Let Me Get My Spoon

Wow, time sure flies when you're in the midst of a winter mental breakdown, or a near facsimile of such. Yes, I'm aware it's been over a month since I blogged. I did, however, finish the story over on the other blog. As soon as I'm sure everyone who wanted to read has read, I'll be pulling it and starting a rewrite.

That loosely translated into, "Take your time people. I'm in no rush to get down to the nitty gritty of rewriting. So, please, read at your leisure even if it takes you six months."

Yeah, I've got to get to the rewrite and I know it's going to be a lot like work.

I can't honestly remember the last time winter was so gee, golly, darn COLD. I realize it's winter. Winter is supposed to be, well, like winter and not like spring. It's been a full-time job keeping the pipes from freezing. When it gets down to -30, things start freezing up. Like my spirit and will to get out of bed in the morning.

We've been fairly lucky thus far. Knock on wood. We had to replace the tub faucet the weekend before last. I guess you can only get about 14 years out of them when you've got hard water and old galvanized pipes as part of your plumbing. Naturally, this would happen when it's 20 below zero. No, it wouldn't happen in spring.

While in the crawlspace hole, my husband inadvertently snapped a pipe. Water proceeded to spray all over. He proceeded to yell at me to sprint to the garage to turn off the pump. Thankfully, he fixed that without too much swearing.

Then in the meantime, an element in the water heater decided to go on strike.

While my husband was on his way to get new elements, I took it upon myself to turn off the breaker to the water heater, hook up a hose to it, and turn off the water in preparation to drain it.

It drained so very, very slowly. He got impatient and decided to go ahead and take out the top element. I was standing about 5' away when I took a full blast of water to the chest. Fun times. Good times. Fun, good times.

There were no leaks and things seemed to be looking up upon completion of the water heater project. That was until we tried to coax some hot water from the kitchen sink. The cold water cooperated, but not so with the hot. It trickled much like the tub faucet had done.

Typically, in the midst of these unplanned projects, my husband gets very frustrated. Which is to say, he suggests burning the house down as a viable option to fix the problem at hand. This time, he only commented, "I hate this house. I really do."

He started clearing the cupboard beneath the sink, grumbling at my collection of coffee cans and canning jars, potting soil, and other crap that resides underneath there.

I was standing there mentally trying to collect myself because I knew this project would be no less than a hundred bucks, conservatively. It was then I noticed a big plastic spoon in the dishdrainer beside the sink.

I picked it up, eyeing the hot water handle. What could it hurt, I thought. I delivered a quick whap of the spoon to the knob. Voila! Water began to flow.

"There. I fixed it for you," I said to my husband and went to sit down after doing my part.

"You know, that's only a temporary fix. There had to be sediment in there plugging it up. It's going to happen again," he said.

He collected his tools and started putting them back into his toolbox to return to his truck. I offered him my spoon.

"Sure you don't want to put this in there? It seems to come in handy for fixing things. You know, me and my spoon. You and your toolbox. There's nothing we couldn't fix,"I told him.

Of course, this is a lot funnier to me because I'm constantly using knives as screwdrivers and my rolling pin as a hammer when I'm forced to improvise. This drives him crazy when he tries to butter some toast with a butter knife with a tip that has been used to pry something open.

At any rate, I've grown weary of winter weather. How many more days until spring?