respublica

Hanging the wash out to dry

One thing I've been excited about since moving back to Collinsville was having a clothesline put up in the back yard. Years back we had one and I loved drying bed sheets on it. It was helpful for other clothing things as well although I stick to the dryer for most things. But the weirdest thing about this recently is how awful clothes pins are these days. I went out to get some and had to go to several stores before I even found any. Walmart of course had some and I bought a package of what I thought were the traditional wooden pins. They turned out to be the crappiest things ever. Every third one broke in two pieces as I tried to attach it. So, I went out again and decided the plastic pins which looked like the old fashioned ones would maybe work. But they too broke in two pieces, sometimes just by picking them up.

I was pretty ticked off, what possessed any company to make a product which served a specific function not serve that function at all. I looked on Amazon and saw lots of clothes pins of various types, many of which were the junk I'd already bought. There was one seller which had a beautiful wooden pin made in the old way but the cost was two dollars a pin. I then settled on a set of stainless pins which had good reviews and they came quickly.

They are very strong, the spring is tight and it takes some doing to open it.Dale was amazed at the strength it took to open. Not cheap parts to break in half and the tips have a rubber grip of some sort to give an even better hold. So far I'm loving these although a part of me misses the old time, never break, wooden ones.

 

 

A basement story, have a seat

I came across this news story today- "Here's Why Old Houses Have a Random Toilet in the Basement."    The photo accompanying it made me laugh out loud.

The reason I laughed and ran to show Dale this story is this in our basement.

We've been talking about this toilet down there fairly frequently lately. Dale has begun tearing out another wall down there behind and to the right of the toilet. The toilet stands out like a sore thumb. I suggested he get the water back running so he'd not have to come back upstairs. But in the end we aren't sure what is going to happen with it.

It's not quite in the same era as the Pittsburgh Potty written about in the story, but it does have some age and used to be part of an actual bathroom until someone here began tearing everything up.

 

One more travel post

Today Dale and I are going out to replace our Missouri Drivers' license for an Illinois license and this is causing all kinds of mental stress. We've been pouring over the Illinois rules of the road (103 pages!) and are hoping we won't have to sit down and take a test on all this. We know we'll have to be quizzed on road signs and take an eye exam.

When we moved from Illinois to Missouri 15 years ago, it was easy in and out of the drivers license office. An eye exam and sign quiz, that was it. But now we have no idea how much will be involved today and so are hopefully prepared for anything. But 103 pages of rules is almost too much to absorb and so, I least, am stressed. Dale not so much. We do have to bring along a whole packet of proof of everything from social security numbers to birth certificates to marriage license, signature, residency and so forth.

We have heard stories of how long the lines have been near us in Collinsville so we've decided to go to Nashville, Illinois in Washington County for the licenses where it should be less wait time. It could also be true that fewer people may mean more testing because the staff has the time. But that's just the way my mind works and why Dale is the most patient man on earth. We know Nashville, Dale's first church as pastor was in Washington County and we know a lot of people out there still.

This should finally be the last major thing to take care of from this move.

 

I don't know what to think

Frankly, the past two days have been rather bewildering. Not just the news which was certainly crazy. But we have to go to Chicago today so that Dale can marry his nephew, his brother's son, on Sunday. That has been nerve wracking for me since we're doing this while the virus problems are still going on and not knowing what the situation will be. This will be a small wedding with orders to wear a mask except when eating. And no hugging.

But still our kids and grandsons will be there, wanting to do things. It's just a worry I can't shake.

Anyhow between that and Dale constantly doing things in his basement, it's been goofy emotionally. In any event, the basement area with his endless bookshelves is starting to look fairly good. We still have to have all the electrical wire set into the ceiling, but that is for the experts.

Blocking out the light

One of our upstairs bedrooms has 5 windows, one on the side wall and the other 4 facing the street. We use the other bedroom so have put off doing anything about those bare windows until yesterday when I finally wanted to soften that room up. When I've gone to bed at night and passed that room I've noticed how brightly the street lights and Legion lights shine in. Dale wasn't bothered, but then, we don't sleep there.

I went to Home Depot's website and ordered some shades for curbside pickup. That was great! Ordered and in 20 minutes I could go and get them. The quickness certainly kept me on the job. These shades are made of some sort of sturdy paper that are kind of like an accordian, the folds drop down when hung. You can cut them to the correct width followed up sticking them up thanks to a strip of sticky tape on the top.

It's sounds kind of cheap, but actually they look good, do a good job of blocking sight and light without being too dark in the day. Perfect for the interval between real window coverings and now. This room has a of couple areas to it which is nice. The best part of these shades is they come with clips that you can use if you want to raise up the shades for more light. Push up on the folds and clip in place.

