Monday, June 30, 2008

When It Rains

It thunderstorms.

No rain here, just a whole lot of unexpected stuff. I was supposed to work a small event with my boss on Saturday--but thankfully it was REALLY small so I didn't need to be there.
First thing on Saturday I discovered that the hot water heater had puked a bunch of water all over, so we ran outside to shut off the breaker to it. Made a call to get a handyman over to help us tear out the sheet rock that had been ruined. As we were outside we heard the pool pump making a loud noise and noticed the water wasn't circulating. Oh great, the pool pump is out! Turns out, it was a bearing that was bad, and some of the valves were adjusted improperly. That only took a few hours to get figured out. The water heater was a little more of a committment, however.
While we were waiting for the old water heater to drain, I did some stuff in the back yard. I saw that a particular cactus had grown and was hanging over the walkway, so I grabbed my gloves and started trimming with the loppers. I used tongs to pick up the trimmed cactus. I was in a bikini and sandals, which didn't occur to me that it might be a problem. Just needed to be careful. Of course that meant one of the big pieces of cactus HAD to fall on my foot, sticking a bunch of 2" long needles into my toes. Steve came around the corner and saw me standing there staring at my foot. He promptly got out the camera phone and took a picture. I pulled the needles out, which took some effort because these needles have air pockets which create a vaccuum once they get in the skin. They stick in there like barbs and they don't want to come out. But, if you take too long to pull them it hurts WAAAY worse. Now I have a wrapped up foot, because cactus needles make really nice injuries, and also the toes are bruised up. Gimme a break!!

I can't believe we got everything fixed in one day. If we hadn't been home, we'd have had a HUGE disaster. Lucky, lucky, lucky.

Sunday was spent on projects that we've been saving for a spare day. I have a stack of old metal Coleman coolers and I've decided that I'm going to refinish them one at a time. So I took one apart and sanded it. I'm going to have it powder coated and get some graphics made. Steve worked on his semi truck. That's a project that will never be done!

Today I'm working around the house, and Steve is in Tucson picking up the motor for the Cobra helicopter. Yippee!!