Fone Fix

Deb came over to the house tonight to fix her phone.

She had purchased one of those battery-replacement kits on-line and was looking forward to not spending $100 at the phone shop to have a battery put in for her; instead, she figured that she could do it herself. Because she's that kind of person.

So she came over before dinner and together we pulled out the kit and tried to figure out how on earth to get the silly phone apart -- it isn't as easy as it looks on YouTube! -- and after many, many attempts, heating up the edges with the hair dryer and prying at the gap with the plastic tools which were provided (and looked remarkably like oversized guitar picks), it suddenly came apart and we were able to move forward with the operation.


Unfortunately, the paint on the back cover decided to part company with the back cover, so we had a bit more interior cleanup to do than the video had led us to believe; but we cleaned it up as best we could and then got all the screws out (and they are very very tiny!) and pulled the two main pieces apart to extract the battery; and then she put the battery in and we got it all connected and then snapped the front and back halves together, and then voila! the phone was all together again, with a brand-new battery and (hopefully) a longer charge life.

Then we celebrated by making cookies!

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My Mr Fix-it job of the week, aside from assisting my daughter with phone surgery, is to replace one of the side-lights on the Toyota. Which apparently fell apart this past weekend when I wasn't looking.

It was very odd, and it took me a moment -- one of those moments when you have to take a second look to make sure you are seeing what you think you are seeing -- to realize that it actually wasn't a broken light or a broken cover, but actually a case where the sealed lamp fell apart, right along the glued seam, and it isn't whole anymore but only half of a light.

I can only assume that the long-duration bath in the blazing sunlight of Washington, D.C., to which this poor car had been exposed by its previous owner prior to being parked for an extended time in a garage in Grand Rapids, had caused the glue/sealant to dry so badly that it no could no longer hold together, especially when subjected to a few bumps here and there by the innumerable potholes of Michigan.

Retracing my drives over the past few days did not reveal the final resting place of the other half of the light. I had hoped to find it in one piece so as to discover some definitive reason for its sudden departure, but I fear it is long gone now.

Dream House

Our House as Google Found It in 2011!

It was our Dream House in 2004 when we first arrived in Grand Rapids. Situated only five minutes from church, five minutes from work, five minutes from all the shopping in the world, and only fifteen minutes to the Cultural Center of the Universe (also known as Downtown).

It was a pretty little house, with plenty of space for a young, vibrant family of six. Three bedrooms, two-and-a-half bathrooms, a living room, a family room, a formal dining room, an unfinished basement. A nicely landscaped front yard. A spacious, unfenced back yard with a deck. Three-car garage.

We've enjoyed the house over these past fourteen years. Mostly. Things have fallen apart. Things had to be fixed, painted, caulked, replaced, repainted. The back deck didn't get painted soon enough; the boards dried up and cracked in the harsh sunlight of its southern exposure. The yard didn't drain correctly and needed surgery to avoid becoming a swamp (and still bears the diagonal scar of that surgery even after twelve years). The underground sprinkler system had numerous issues, chiefly the damage incurred by the neighbor's lawn mower when it came into contact with the sprinkler heads. The lovely trees were actually planted too close to the house and the root systems are threatening the foundation. The landscaping wasn't maintained, especially the bark we were supposed to put down every couple years. The house didn't come with gutters, which meant we had to install them ourselves (as we did on the front) or have someone else do it (as we did on the back). The vinyl siding on the shaded side (the front) grew mold; apparently we're also supposed to get the house washed with a high-pressure sprayer every couple years.

Then there's the appliances: the HVAC unit's condensor fan needed replacement at the ten-year mark, and the evaporator coils in the basement were rusting out five years ago; the water heater is fifteen years old, just about at the limit of its lifetime; the sump pump is over its expected 5-year lifetime.

And let's not even mention the basement.

If there is one thing I have learned over the past fourteen years, it is that we can't keep up with the maintenance requirements of such a large house. It is (was) a lovely house. It was a very good house in which to raise children. Excellent neighborhood, close to schools, shopping, churches, hiking/biking trails. Perfect for people who have the time and inclination to take advantage of such things.

We are not those people; at least, not anymore. Not at this point in our lives.

As part of my overall scheme to simplify our lives, I'm trying to figure out what kind of domicile would work for us. It needs to be smaller than our current house, but it can't be too small: we still need some space to do the things we do.

I still find it interesting to observe the areas of the house we use, and those we don't, now that the children are (mostly) gone. Mostly we use the family room to sit and play on our computers while watching TV or listening to the radio; the dining room to eat; the kitchen to cook; the bedroom to sleep; and ... that's about it. We don't use the living room or the spare bedrooms. We converted Adam's old room to an office and Deb's old room to the craft room, which is about all the 'extra' room we need. Once Mary is done with school and moved out on her own (as we expect she probably will), her room will be vacant. Once Adam is done with school and moves out on his own (as we suppose he might), the entire basement will be (mostly) unused.

Once they are all really gone, well over half the house will be unused. And I don't want to live in a house which mostly goes unused, even for those times when children and grandchildren visit.

Of course, we're not moving anytime soon, not with all these little maintenance issues we have to take care of. We'll work on it all spring and summer and then see where we're at. There will undoubtedly be interruptions here and there, little things that get in the way of all those tasks, and then a sudden mad-dash, last-minute kinds of panic mode if we get to the point of needing to move again.

If we do have to move somewhere else (because of a new job, for example), we're probably going to rent for a while until we are sure we'll be there for awhile. We certainly will never buy a house of this size again, not unless all the kids come home and we all live together like some big commune. Which is highly doubtful. Unless the world economy collapses and everyone is out of work. In which case we'll have to figure out a way to turn our clay-based backyard into a working farm.