A weekly list of things accomplished, enjoyed, learned, tried and remembered.
1.A construction snafu. We have been working on re-doing our backyard this whole year and putting a deck in has been the final frontier. Because of Covid –we have found that everyone in the construction business is extremely busy and it’s taking A LOT longer than normal. This past week things were finally moving along and getting close to completion.
But then. Friday morning, I noticed that our home seemed unusually cold. Sure enough, our heater had stopped working. What does this have to do with our deck? I’m glad you asked. On the back side of our home there is a vent. This vent is extremely essential in the overall operation of our heater–if it is ever blocked or clogged, our heater shuts off to protect us from dying of carbon monoxide (thank you vent!).
What happened is that the deck guys didn’t allow for this vent to “breathe”. Even with spaces in between the decking slats–it was not enough. Toxic gases were building up and causing our furnace to shut down. It took a heater repair guy coming out to identify the problem. This is when things get interesting. We removed the boards covering over the vent–just to be sure that was the problem. The deck guys apparently didn’t recognize that this vent is essential to the safety and well being of our home. All they saw was a vent cover that was in the way of the deck being level–so they sawed off the part that was in their way and put the boards in place.
I thought the heater repair guy was going to faint when he saw it. He was rendered speechless and completely flabbergasted as to why anyone would do such a thing. I couldn’t believe it either. The good news is that by removing the boards–our heater is now working fine. The other good news is that the piece that was cut doesn’t hurt our furnace in the short term, but over time–it could be bad and it will have to be replaced. Now, we are looking at a much bigger delay and still not completely sure how to solve this problem of making sure this vent doesn’t get blocked. I’ll keep you posted. Please pray for Jim– the heater repair guy. I think he took it quite personally that someone would hack up a heater part with such violent disregard. He may need therapy.
2. Our Christmas home. Last week, I shared that we jumped the gun this year in putting up our Christmas decorations. I’m so glad we did. I love our home all year round, but Christmas decorations just make it all the more special. Each and every decoration we own (and we have more than a few), have special meaning and memories for us. Our main Christmas tree is filled with decorations that we have been collecting all of our married life together (26 years and counting). We also have continued the tradition that I had as a child of our boys selecting a new ornament each year. I love their choices–this year Morgan chose a metallic Star Wars tie fighter and Grayson chose Baby Yoda (no shocker there). Our front tree has all the ornaments I chose as a child–my Mom gave them to me a few years ago. And our shelves are filled with Santa’s, angels, nutcrackers, snowmen, nesting dolls, nativities, and so many things we have selected with love and care over the years. I love that everywhere I look, there is something that makes me smile.
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3. What we watched this week. We are still watching season 2 of The Mandalorian as a family and eagerly anticipate each week’s show. Super Rockstar and I also are excited that the new season of Blacklist has begun. Our show hole has ended. We also found a couple of really good movies this week. The first one was Ava. It’s about a female hitman (hit woman?) (hit person?) who struggles with why her victims are chosen–she wants to know what they did to deserve to die and because of that she is now considered a risk by her handler and they are after her. There’s a lot of good action and I thought it was very good.
With the boys, I watched Togo. It’s on Disney Plus and we LOVED it. It’s based an untold true story of a sled dog and his heroic trek through one of the worst winter storms in 1925 to get a lifesaving serum for the town of Nome, Alaska. It’s exciting, funny, intense and so touching. I didn’t cry–I just have allergies right now.
4. Gig Night. Super Rockstar and the SofaKillers gang got to play at Boot Barn Hall this week. With restrictions getting tighter and tighter, this will be their last gig until New Years Eve. Our state has restricted bars and restaurants to 25% capacity–and is a breath away from shutting down altogether. They played two awesome sold out shows and everyone had a great time.
5. My favorite memes of the week.
As always, I would love to hear from you. I hope you have a great week!
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