DIY - Replace Thermostat

While lunching with a good friend of mine I mentioned my non-functioning thermostat.  I was describing how the furnace worked, but it would no longer regulate itself.  It was either on (read non-stop, burn-in-hell-hot on) or off (as in freeze-your-buns-off-and-die off).   I know I won't get any sympathy from those of you whose temps actually go below 50 degrees F, but, when it drops below 73 in the house here, I freeze and I want heat.  {can you hear the spoiled whine?}

So, I was explaining how I was constantly running back and forth to the thermostat.  On, off, on, off, which seemed like every five minutes, but was probably closer to every hour or so.  I was mentioning this while sitting outside enjoying the nice day at Miguel's Mexican Restaurant (yes, it doesn't make any sense to be talking about heat problems while being able to sit outside in comfort, but it does get a bit nippy in the evenings).  I was enjoying a refreshing margarita while pounding down the entire Del Jardin Burrito I ordered.  (I couldn't help it, . . . even though it was BIG, well, . . . it really wasn't my fault, . . . it was just sooooooo flavorful, I. could. not. stop.)  But, because I didn't want to embarrass my friend, I did somehow manage to refrain from licking the plate . . . but, . . . just. barely.  If you have never been to this place before, I must say, I can HIGHLY recommend it!  My friend ordered the Fresh Spinach Quesadilla and it was divine!  They really do use the best, the freshest, and most flavorful ingredients.  I look forward to my next visit there!

Now, I know I should be grateful the furnace still worked.  I should be especially grateful I had some motivation to burn off a few calories with the constant getting up and down and going the entire 12 steps over and the entire 12 steps back every time the temp got too far one way or the other.  And, if I am going to be eating the entire extra size portions they put on my plate, I definitely need something to motivate me to move a whole lot more than I do currently!

Yep, there's mercury in those little tubes!
This will be going to the household hazardous waste center!

But, while regaling my friend with the minutia of my household woes, she casually mentioned that I should just replace it myself.  She said her daughter does that kind of thing all the time.

Whoa!  What?  I didn't even think about it before.  I just kinda assumed, you would need a PhD in heatology-furnacology or something like that to tackle that kind of job.  So, when I got home, I googled it.  Yes, I googled.  (Any Confessions of a Shopaholic fans out there?)  And I found this link.

The gentleman in the video made it look sooooooo easy . . . I figured that even I could do it.  So, the next day, off to the big box store I go.  Wow!  I discovered a whole new world of temperature control.  Do you know they even have thermostats you can program for every day of the week?  To turn off and on for waking and sleeping hours, for at home and away hours?  Thermostats you can control through your phone or computer?  Of course you did.  I just never thought I could get one of them.  I opted to skip the extra bucks for the ones I can control through my phone or computer, but I did get one I could program for every day of the week!  Yay!  A warm home when I get home!  No waiting!

Yikes!  This looks scary, but all I had to worry about was those wires right in the center.

So, then, home I go, thermostat firmly in hand.  

First step, I went out to check to see what size filter I needed for my furnace that I should have done BEFORE I went to the big box store.  Put, the cover back on and went back in the house.

Decided I did not want to tackle the switch so close to the evening, just in case I messed it up and didn't have heat the whole evening/morning (night is ok - I don't like to sleep with the heat on), so I baked flatbread instead.  It's a good thing, too, because it helped to heat the house.  For some reason, the heat would NOT kick on even though I hadn't messed with anything yet!

The next morning, I thought I'd go back out and check to see if I had accidentally put out the pilot light while checking on the filter.  I hadn't wanted to try to check on it in the dark the night before.  Seems some silly blond must not have put the cover back on correctly, because as soon as I replaced it, the heat kicked on.

Emboldened, I decided I would try to move ahead with the installation of the new fully programmable thermostat.

Second step, I flipped the power switch on the fuse box for the furnace to off.  This apparently is a VERY important step if you don't want a new hairstyle and skin color or heart rate.

Third step, take the old cover off, identify and mark the wires that are already hooked up.  Then take the thermostat off the wall.

Fourth step, wrap the ends of the wires around a pencil to keep them from falling back into the wall.  Mine already had a do-hickey on them to prevent that (you can see it if you look closely at the base of the wires - a blue bit of wire or something wrapped around them right where they come out of the wall), but I dutifully wrapped them around a pencil anyway!

Fifth step, paint the wall that will now be exposed because the new unit is much more compact than the previous one!  Do a better job than I did at it though.  (Don't look too closely at the wall . . . I did try to crop the bad bits out of the photos!)  I hate it when I get impatient!

Sixth step, put the wallplate up, make sure it is level and mark the holes with a pencil.

