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Interruptions!

I approached the garage this morning intending to do more repairs but saw bumblebees napping in the asters in front of it. I turned right to go around them and saw a big black and yellow spider, argiope aurantia, had built a web there. Such spiders aren't aggressive or very poisonous, but I still didn't want to disturb it. 

Carefully placing the ladder to avoid the bumblebees and spider while avoiding damage to the asters, I scraped some more peeling paint and saw some areas that needed to be filled. I got down and looked at my new can of putty and saw it was actually epoxy; a video on it said you should wear a respirator while using it--and there was five- our ten-minute window to work with it once you mixed the sixteen-to-one ratio of the stuff. Too complicated--it had to go back to the store. 

The electrical outlet I bought also had to go back to the same store (it was the wrong shape for the cover). In an interruption yesterday, a kitchen outlet stopped working. That's a ten-minute fix, right? First, see if it's the appliance or the outlet. Since the coffee maker worked when I plugged it into another outlet, it wasn't the appliance. Second, see if the breaker tripped. Unfortunately, most of the labels in my breaker box are illegible, so I plugged a hair dryer into a kitchen outlet and listened downstairs while I tried all the breakers. I discovered that none of the breakers in my house go to the kitchen. I turned off the main breaker, pulled the outlet, and headed for the hardware store. 

When I returned, I turned off the main breaker again and installed the new outlet...and wondered why my battery charger didn't turn on when I plugged it in. I waited for my wifi to return, then watched a couple of videos that didn't shed any light. But I found a website that talked about wiring it correctly...hmmm. I turned off the main power again, wired it with their advice in mind, and--the battery charger still didn't turn on. Finally, I read the instructions. I was close--all I needed was to connect the ground wire to the green screw. I turned the power back on, and thought I'd failed again until I read the last step of the instructions: test the outlet. I plugged in the battery charger, pushed the reset button on the GFCI, and green lights lit up on the charger and the outlet. 

Part of the problem was not reading directions, but also, the previous outlet was wired wrong. I snipped off extra wires, capped another one, and then had to reconnect a wire that kept popping off when I stuffed the outlet into the wall this morning after getting the right outlet to go next to it. 

So...that took longer than ten minutes, and wasn't finished until today.

I picked up some groceries on the way home from the hardware store, including half-and-half to make l. reuteri yogurt. I had a feeling something was off about the carton, but I couldn't see anything wrong with it. My hands were full, my mask was on, and my glasses were fogged up. By the time I got home, though, it had leaked in the bag, and with my mask and glasses off (I'm nearsighted and my glasses distort my up-close vision) I saw the lid was missing. The pull-tab was intact, but somehow it was leaking. Back to the store it went, too. 

I wanted to get some more primer on the garage today, but had three interruptions: it started to rain and looked like it might storm; because of the weather, the epoxy I'd put on hadn't set up and I couldn't sand it; and finally, I had neck, back and some TMJ pain that would have prevented me from painting, anyway. So I stayed inside and got some work done around the house, and later, when I could see it wasn't going to rain, I put painter tape around the windows and cut off the excess foam around the edge of the foundation. The can says the foam has to be painted if it's exposed to light--I haven't decided to use the body, trim or accent color. I'm leaning towards the accent color (dark green), which would blend in with surrounding plants, and I should have plenty of it since it's just for the door and window panes. (There's an innie window with panes that I didn't replace.)

The weekend hasn't been a total loss, though--I made a new trim piece for the door and put it on; put in some more spray foam where there were leaks the last time it rained; bought some canning lids at a garage sale; mowed the lawn; finished the laundry; got groceries; applied epoxy; and replaced the outlets, one of which now has a running yogurt machine plugged into it. 

I have one more day this Labor Day weekend. Maybe I'll get some paint on the garage yet!

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