"My grandmother made dying her life's work." - Hugh Leonard

It just keeps raining, hard. They're warning about slides, local flooding, and with the high winds expected this afternoon some falling trees. I'm not worried about things here on Baker Rd., but the creek has turned into a fast-moving stream that has moved out as wide as we've seen it since moving here. Muddy, too.

Remember that shower trailer the church is creating? I did the interior framing and then it went to a guy in the church who's a plumber. He installed the fiberglass shower units, the water heater, and all the lines. Now it's back here so I can install the wall panels, benches, lights, and a cover for that water heater. I'm also supposed to install some hooks (easy) and liquid soap dispensers. Are those readily available?? I suspect I'll end up on the internet.

The plumber's work is nothing like I expected and I have NO idea how I'm going to do what comes next.


I stumbled across an article this morning that reminded me of something from my childhood (and yours?) and taught me something from further back.
I remember every elementary-age kid giving out Valentines to all the other kids in our class. Our parents got them on on pages, a half dozen or so per page, and we punched them out, wrote our name on them, and then put them in the supplied envelope. On 2/14 we took them to school and every kid put one on every other kid's desk. It was understood that each kid gave one to every other kid in class, without any omissions or favoritism. I think that continued through elementary school (K-6) but may have ended earlier than that.
Sure couldn't do that kind of thing now! It's not PC in 18 different ways.

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OK, so here's what I learned. In the mid-1800's they also printed what they called Vinegar Valentines which had a harsh, bitter message for someone you wanted to diss. They typically had a picture designed to insult and a simple poem with a slam. Though back then their idea of harsh was pretty mild by contemporary Tweet/Facebook standards. They also gave vinegar valentines to snarky store clerks and even doctors. 

Now we just put a nasty message on social media.

Is it just me, or does Washington D.C. remind you of Junior High School?

I worked most of the day on the truck. I've given up on the wiper motor and will sell it with a "wiper motor inoperative" note, with further explanation that I don't drive the truck in the rain so it wasn't worth my time & effort.
I cannot get the motor out. I finally decided to cut through what I thought was the final mounting bolt since I couldn't get it to come free with more standard measures. Nope, there must be yet another mounting bolt up under the dash where the only way I'll get to it is to pull everything else out. Not going there!

So I moved on to the heater motor. Turns out the wire that carries power to the switch wasn't connected to anything at the other end. So I replaced it (what was there was too short to reach the fuse box I added) and got power to the switch. Imagine that!
Alas, that didn't turn on the blower motor. It did, however, make that switch smoke. Hmmmm.
By that point it was 4 p.m., I'd used up a day's worth of determination, and it was starting to get cold.
I'll go back to it tomorrow.

Pam's doing this thing where she took a complete inventory of everything in the pantry and in the fridge/freezer with a plan to use what we have for meals as much as possible. Apparently there's a web site where you plug in the ingredients you have and it creates recipes based on those things. The goal is to reduce the grocery bill through good stewardship of what we already have on hand.
Tonight we had what she called a casserole that looked a little like lasagna, had pepperoni and shredded zucchini, and was very good. Cheap and tasty - a solid two-fer.