Seventh step, drill a hole in the wall for the screws.  Or, if you are lazy like me and don't want to have to make a trip out to the shed to get the screwdriver, hammer a nail into the spot and then pull it out.  Then, put the wallplate back up and screw it in place.

Eighth, hook the wires back up to the posts as marked and continue on with the instructions that came with the unit you purchased.

Ninth, turn the power back on and hope like hell you did it all correctly.  If not, grab a glass of wine and call the handyman.  However, . . . . if you did do it correctly, you get to go eat some more flatbread, put your feet up and brag it about it on your blog!  So, . . . here I am! ! ! !  Bragging!  Thanks, Ms. M! ! ! ! ! {giggling and waving at Ms. M}

{Insert pic of me doing happy dance!  I probably saved 
myself a fairly good chunk of change for this little project.}

Ok, well, I know this wasn't the most fascinating post ever, but, I guess, I'd better get back to taking care of other business around this place . . . I mean, it's not like I don't have a ton of things to do!  And, I don't want to permanently stretch my arm out too much with all that back patting and all.  Especially over a project that really wasn't a bit difficult.  In fact, it's one of the easiest DIY projects to be found around a house.  So, see you around!

Raised Bed "Kinda Square Foot" Gardening

My Strawberry Pot

I have another friend to welcome to my little corner of the blogosphere!  Benvenuto, Maristella!  Another new friend hailing from Italy!  She has a very sweet blog that I can't wait to explore further!

Each space is about 6" x 9", not exactly a square foot, but  . . . I can adapt it, right?

Well, I know you can't see it from this little tiny peak at a corner of my garden, so you might not be able to tell, but I worked really, really hard to put this together.  I now have a 5' by 20' raised bed garden.  I used chimney flues to build it, so I have lots of little "compartments" to work with.  It took quite a lot of work to get them in there all straight and all level.  I'm really hoping they don't end up leaching too much lime into the soil, but I am using a bit more peat moss in the soil than usual to try to counteract it and will try to monitor the ph levels to make sure it doesn't get too high!

I spent about a week trying to get the trellises all painted.  I am using them as the dividers in the garden.  There are 8 of them and it took several coats, but I am mostly pleased with how they came out.  I sure hope they last a while, because I am so over painting them I am not looking forward to do any more of them!

Anyway, after I got the planters built, the soil in and the painted dividers on, I stood back and admired my handiwork and got all excited about being able to see it all planted up and producing lots of great veggies on which I could dine.  I couldn't wait to get some seeds started and ready to plant.  I thought it was going to look really nice.

All that excitement lasted exactly one night.  Because the very next day, I went out to admire my handiwork again and found that it had been dug up.  Holes everywhere!  Absolutely everywhere!  I was sad!

It wasn't long before I found the culprit.  Or, perhaps I should say, the culprit found me.  I was filling all the holes and repairing all the damage that was done, when this little creature showed up.  

She's kinda cute, isn't she?  She's also sweet as can be.  She just wanted to love and be loved.  Rubbing up against me and rolling over on her back to rub her chin on my shoes.  I gave her a little attention and played with her a bit and gave her a little talking to about destroying my garden.

As kittens are wont to do, she merely gazed at me, totally unfazed and absolutely puzzled that I could possibly think that I hadn't built this 5' x 20' contraption as her own private kitty box!   *sigh*   We have had several more bouts of filling holes and smoothing soil.  I have never seen a cat who likes to dig as much as a dog before!  She digs just to dig, in addition to wanting to fill them with . . . um . . .  special treats for me to clean up.  Shades of my raccoon wars!

So, until I am ready to plant, I have covered the top with every pot, bucket, piece of plastic, etc I can find to try to keep her from making any further messes while I come up with another way to keep her out when I do finally get things planted so she doesn't undo all the work I am putting into getting my little seedlings ready to plant.  I'm afraid it went from looking neat, clean and orderly to looking like a giant junk pile!  I couldn't bear to take any pics of it as it looks now.

Guess what my next project is while I wait for the seedlings to be ready to plant?  I am making a kind of moveable, sectional type fence to go around it.  Something I can easily lift out a section at a time to work in the garden.  I think I may have already mentioned in a previous post or two that I really am not knowledgeable about how to make some of my crazy ideas come to fruition.  I just don't know I can't do something.  I get an idea of what I want and then do my best to try to make it happen.  I have my fingers crossed, hoping this latest animal deterrent system will work!  Especially considering all the extra work I get to do . . . just to have my little garden!  Cross your fingers for me!  See you next time!

Snow, Lunch and Welcome!

We have snow in our back yards, too!  This is a vintage
photo I took several years ago - since the clouds robbed
me of a good view of them for this post!  Sorry for the
washed out quality!  It was just too faded to get all
the richness of color back in it!  But, I did try!

