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confused-android · 2 years

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NaClYoHo Day 8

Well, to start off: today a lamp fell on me.

I was trying to replace the porch lamp. The people who flipped the house - often cursed as the "mother flippers" - picked a bafflingly huge fixture. Like, so big that we've been able to direct people to "the house with the giant light". So when a friend posted a free porch light fixture, I grabbed it (one year ago), and picked today to replace it.

Oh, the things that went wrong.

First, I started to remove the three obviously visible bolts holding it to the wall. I took the bottom one off, then the middle one... whoops! Turns out, the top one was just decorative, so the middle one was really the top one, so when I took out that last remaining bolt, it had nothing keeping it up anymore. So a giant light hit me in the chest and I fell off the step stool. Not great! (I am fine. I have a scrape and I deep bruise on my chest and a scraped wrist, but it really could have been worse)

Then I had to drill two new holes in the brick. I have masonry bits, but I also have tendinitis. Also not great, but I drilled them.

Next, I installed the... idk what it's called. the metal thingie that goes between the wall and the light fixture, to actually hold it in place. I couldn't figure out why the grounding wire was attached the back of that thingie, but w/e, and then I connected all of the wires and then I tried to actually attach the light and... I had attached the metal thingie backwards. How? idk. I've never done this before, I was trying my best. But when I undid everything and tried to flip it and attached the light fixture again, I found that I'd stripped the holes I drilled.

So I went into my 'spare screws' tin and found two new screws that were the same length and shaft width, just with wider threads. I re-re-attached the metal thingie, attached all of the wires, finally got the lamp on the wall (I did... something wrong there, the screws sticking out were too long to fit under the lil caps) and went down into the basement to turn the power back on.

and the light wouldn't light. even with a new bulb, no dice.

so, I gave up for the day. I'll mourn this tonight, and undo everything I did and re-attach the old, giant fixture sometime tomorrow.

Today, I also:

had three great work meetings

put out the 'free stuff' box

drove to pick up and drop off Kiddo

returned the drain snake to the tool library, and got a chisel and post pounder

used the chisel to make the guest room door latch hole lower, then used vinyl wood putty to fill in where I chipped too deep, and also to fill in the old drill holes.

dealt with the moldy kombucha disaster (idk what happened. it was a new jar, but otherwise I did nothing different! gotta get a new scoby from a friend)

checked the basement HVAC system for the size filter it needs, and went on target dot com to order more

browsed for lamps I want for the dining room table and showed what I liked to Clementine Partner. They picked the one they liked best and are gonna buy it!

watched YouTube videos on how to clean out and replace the cracked caulk in my shower. I'm hesitant, bc the floor of my shower is v. irregular tiling, but all I can do is my best and be patient. I'm going to try to remember to not shower tomorrow morning, so it's dry enough to fix.

put away the rest of my laundry (to be fair, barely much left)

and I also made bread (I cheated and used active yeast) and chicken stock from scratch.

I am very tired and it's pretty late. There are two cats on my feet, and I need to figure out how to slide down from sitting with my laptop so my head can reach the pillow, but without losing the snuggles.

#naclyoho #salty pirate month

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