Not just a cook anymore!!

O.K. For any of you who know me well, I am a little prissy when it comes to getting dirty or "fixing" things around the house. Greg is good at it and I usually take the pretty little wife approach. Well today is a new day. Our dryer has been out of commission for about a week now. The Sears guy came out today and we were happily anticipating the dryer to be working when he left. Instead I got the grim news from him that he couldn't even diagnose what the problem was because he only had 1/2 power to the outlet. Well, I had no idea what that even meant so I showed him to the "power" in the garage. After tripping it and then going back up he came down again to inform me that there was now no power to the outlet for the dryer and there was nothing more he could do. I semi panicked as any good little housewife would. I knew nothing about what he was talking about and now it looked like I was going to have to call out an electrician to boot!! Talk about your expensive call!! After talking to Greg, my home inspector (who is so knowledgable), and the electric company that installed the box it seemed to everyone else to be a pretty easy fix. Greg assurred me he would look at it when he got home but it was only 11 am. I NEEDED TO DO LAUNDRY!!

So, I decided that was enough. If everyone was so sure it was easy than I was going to suck it up and figure it out! I promptly announced to the kids that I was going to try and fix it myself to which came cheering and a big hug from Mikayla. What supportive kids. I found the right screwdriver (is that one word or two?). I needed more light so I had to open the third car garage. All was going well until a big yucky spider appeared and started crawling right for where I needed to put my hand. I was starting to back down but something inside me snapped. I grabbed that handle anyway and opened the door. AHHH....Light!! I had to "pop out" the breaker and undo the wires but finally I got the thing off without blowing up. I decided to call Greg and let him know of my progress but the phone wasn't working due to the main power being shut off. In my nievity, I had no idea if I could switch the main power back on with those wires hangin' out. I tried to call from the neighbors but they weren't home. Mikayla looked at me with those "don't even try it mom" eyes but I had to. As I started counting to turn back on the power, Mikayla yelled NOOOOO and ran down to the end of the driveway as fast as she could. It was so funny. I was laughing as I turned it back on. All was well.

At Home Depot, a young man about 1/2 my age proceeded to inform me of all kinds of things that I knew nothing about. AMPS and voltage and breaker manufacturers and other things I didn't even catch. We found the right thing and I was headed back to finish the job, hopefully.


Back at home I was jazzed to get it all back together until I went to open the garage door again on the third side and stuck my hand right in a spider web. Not a good thing for me. I had a mini fit and gagged for a moment and then it was right back to work. I figured out the install of the new breaker and I am happy to report that I DID IT!! The dryer works. You learn something new every day!