I had an extra long weekend this holiday. I always take the Friday before Memorial Day off because there’s nothing better than the official beginning of summer!
I didn’t have much going on, socially, but I did get a lot done inside and out. On Friday, I tackled a couple of electrical projects. This winter, I noticed that one of the side entry lights wasn’t working, so I swapped that out. And, the instructions for the smoker I bought recently said that it should be plugged into a GFCI, so I swapped that outlet out. That turned into a bit of a headache–there was something wrong with the outlet I bought so I had to run to Home Depot to get a new one. So, I got to install the outlet twice. On the plus side, I ran into my friend Carol and her husband at Home Depot. That was a nice surprise. They, too, were working on a project this weekend.
Also on Friday, I noticed that my upright freezer was leaking water, so I attempted to fix that on Saturday. I found the same problem online, but I’m not convinced that taping the copper wire to the tube will do the trick. I will say that it’s no longer leaking, though there is some condensation. Side note: I did not use electrical tape because I didn’t think that would stick. I used something called E-Z Fuse Tape, which I happened to have on hand in my emergency plumbing box. What luck! I had to remove the foam pipe insulation to fix it. No one in Johnstown had that size in stock, so I’m waiting for my Amazon order to arrive so I can wrap this project up. Maybe next week…If this doesn’t do the trick and the freezer stops working, I will buy a new one rather than repair this one. It’s 8+ years old so it’s near the end of its lifespan. So, it doesn’t make sense to put a couple hundred into it when I can buy a new one for not much more (since it’s just me, I don’t need as large of a freezer anymore).
I tried turning my dehumidifier on last week and it didn’t seem to be working. I messed around with it for a few days and finally gave up and went to Home Depot on Saturday to buy a new one. The old one was only 4. Nothing seems to last anymore. I had to buy a new one for the office recently, too, so we’ll see how long these last. The most annoying thing about this (besides having to spend $260+ on the new dehumidifier) is that Cambria County had appliance recycling recently, so I will probably have to hold onto this until next spring before I can dispose of it.
On Sunday, Jake returned to Virginia. I didn’t get to see much of him the past few days because he was busy running around getting all of his visits in. But it was nice having him around for two weeks and I’m looking forward to our July vacation! After getting him packed up and out the door, I cleaned the inside of my car. It hadn’t been cleaned since last fall and it really needed it.
As soon as I told my dad that I bought a smoker, he was asking about ribs, so I had my parents over for ribs today. This was my first ribs attempt on the smoker. I think they turned out pretty well!
I also managed to do a bunch of gardening and yardwork over the weekend. The garden is in. There’s still plenty of yardwork to do, though. It never ends.