And yes, I washed all the windows first, inside and outside.

A little bit of the seminary in our basement

I've mentioned before that Dale has been obsessed with redoing part of the basement to house his office and books. That effort included using old windows which had been removed during renovations of the seminary faculty homes. As these windows were headed for large dumpsters, Dale was out there rescuing them and stacking them up everywhere. These windows were most likely put in when the homes were built in the mid-1920's and are made of solid wood, oak, I'm sure, and weigh a ton. I admit to thinking he'd lost his mind.

But he has turned them into doors for all the new bookshelves he's built in our Collinsville basement. It's not finished yet but huge progress has been made and I spent all day yesterday scrubbing that area of the basement floor, cleaning each pane on the windows. It's not perfect or finished yet but we can see it's going to be comfortable and rather attractive. The floors need work, but we may have professionals come in and do something with them, at least in this area.

When we lived in the campus house I dreaded having to clean those windows, there are so many panes it used to take forever, and I believed I would never have to do it again. Wrong. The bookshelves on the left still have to have windows put on, probably this weekend.

Doorbell tunes

Quite a few years ago our doorbell was disconnected during some home improvement work and we never replaced it. It just seemed unnecessary and also more work than we had the energy to do. So the bell's push button on the outside wall by the front door stayed there having no benefit.

But after we moved back here I was kind of determined to get a doorbell up and running again. It amazed me how different these things are now. There is no need to hot wire the mechanism to an inside wall. Doorbells are wireless now and as easy to install as popping a cap off a bottle of soda. I did a bit of research online and found one which had a lot of good recommendations and was quite cheap.

I got that thing up and running in about ten minutes and the surprise and fun part was we had a choice of 52 different ring tones. I scrolled through all 52, laughing at the variety of dings, dongs, melodies, and even classical music. And believe me that thing is loud. Even Dale, who was largely apathetic about a doorbell, pushes the button each time he comes in the front door.

Clothes line search

Since moving back to Collinsville I've wanted to be able to hang our bed sheets outdoors to dry, there is just something great about sheets which have dried out in the sun. They feel and smell so much nicer. That was impossible at the seminary because even though the backyard was large there was no place to hook up each end.

Sitting on our deck yesterday I realized we still have the rope line hook on the corner of our garage and all we need was a clothes line and an attachment to our deck. We still have our iron pole with the rope notch at one end to raise up the line.

But we no longer have a clothes line or rope as I think of these things. I googled clothes line to see where I could get one and kept getting these as a search result.

Not what I had in mind.

And then there was this. What the heck? I guess this has clothes pins built in or something, but not what I want to deal with.

It took some scrolling before I found a plain rope and it's on my bucket list for today.

First world covid19 problems

Last weekend our dryer basically quit on us. Well, actually it still runs it just won't heat so it's not very useful. On Monday I went to Home Depot to order a new one and it was supposed to be delivered tomorrow, Saturday. The woman who did my ordering was very nice and also very honest while warning me that often what is available according to their computer may be wrong. And she was right. I did have an understanding of the issues with getting appliances during this virus time so I'm not really surprised.

Disappointed, but not shocked. The factories had to be shut down during our months long shut down and any available stock was pretty much sold everywhere. There is some hope, however, because when I talked to the Maytag representative, she gave me another delivery date which is next Saturday. However, it may or may not come to fruition and we may have to look into finding a repairman who can give it a temporary fix.

What else is hard to get these days?

Add appliances to the list of items almost impossible to get. Wouldn't you just know one of ours died this week. It was our dryer. It just stopped heating out of the blue and we decided that dryer has lasted a lot of years and it would be better to replace it rather than keep having to fix one thing or another. It did serve us well for many years.

I went over to Home Depot early this morning to see what we could do. I did spend some time last night on their website checking for any possibilities and found one Maytag, plain white just like the old one, and nothing fancy. Donna, who helped me was very good at her job and knew where to look for inventory and delivery dates. All with the warning that often what is on the computer isn't what is reality. There is very little stock in appliances these days.

I knew this from a month ago when we bought a new oven from Terry's Appliance store. He told me right off that the factories had been forced to shut down when the virus began and it often takes weeks to get something. But, in that case, he offered the floor model and we jumped at it. We haven't been disappointed. So I knew what was what during an appliance purchase.

But if things are as they say on Donna's computer, we may get this dryer on Saturday. I won't place any bets, but I do hope it's true, I am not about to sit in a laundromat these days.