The End of the Weekend

Ok, so I didn't fix the dishwasher. YET. That's next. And it's not because I got started and then got lost, I really did find other things to do over the holiday weekend. And besides, there is the procrastination part of the project. You know, the part where you think about it, and think about it, and figure it out, and then once you jump in, it takes far less time to actually complete the project than it did to think about doing it. That's where I'm at now. I have to hunt up a torque driver to get the inner door off so I can find God only knows what! Yup, procrastination, it's a good thing.

So, let's go over what I really did get done!

Spent a lot of time over at my Mom and Dad's because my brother was visiting from Colorado, which automatically means that my bike saw some serious riding time! That's cool. Included in one of our meanderings was a trip over to the closest Big Lake - Lake Huron, it was a beautiful day and surprisingly, not much traffic.

Dipped a bunch of pine cones. Pine cones are plentiful here. So are half burned candles at garage sales. Melt some candles, mix liberally with pine cones and you come up with an awesome fire starter for the wood stove in the winter. Probably the reason that half burned candles are so plentiful is because a lot of folks try to get rid of the "inside wood smoke" smell during the winter. Still working on this little project, seems like every time I go get the last bag of pine cones, there is yet another. That's ok, come around February, I will be glad for them.
Of course, once all have been dipped, that's really not the end of this fun project. Next comes cleaning up the stove, counter, wall and floor. Scraping all of the hardened, then melted, then hardened again wax off of every surface within a 5 foot radius.

Found a tolerable wall unit plan to build around hubby's newest aquarium aquisition.

Did a bunch of laundry, which required *GASP* the use of the dryer! For all of you who know that I'm a card carrying member of the "You Can't Use A Dryer Unless It's Snowing Or Raining Out And You Have No More Clean Underwear" club, know that every now and then, it is required. You have to reshrink jeans, underwear, socks. And you have to de-lint stuff. Everything. After awhile, no amount of snapping wet laundry outside over the grass is gonna rid it of all of the lint that builds up. Especially on the dark stuff, so once in awhile, you have to de-lint.

I got the first two books of MaryJanice Davidson's 'Betsy Taylor' series read. This was a wonderful diversion, however, since I don't have book 3 yet, that means I actually have to get up and do stuff.

Getting up and doing stuff is overrated. It's a fine line we walk here, I tell ya, between doing stuff, and just thinking about doing stuff. But, since I have given myself yet another day off in this long weekend, Tuesday will find me doing bunches of stuff, unless I go to my mailbox and find book 3.

Dishwasher Repair - Good Times

I'm not a faint-of-heart sort of gal, and I can weather a storm as well as the next guy (or gal, or critter..) but I'm ticked. Actually it's worse than that, but this is a family friendly blog.

Background... We bought a new dishwasher in June. Came with a 1 year parts and labor warrantly. Close to a month ago, this dishwasher quit working. Just quit working! As skilled in The Rain Dance as I am, I could not find the appropriate combination of buttons to push, ways to stand, fingers to hold behind my back and chants to spout to make this work. Wasn't happening. So I did what anyone would have done. I called "the company".

Promptly Mr Nice Dishwasher Repairman came out and deemed that the dishwasher didn't work.
Wait! What? Oh, ok, that must have been why I called you!
"We'll order the parts", he said. "I'll come back out next week and install them", he promised.
Ok then. So we schedule now 2 mornings off of work.

The morning of the "promised installation of parts that would make this contraption wash my dishes" arrived with no parts having been delivered. I called "the company". They told me that the parts were back-ordered and hadn't been shipped yet. Ok, now I'm really getting ticked. Not only did I schedule another morning off of work, but I wasn't notified that my presence would not be required at the home of the dishwasher because the parts hadn't been shipped yet!
"But, we are shipping them to you in 3 days and then the following Tuesday, we will send someone out to install them".
"No!" I said.
"What?" They questioned?
"No!" I said. "I've already scheduled 2 times off from work for this and now you want me to schedule another time off when you've already demonstrated that you will fail to call me if my presence isn't required".
"Well, I don't know what you want us to do then". They said.
"What I want you to do is tell me when you'll ship the parts, and tell me when they'll be here, and then schedule a time when you WILL be here so I know when to take off work and be here".
"Well, that's what we're trying to do".
"Next week is not acceptable", I stated, "This is a new dishwasher, and I want to be able to use it. Call another repair place that can be here this week".

So here it is, the end of this week and still no dishwasher that works. And for some reason this statement, or string of statements made it though my filters and came out of my mouth - out loud:

"This is why I bought a new dishwasher. So I wouldn't have to take off time from work, chase parts, make service appointments, schedule another day off from work, find out that you won't be able to make it requiring me to take yet another day off from work.... If I had wanted to do all of that I would have stayed with my old dishwasher. No, that's why I bought a new dishwasher so I wouldn't have to deal with all of this. This isn't right...." And that's where I lost it and totally came apart at the poor repair guy who really had no clue that this had all gone down.

And what did he do then?
He asked me, very nicely, if I felt qualified to do this repair myself. (he was very nice about it, not insulting or demeaning, he was truly trying to help). I said if he could do it, so could I (a cheap shot, I know, but I was still beyond ticked). He then talked me through how to do this 15 minute repair, and gave me his personal cell number so if I ran into problems (which he guaranteed was close to idiot-proof) I could call him and he would help me. And if he couldn't help me over the phone he would then come up and fix it.

So, it still isn't fixed, but it's a lot closer. Tonight when I get home I will attempt this 15 minute "idiot proof" repair.

Stay tuned. I have a feeling this is gonna get good!