Fuss and Bother

I put away my Christmas stuff a few days ago. The only things I have left are for the whole of the winter season. We had a new print framed, called "Sleigh Bells Too" by Bill Breedon. I have liked it for a long time, so it is a gift to Dick and myself.

We have had an appliance adventure here for the last two weeks. It all started on December 19, when I tried to leave for work. Our garage door was broken and my truck was inside. Dick took me to work and began figuring out what would need to be done. To replace the main springs that pull up the door it has taken: at least 10 phone calls to PDQ Door in Bangor and a service technician in Calais, one shipment of replacement springs (which turned out to be the wrong size, even though custom-made) one 4 hour work session with the technician(only to find out that the springs were wrong), one trip to Bangor to drop off the wrong springs and return later that day to pick up the new correctly custom-made springs, one more two and a half hour work session with the technician to put in the correct springs and payment for the springs and each visit by the technician. Over the two week period my vehicle had to be moved in and out of the garage to keep the driveway clearer when snow came, so there was less to clear snow around. Due to moving the door when broken, Dick now has to make some adjustment to the door motor, or replace that.

Two days after the garage door broke, my washing machine broke. It was full of towels and water. No spin cycle and no draining. I had to take care of that by hand baling and rinsing and wringing the towels. Fun. The next day Dick went to Machais and bought a new washer. After Christmas we decided to buy a new dryer too, since the dryer had been fixed once and we couldn't remember how old it was. We have never had a matching set until now, after 28 years. A nice working washer and dryer are not to be taken for granted.