Last weekend

I completed a couple of small projects this weekend, which had much more to do with the fun and inspiration of Friday's visit to the Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Fair than it did to the rest of the weekend.  After Friday it was a bit of a roller coaster.  Less than a month ago we replaced our aged furnace and dead window air conditioner with a new furnace and whole-house air system. It's lovely and it's been hot enough that we're making good use of it.  First thing Saturday morning, the laundry water backs up out of the sewer--tree roots. Not unsurprising given our recent drought-like conditions. Trees just want water, no matter where they find it.  Then hubby notices the 'fridge isn't making the right noises.

Now, I never would have noticed until the food all melted or it caught fire, but he's attuned to motors.  He took it apart and tested this and that, called around and found that parts had been discontinued for this model many years ago (we bought it in 1978--our first appliance for our first house).  A helpful service woman suggested a work around, but he did more testing and found the compressor was shot.

So we went shopping.  I'm kinda embarrassed to say I'm not sure what brand we got. It's close to the almond color I wanted back in '78 (back then it was more expensive than white; now the almond was the bargain).  It's the same size on the outside as our old one and much smaller on the inside. I guess that's insulation.  It's not magnetic so we have a pile of magnets and papers with no where to hang. It's been a surprisingly disconcerting change, this big box in our kitchen. It's life expectancy is less than 10 years.  (Can you tell me why, if they could make a long-lasting refrigerator in the '70s, they seem to have lost the ability to do so?  All the talk was about energy savings.  Buying one 'fridge every 20 or 30 years would save a whole lot more energy in materials, manufacturing and recycling than these short-lived appliances. Just sayin'.)

Then the real work began. We had to clear a three-foot-wide path through our tiny house.  We moved videos, dvds, books, suitcases, computer carts, and piled them around the bed, into the corners and very high to make way.

In the midst of it all, I screwed up. I was doing small loads of laundry to get by, draining the washer into the utility tub and then letting it drain slowly before starting the rinse cycle. Umm, well, I forgot to stop the wash in the middle and the tub overflowed. More or less clean water. But everywhere.

Hubby did an amazing amount of work hauling boxes (and boxes and boxes) out of the basement. Some were packaging boxes we really no longer needed. They were flattened to be recycled. Others were full of my magazines and some other stitching stuff.  Some were too musty to be usable any longer and I was taking them out a bit each week to recycle.  All six copier-paper boxes went.  I did not look inside. Hubby did and pulled out nonpaper items and a few rare things (like a notebook from a class I took) he thought I might want to keep.

So our basement is clean(er), at least until the sewer guys come to do their thing.  Our upstairs is still oddly empty--we're slowly putting things back.  We've earmarked more things to get rid of.

 Okay, rant over.  Here's some stuff to look at to make up for it for those who've hung on this long. The above is a bracelet kit I got at the Fiber Fair.  It's a fairly simple technique, but I can see where I need to improve my technique a bit.  I'm pretty sure it's from On the Surface, but I didn't see anything like it on their website so I may be wrong.

 I had this almost done by the weekend. It's a second bird mat from felt. I'm not sure whether I like the yellow or not. I had thought I'd like it more than the green one shown here.

 I got a kit to make a felt geode from Esther's Place. It was quick and fun to make. It was hard to wait for it to dry for a day or so before I cut the sphere in half to see the geode. This is my kind of fun. They will make good pincushions.

I have more to say about the Midwest Fiber and Folk Fair with photos. Without any appliance rants.