Saving Quarters

You may recall the fiasco that we went through recently with the dryer we ordered. If not, here is the short version of the story:

My wife ordered an electric dryer. We could not use the 220 plug. We called to return it. We waited over a month for them to finally come and get it. Between the original call to return it and the time it was finally picked up were countless phone calls and emails to find out what was going on. Once the refund happened, we immediately ordered a gas dryer (which was what we had in the first place). The dryer was delivered yesterday.

So there should be no more issues, right? Wrong! I get the following text from my wife while I am at work:

” The dryer people can’t hook up the dryer because we have the wrong gas line? They say we need a plumber to do it!”

I called her right away. Apparently, they are not allowed to hook up a dryer to a copper gas line. So they dropped it off and left. I called my father in law and said, “All I need to do is get one of those yellow gas line hoses and connect it to the dryer and the gas line, right?” He said that should fix it.

The hose comes with adapters that you can use to connect it to the dryer and the line. I get home and sure enough, one end connects to the dryer. When I get up to the gas line, I see right away that the hose is to big to connect. I grab one of the adapters, it is too big. They were all too big.

Rather than run all the way back to the big box hardware store, I stopped at the Gilroy’s right in town. I walked in and explained what I was looking for. The employee starts to ask me questions. I told him that my father in law and I had put a shut off valve at the end of the gas line and the adapters were too big to fit it.

He did his best to try to understand what I was asking for. He said he wished he could see what I was talking about. I told him I had taken a picture of it and showed him.

He said, “Oh, wow. You can’t do that. That is illegal. That is for water lines.” So now, I am really frustrated. He goes and he pulls out a couple fittings. He asks if I know how to flare the pipe. I gave him a blank stare. I have no idea what he means.

He took me in the back and grabs a piece of pipe and this “flarer” tool. He shows me how you put it on the end of the pipe and turn this handle to make the end flare.

It doesn’t look hard to do, so I got to buy one of those tools. He says, “Listen, I’m gonna let you take our flare tool home to do the job. If you have any concerns or issues, call me and I’ll come over to help you. I’m not going to leave you hanging.” I was taken aback by his generosity. All I had to buy was a tube of sealer and a couple adapters and I should be good to go.

I get home, finagle the flare took on the edge of the pipe (after cutting off the shut off valve). I do what he said and Bingo, the end of the line is flared. I slapped on some of the sealer and began screwing everything back together. I poured some soapy water over it to see if there was a leak and there was a small one. After a couple cranks with a wrench, I checked again and was happy to see there was no leak.

I think I had more trouble trying to get that vent hose on the back than hooking up the gas line.

After everything was all set, I threw my scrubs in the dryer to de-wrinkle them. I pulled them out after 10 minutes and was happy to feel that they were warm. The dryer is working!!

I am so happy that I do not need to waste quarters at the laundromat anymore!!

A Relaxing Holiday Weekend

I’m just now sitting to write about the holiday weekend, because it was busy, but relaxing.

When we ordered our new dryer, we all assumed that the 220 plug was hot and ready to work. It wasn’t. You may remember last week I mentioned that the people who put our air conditioning unit in, used the 220 wire that at the time was not being used to give it power.

So I went to the store and bought 50 feet of wire and a breaker so we could get it up and working. On Saturday my brother-in-law and father-in-law came to help me get it set up. When my brother-in-law opened the breaker box, he noticed that despite it being big enough to hold 16 breakers, whoever wired the house only used a 12 breaker bus bar.

At my house, every breaker slot is in use, so there was no where to add a breaker. This meant we 1) had to find a 16 breaker bus bar, 2) add some sort of sub box off the one we have, or 3) send back the electric dryer and swap it for a gas dryer (which only needs a 110v plug instead of a 220v).

I made some calls to the people we bought it from and found out that there was no restocking charge and they’d have someone come out and pick up the old one. Once it was returned, they could refund the money back on the card we used and then we could buy the gas dryer. Either way, it was going to cost a couple hundred bucks to get us a dryer that worked.

Naturally, we noticed that when they removed the gas line from the old dryer, it had cracked near the connector. Thankfully, that was an easy fix and we’ll anxiously await the new dryer. In the meantime, I will continue to do what I did Saturday….

…sit in the laundromat to dry our clothes!

Sunday was pretty low key and we were outside in the yard. I grilled up some chicken and we threw it on salads. Sam worked Sunday night, so it was just me and the kids watching Disney channel at night.

On Memorial Day, I woke up and opened my Facebook and started to get angry. This happens every year, but it is a pet peeve of mine. Perhaps it is because my dad served in the army and I have many friends who also served in the Armed Forces, but nothing grinds my gears more than when someone says, “Happy Memorial Day!”

Those people obviously don’t understand what the holiday is about.

Anyway, the kids played outside and I worked a bit outside. My lawn hadn’t been mowed in a while because of the rain we’d been having. I had to raise the deck on my mower and will no doubt have to go back out again to cut it. It was cut, but it already looks like it hasn’t been mowed in 2 weeks.

We got a call from one of my daughter’s preschool friend’s mom. They were heading up to a park near us and wanted to know if we wanted to go. My daughter was excited to see her friend, so we went.

We’d never been to this park before. It had a playground for the kids, but it also had these boat/kayak launches. The park is right on a lake. They have a wooden deck area where people can fish from, too.

My daughter’s friend’s brother brought a fishing pole with him and he was having trouble casting it. It was an open face reel, and he was only like 6 or 7. So I was out on the wooden deck teaching him how to cast it. He didn’t have any live bait, so he was using lures. We didn’t catch anything, but he loved it. I asked my kids if they would like to fish with me and they both gave a resounding NO. LOL

My wife, my daughter’s friend’s mom, and all the kids were up under a pavilion. They had brought goldfish crackers and juice for all the kids. The food must have caught the eye of a winged friend. There was this chicken that kept jumping up on the table! I was by the lake and my wife sent the kids to come get me when the chicken started trying to eat my daughter’s dress!

When I got there, the chicken was still there. My wife said to “get rid of it.” I asked her how I was supposed to do that. She said, “I think you just pick it up and take it somewhere.” Now, I’ve never held a chicken before. I had no idea if this thing was going to peck at me. I had no idea if it was going to squawk when I picked it up. I also had no idea where I was supposed to take it!

This thing was a pretty big chicken. I walked up behind the thing and was able to grab it with both hands. I picked it up and it started trying to move its feet, I walked quickly to a wooded area that was on the other side of the park. I set the thing down and walked away. I turned around and that dumb thing was following me!

It stopped a couple times to peck at grass or whatever, but eventually the thing came back. I picked it up again and carried it a lot further than I had the first time. It started to follow again, but got distracted. As we were packing up to leave there was some girl who was holding the dumb thing like a cat or something!

As we walked to our cars, lo and behold, that chicken was right by our car! I had to shoo the thing away just to get in the car. What a crazy bird!

When we got home we grilled up some hot dogs and my wife started a fire in the firepit. It was our first one of the year. The kids sat out and relaxed with us – anxious to make smores!

When we made up the smores, they each took a bite and asked if they could just eat the chocolate (Which they did!). My wife and I even got the chance to make one.

It was a perfect night. It wasn’t too hot and cool enough where the fire kept us warm. It was so nice to just sit by the fire. The kids didn’t sit long, but I expected that. My wife and I enjoyed just relaxing there. We were all exhausted by the end of the night. We let the kids stay up much later than usual and we went inside earlier than we wanted, but we also were all asleep very quickly.

This is toward the end of the night. I hope we get to have more bonfires this summer.

I hope that you enjoyed your holiday weekend, too.