could be anybody. The thing is nobody knows we are friends…not even the person with which we say we are friends. But, we have regular visits with this friend on a regular basis…in our heads.
My “head” friend is Ed O’ Neil. You know, he plays the role of Jay Pritchet on the popular television show Modern Family. Ed and I go way back! We go all the way back to when I was in college the first time about 100 years ago. We were in the play Private Lives by the play write Noel Coward. Of course, he had a major role and mine was minor, but that is where our long-term friendship began. It was sometime in the late 1970’s when we first met at the Youngstown Playhouse in Youngstown, Ohio.
In my head, Ed and I are friends. We are friends because I always tell people that I know him. I tell people that Ed and I were in that play together a million years ago. He also attended the same university as I attended.
And, to add a little credibility to my story I always add, “And I still have the play program too!”
The show keeps Ed busy these days, so we don’t manage to get together very often. Heck, we don’t get together at all. I am sure that in the “real world” he doesn’t even remember who I am. Then I think, “Why wouldn’t he remember? Would he forget that he had a lead role in that play before he was famous?” So in my head, he remembers.
However, if he did remember, and we did manage to get together with our families, I would treat him as if I would treat any family member I had not seen in a while. I would invite him into my home and prepare him one of the best Italian dinners he has ever had!
My husband says that if Ed comes to dinner, he wants Sophia Vergara to come with him. I guess she is my husband’s head friend. 🙂
Next time I will write about my other “head” friend, Oprah Winfrey.
Today’s card is a Thank You card that I made using the Watercolor Thank You stamp set. I am liking the look of vellum on cards these days! It might be difficult for you to see, but I stamped onto the card stock in Whisper White craft ink using one of the Gorgeous Grunge stamps before I added the vellum. The thank you sentiment is heat embossed with white embossing powder.
Thanks for stopping by today. Hope you enjoyed your visit. Until next time…
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