First of all, I would really like to welcome and thank Rosemary over at The Summer Porch for stopping by for a visit and for following my blog!  I scooted over to take a peak at her "Porch" and just loved her photos and blog and quickly signed up as one of her followers.  It looks like we both started our blogs right about the same time!  I know I am looking forward to having a glass of lemonade or sun tea while spending a little more time on her porch and hope you will take a moment to visit with her also!

Secondly, I would like my dear cuz to see that we, too, have snow here in our back yards.  (She was kind enough to share her snow pics from her little 9 acre farm.)  This is just to the north of us.  See the tops of the mountains?  They are being a tiny bit shy and are trying to hide behind all those clouds.  Go ahead, look a little closer.  Ignore all that green stuff in front.  Just there, right above the clouds.  See them?  You can just barely see the very tippy-tops of the mountains and that they are blanketed in a nice thick layer of white, like a fluffy down comforter to snug them all in.  The snow report for our local mountains says they just got an additional 6" of powder on a 2' base.  Mammoth is showing an additional 2" on a 13' base (and they were all the way down to just a measly 11' base just a couple of days ago!).

Ok, here's another shot.  This time we are looking eastward, towards Idyllwild, hidden by the clouds up there at the top of the mountain (on the other side of these mountains, you will find Palm Springs).  Again, just ignore, and look behind, all that green stuff we have on the ground here (you know, you might remember them - grass and leaves and stuff?  :-).  Ju-u-u-ust above the green and ju-u-u-ust below the clouds.  See? The snow level came down very, very low!  Br-r-r-r-r-r-r!

One last shot.  This one is to the west, above the hills behind my friend's house where the clouds are trying to push their way over the hills at the end of the day.  She lives around Corona, and just a short 45 minute drive beyond these hills you will find my house.  The snow rarely falls on these hills, but they got some yesterday!  I know, it is rough, but somehow we manage to struggle through it!

I took these shots from near my friends house today (Sunday - but by the time I will actually get this posted, this should probably say yesterday!).  We have been trying to get together for lunch for the past few weeks, but things just kept getting in the way.  But, today, we finally were able to make it work.

Conventionally grown in the pinkish wrapper at
the top and the organically grown ones in the
whitish wrapper at the bottom!

I started the day with my weekly trip to the Farmer's Market.  The stand I always buy from seems to consistently have the best berries and I somehow was under the impression they were organically grown, but today after I had already purchased my basket I found out that they are conventionally grown.  So, I gathered up some strawberries we could do a taste test on.  I had just bought the conventionally grown berries, so I also searched out and bought a basket of organically grown berries.  I do not know which varieties they were, and I know that would have more to do with taste differences than organic versus conventionally grown, but . . .  I decided I would have my friend help decide which were actually better.  While they were both very, very good, the organically grown ones were unanimously chosen as the winners.  Unfortunately, they are not always available!  But, as long as they are, those will be the ones I purchase from now on!

Then we had mimosas by her pool, just relaxing, fanning ourselves (oops! what I meant was . . .) being fanned by her pool boys, and soaking up some of that lovely sunshine!  Just kidding, cuz . . . while the sun WAS out, it was actually way-y-y-y-y too cold for that!  We actually had to wear our heavy jackets while we took her sweet pooch for his constitutional before we left for our girls day out.  I think it must have been down in the low 50's, maybe even as low as the high 40's, but to us it felt like it was in the 30's!

Our first stop was the theater.  We went to see 127 Hours.  If you don't know anything about it, it is a movie based on a true story about a guy who goes hiking alone without telling anyone where he is going, and of course, disaster strikes.  He falls into a crevice, miles from anywhere/ anyone and out of site of anyone walking/flying around above, and ends up getting his arm pinned between a rock and the canyon wall and after several days and no hope of being rescued, all his water has been drunk and he begins drinking the only other liquid he has available, which he described as being "No slurpee", he frees himself by breaking the bones in his arm and then cutting his arm off.  This is exactly where being so squeamish can be detrimental to movie-going.  There were, needless to say, parts of the movie I could not watch.  


The movie shows the range of emotions he went through and the thoughts and hallucinations that were running through his mind throughout the ordeal.  He handled it with humor, videotaping messages and his goodbyes to his family and friends, with extreme frustration at times (who wouldn't? ? ?) and grace and a level-headed concentration on not losing it.  It really makes you think about the lengths one would go to stay alive.  Could you drink your own urine?  Could you cut your arm off to survive?  Could you do it without bleeding out?  He is a tough guy and is still out there hiking and even climbing, but apparently, he now always leaves a note as to exactly where he is heading!  It was very good and I am glad we went!  Just don't plan on going out for steak and Bloody Mary's afterwards!

My Australian Violets - just because they are
so cute and I love them, even though they are
desperately trying to take over my ENTIRE yard!

