Subtitle: How many Ahuva’s does it take to change a light bulb?
Sub-subtitle: It pays to blog
If you own a house, or rent a home, or spend any part of your life existing under a roof within 4 walls that is somewhat your responsibility, you know the Homeowners’ Motto:
IT’S ALWAYS SOMETHING.
The halogen light on my new range hood burned out. It’s a light bulb, right? No biggie. I get out the instruction manual, look up the maintenance guide, find the information I need. It’s a specific halogen lightbulb: 120 volt 50 watt halogen bulb. I go online to see where I can buy this. Great – the big box store near my office carries them. This week I picked up a package.
I’m working from home today because it is brutally hot and disgustingly humid. In the old days, when my cats were young, and I had a dog, and I was more thrifty than I am currently, this weather would have sent me straight to the office! Let THEM pay for air conditioning!!! I’d leave all the shades drawn, and the wall a/c unit on in the dog’s room, and know that the cats could either hang with the dog or go down into the basement which is much cooler.
But time moves on and my cats move less. WC in particular has been having major issues and seems to need to stay on the first floor. GC is also looking a bit wobbly. I could turn on the a/c in what used to be the dog’s area but none of the cats hang out there. I don’t think the cooler air would be sufficient lure.
So I’m working from home so that I can keep the house air conditioned for the cats. Why do I have to be here you might ask? Because I do not have central air and I don’t like leaving so many wall/window units going with no one here to monitor. As long as I’m here, I can change that light bulb. I have some time between meetings – should be no big deal.
HAH!!!
First, trying to get the old bulb out took more elbow grease than expected. I did manage to get it out. Thank goodness it looked exactly like the new ones I bought. Still following directions (Don’t touch the bulb!!!) I climb the step stool to insert the new bulb. It doesn’t go in. I have spent over 20 minutes trying to get that blankety blank bulb’s prongs into the blankety blank base. I shined a light up there but of course once you start inserting the bulb, you can’t see the base. I decide I’m blogging this activity. I start taking photos. And I LOOK at the pictures. And I realize that I’m mistaking the screws of the base for the place to insert. It’s much clearer when I can look straight at the base and not have my neck twisted about peering into darkness, while I balance on a step stool.
Once I figured out WHERE I needed to aim the bulb, it only took another five full minutes to get it engaged and set. Nope, I’m NOT handy. But I DID change a lightbulb. One Ahuva. 🙂
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In the last few years of my home-ownership, I have discovered 2 things I would change if I could go back in time and make different decisions. The first mistake, that seemed absolutely correct at the time, was putting down that horrible black ground cover underneath the mulch that was all around my deck. Why was there mulch all around my deck? Because my deck is several feet off the ground, and I envisioned active children climbing about and falling. I wanted a nice soft cushion (or comparatively soft) in case of someone falling off the railing. (Always plan for the worst-case scenario.) The irony is that the mulch disintegrated, became dirt, became weeds, became a few inches deep of landscaping I don’t want. I tried to plant a morning glory and could not figure out why I could not dig more deeply. Upon closer inspection I found the black fabric. I had to take a scissors and hack away at it to create an opening wide enough for the plant and dig down so the roots could extend. I’ve hit the same issue with everything else I have tried to plant in the back. I will NEVER use black fabric again.
I was born in an old town – here since before 1776. My parents’ house was not that old, but it wasn’t new. It must have been built back in the 1930s or so. At that time gas lights were out and the new fangled electricity was in. And you got your electricity through your house with 
Asbestos. Did I forget to tell you about asbestos? All the hot water pipes way back when were wrapped in asbestos. When I was a teenager having parties in the basement, Daddy had wrapped red tape around the white asbestos so that people would not hit their heads (it was a low ceiling). My father, may his memory be for a blessing, was oh so smart. Daddy (wrongfully) removed most of the asbestos in HIS house by cutting it off himself (wearing a little cloth face mask) and bagging it up and tossing it in the garbage. But there was still some left. When we bought OUR house, of course there was asbestos. I’d grown up with asbestos, so what. At that time an 
Knowing all this now, I’d have ripped apart my house before I moved in, and upgraded all the electrical (which I couldn’t have afforded – not the electrical part, not the repairing the ripped apart walls and ceilings) and had the asbestos removed “by professionals”. Maybe I’d have even removed the zillion layers of flooring you can see under the kitchen radiator. Of course all the horrible wallpaper would have been dealt with then too. As it stands now, I plan to burn my house to the ground before I’m ready to sell. Then no one can give me grief about my pipes, my electricity, my probably-not-current-grade water pipes and I can just sell a plot of land. It will cut down on a lot of inspections. And think how easy it will be to til that plot and rip up the stupid black fabric if there is no house in the way.
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