Mid-Summer Check in

 With the kids home for summer break, I skipped a lot of June and July posting.  Yeah, that's the ticket.  It had nothing to do with my laziness or lack of anything eventful to write about.

The kids start middle school two weeks from today, and they are getting Cabin Fever and on each other's nerves more than usual.  

It's the Hot as Hell part of the year down here. This summer seems even more so. June was Hell's porch.  July is Satan's crotch.  August will likely make us long for June. Which makes it harder for me to do some much needed tasks outside or even in the garages.  Don't even ask me to go up in the attic.  

I did manage to fix another hole in the wall my kids created by slamming the door when they go to the backyard.  I'm sure it's more one kid than the other but I won't say which one.  It was simultaneously tedious and fun to be able to take my time on this one.  After wedging a piece of spare wood (Dad Skill Unlocked) I applied a generous coat of spackle.  Too generous, as the thickest part couldn't get enough airflow to dry, but I was able to fix that with the second coat.  Then, using the sander I bought from our MAGA neighbor at his garage sale, I was able to sand it down.  Because the chair rail is in the way, It was hard to get it perfectly plumb and smooth but it is good enough.

I'm not sure why the door stopper had been removed...but it's back now so hopefully this doesn't happen again.

When we got back from our relatively new, annual Michigan-Chicago excursion, we discovered our Water Heater was shedding water.  Our house is dual zoned for heating and air conditioning and we replaced one water heater a few years ago.  Now it was time to replace the other one.

We went with a tankless option this time.  It was more expensive ($6500), but it should pay for itself if we are stuck in this Hellhole State for the rest of our lives. 

We also had to fix the brakes on Nightingale's car, along with a few other overdue maintenance issues, another $1100.  It's times like these that I really feel terrible about not having an income.  There was also a little drama with the company that installed the heater; I'll try to do a separate write-up on that for posterity's sake.  

Our washing machine has been giving us grief for a while now too.  It started slowly.  Certain cycles wouldn't complete, and the vague error code didn't tell me much.  I would restart the load, and it would work.  Then it started being more consistent and on any cycle.  I'd have to do a Rinse and Spin on most loads to get the soap out.  Finally, after Google searches and YouTube videos, I learned that the machine wasn't draining properly so I had to manually drain it.  

Yesterday a YouTube video took me through a few things it could be.  I didn't want to take the machine apart to change the drain motor (or whatever it is called).  I recalled that a previous video said that you should unplug the machine for 5 minutes.

This worked!  We are still likely on Borrowed Time but if we can get another year or more out of it, I will consider that even more of a win.