After the movie, we stopped back by her place to take Champ out for another little walk.  He is getting up there in years and has a very difficult time, so she has to take him out fairly frequently.  He is such a sweetheart, he is totally worth it!  But, it also gave us a little breather between the movie and lunch so I could get the movie firmly out of my mind before we headed out for our lunch.  

For everyone else, these may be called violas, but growing
 up, we called them violets, so they will forever be violets to me!
They are one of my favorite flowers because they look so sweet!

We had a nice long, leisurely lunch at Macaroni Grill.  But, since all I had eaten for the day prior to that was the strawberries, I was so-o-o hungry by the time we got to the restaurant, I forgot to snap a pic of our delicious lunches!  :-(  Sorry!  We started out splitting a Caesar Salad and snacking on the freshly baked rosemary bread dipped in olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  For my entree, I had the Fettucini Alfredo with a nice glass of Chateau St. Michelle Riesling.  It was just yummy!  My dear friend had the Pasta Milano and the Riesling also.  She says that is her absolute favorite dish there.  She likes it so much she can't quite make herself try anything else!  I know exactly what she means!  Once I find a favorite, I don't want to take a chance on anything else! 

It is like a little mini-vacation to be able to sit, relax, talk, laugh and catch up on all the events in each other's lives.  Good food, good drink and good company!  A day well spent!

So, back to my regular life, one of the things I am working on is this scarf.  I am trying to teach myself to knit from a book.  It is slow going and I am not nearly as comfortable with knitting needles as I am with a crochet hook, but I am hoping it will get easier as I do more of it!  I still can't tell what exactly constitutes a row by just looking at the work!  How lame is that?  :-)  It seems so much easier to identify and count rows in crochet!

Things I am "reading" are Sophie Kinsella's books: Twenties Girl, Remember Me? The Undomesticated Goddess and Can You Keep a Secret?.  Her books are the perfect antidote to stressful days!  My friend introduced me to her through her Shopaholic series.  Love, love, love them!  I would love to get the entire series on CD!  I absolutely love being read to!  I love books on tape (CD) for that reason!  At lunch, I can pop out my ipod and break out the knitting needles and sink back into my seat to be transported to another world for 45 minutes or so!  And, since Sophie usually gets me laughing out loud, I can go back to work feeling a little more refreshed and a bit more able to get through the second half of the day!  If you haven't read her yet, please do!  You'll be glad you did!  I promise!

If you want to test out whether you would like books on tape, you can listen to Miette's Bedtime Stories online for free.  She reads short stories and has rather an eclectic selection from which to choose.  If you have a favorite author, you can check out the listings she has on the right side of her page to see if she has "read" one of their stories and take a listen.


I am also working on a story for this "Dinner Party" game one of my epals told me about.  (Thanks, John!)  I'll share a bit more of that in a future post.  But, it is something that has held my interest for quite some time.  I have thought about it frequently and I am very anxious to do it up right and would like to share it with you someday!  I'm afraid I am going a bit overboard with it, but that is what is making it so much fun for me!

One of the other things I am working on is painting the inside of my house.  I tackle one room at a time.  This long holiday weekend, I am painting the bathroom.  Why does it always, always, always take so much longer than I think it will?  But, I have to admit, it is turning out to be so totally worth all the hard work!  I am really loving the way everything is beginning to look!  This project is long overdue!  I only have the living room, dining room, laundry area and all the closets to go!  Then I get to start decorating! ! !  Yayyyy!  One of these days, once I have everything done and all back in order, I may try to share some pics, but that is going to be way, way, way down the road yet!  I am sooooo slow!

While doing a little surfing, I happened to run across this article, and it piqued my curiosity, so I googled the Wagon Teamster's blog.  It is a fascinating read and I thought you might enjoy it, so I am sharing the link.

Before I go, since this post is a little short on pics, I thought I'd share a pic of the blossoms on the new peach tree I told you about in one of my previous posts.  Aren't they adorable!  I was surprised to see they have no scent!  At least, not that I can detect!  My mother has the nose of a bloodhound, so she might be able to detect something there, but I sure can't!  My lemon trees and orange tree are another matter.  The lemon trees are loaded with blossoms about to open, any day now!  Soon the air will be perfumed with their scent.  It is so intoxicating, I wish they had scratch and sniff screens so I could share it with you when they do finally open up!  It is so difficult for one pair of lungs to sniff up the whole thing alone!

And a shot of the grape hyacinths that have popped up in the last week or two.  The paperwhites have already come and gone without me documenting their existence this time around, but they'll be back! 

And finally, a shot of the orchid I bought a few weeks ago paired with a maidenhair fern.  I also recently purchased some air plants.  I still haven't decided what to do with them just yet, but will figure out something soon, I'm sure!

So, what are you working on, reading, creating?  Let me know!  See you next time!  TTFN!