Dreams and Reality

I waited for a couple of hours for the waterman to come fix the leak, but I got tired of waiting. Instead, I ran away for a couple of hours. Actually, I had lunch with a friend, then went to Target and Costco. When I came back, I was delighted to find that not only had the leak been fixed, but it was only a small patch. See the top right corner of the patch? It's a miracle! I celebrated all afternoon. big smile.


When I got home, the empty box designated for u-verse returns had arrived. Here is the equipment needed to hook up our TV and computer for the 3 weeks that we suffered under the curse:

I followed the instructions, stuffed it all in the box, then read the fine print. "It is not necessary to return cables." Alrighty then. We'll keep those. I have a trio of engineers who could find good use for them any day of the week.

As I snapped the picture, I remembered a vision I had at Christmas time.

Our tree was wedged in the corner of the room. "Wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have the fireplace, and had a bay window there instead? We could put the tree there, and the room wouldn't be so much like a cave." bing! The lights went on. Wouldn't it be EXCELLENT if we took out the fireplace and put in some sort of window? I don't know about where you live, but they've basically outlawed all wood burning around here, especially from fireplaces. Gas fires are allowed, but you can't burn wood in them. Our fireplace is plumbed for gas, but the one time we used the fireplace, in the 15 years that we've been here, we had a back-up of smoke that set off the smoke detectors at 1am. We had to call out the Fire Department. Since then, it's been a waste of space and a nuisance.

What do you think? Can you picture taking out the brick and replacing it with some sort of window? A girl can dream, can't she?

And speaking of dreaming, I was fooling myself if I thought the water leak was repaired.

Pete was home when they came by. This is a temporary fix. See those blue paint marks on the street? They'll be back "in 2-3 weeks" with a construction team. They're going to rip up the road and replace all 20' of plastic pipe. Apparently that's the policy if they have more than one failure in a single location. Joy, joy. Are you ready for more pictures of big trucks parked in front of my house? Apparently they are going to be part of my future.

But today? I'm off to a winter wonderland. I'm transporting a carload of high school kids to Hume Lake for winter camp. I'll be taking my camera and chains for the car. Hopefully the only item called into use will be the camera. I promise. I'll take pictures.

Auf wiedersehen!!