Marching into March

March, here we come! It appears that February may have to sign up a big PR firm to raise its ratings. It was cold for even brave Minnesota people but nothing compared to places where below freezing is almost impossible. The political world is crazy and almost everyone seems to be forgetting it’s humans that are being slammed back and forth and not allowed to die in peace. Health information is in a very fluid state. Maybe we will have to up our game to keep ourselves on track and do more good things for others. If grass roots activity is part of the answer to getting change for the future, a lot of work is needed by us.

How can the days be going by so fast for most of us? I have a friend who said it in a way that I can almost feel. This is Lin’s theory. “It is like standing still with a calendar in front of you and you keep flipping the pages. You get to the end of it and you are still in the same place standing in front of it”. I do not have a super interesting project like I did last year with the organic applique project. I keep trying to find or catch up on projects that I want to do. I have a commission for my sister that would be ideal to work on but I don’t want to send Husband Larry out to his shop to work on the base that I need for it. I need a better heating system to make The She Shed a four season place. There are tons of projects that I DO NOT want to do, then I feel guilty because I am wasting time. My busy beaver hormones are failing me.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself and think positive, they say. I don’t think I was too deep in the sorry part, but I also was not very high in the positive department.

Some of the things that I do feel good about doing was getting both the dishwasher and the sewing machine back in working order. Loyal readers may recall my fixing the dishwasher stories from the past. (We had our mouse problems again this year but wrapping everything possible with copper wire prevented those little buggers from eating things on the dishwasher). At first it appeared that the motor that pumped out the water may have gone bad. I did research and found out that a new part was around $200 dollars and lots of taking apart MAY be the answer to that problem. I did about 10 different methods from YouTube fix it videos and nothing was working. Husband Larry said to just get a new dishwasher as hand washing the dishes was getting very, very old. I have a somewhat high-end washer that is all stainless and was feeling totally bad about having to ditch it, even after we kind of figured out how old it was. At times, I did hear a few drops of water going down the drain and the water had some movement in the bottom of the washer.

Could there be hope? I began to shake anything that looked like a pipe or drain cord and soon I heard more water drips to the drain. Yes, HOPE! More shakes, more drips! Ah, no more flashing red lights and a steady sound of water running down the drain. I ran the dishwasher on the super high heat setting to clean it all out if any grease or like things were part of the problem and it has been humming along ever since.

I let the sewing machine rest for a week and hoped that would be the answer.

Husband Larry said he was not sure on what to do and maybe take it into a shop to get fixed. I got to the point that I felt even though I had no idea on how to fix it and yes, I did read the manual, the worst that could happen would be more pieces to take to the repair place.

After a half an hour of take apart and put back together again, it also was back to stitching! And no extra parts to be seen.

Will the big “warm up” come to life this week? Time will tell. I did see several people wearing shorts last week in the bitter cold tundra days so I don’t know if shorts sightings will give any clues to the weather. Maybe if they had the tropical shirts to go with them? Ice cream cones in hand? White legs with just a touch of blue?

by Bea Wester berg