Four Things I Did Today

Today was a pretty productive day around the house. I’ve been ever more the homebody these days, and I am actually starting to get a rhythm now that my travel has been pared back to the absolute minimum—a reality I am loving. The ramp-up to Christmas was always a special thing for me as a young boy. One of my favorite memories of my mom is of her going all out each and every Christmas. She spent her personal fortune on our Christmas mornings—and while for many that would seem irresponsible and wreckless—as a child on the receiving end of that mania it was nothing short of awesome! And even now as that child looking back on it 30 years later it holds much of its original magic. I’ve come to the realization that the irrationality behind the Christmas holiday as it is practiced currently is the greatest thing about it. But that’s not what this post is about.

This post is about 4 things I did today in chronological order.

1) The first thing I did was put up the Christmas lights around casa bava. I did a pretty awesome job on them if a must say so myself. The garlands above the icicles along the top are inspired and don’t make the lights look nearly as naked and lonely as they usually do in this arrangement. What’s more, the garlands around the column were first hand-wrapped with love and care in white lights. I have a bit more to do outside, but I have already kicked all my neighbors asses.
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

2) After that, Antonella and I built a train set on our Christmas tree (I put that bad boy up yesterday). It’s something we bought last year for the tree thinking it went under the tree only to find out it goes in/on the tree. We already had all our decorations up so we decided to wait until this year, and now we have a full blown engine driving around our douglas fir. Epic! (We also crushed our neighbors with this detail.)

The Christmas Tree Train

The Xmas Tree Train Wide shot

3) Window hardware. I have been working on the kitchen and dining room lately and I have been meaning to strip and clean the hardware on the windows but still haven’t. And, as it turns out, two of our windows had been lockless for too long. I secured them back on for the time being, and hopefully I’lll finish this with one of the free days I’ll have this Christmas break (we get almost 3 weeks this year—how sick is that!).

The Only Windows Hardware in my house

And last, but not least, I pulled apart my broken washing machine to see if I couple fix it myself instead of forking over much needed Chistmas money. And thanks to this YouTube video by Bill Newberry—who is awesome for posting it—I figured out it was a broken motor coupling, and I’ve already ordered it from Repair Clinic. Winning.

Image of a borken Kenmore 80s Series Motor Couping

And here is the engine and transmission for my washing machine that I took out. It feels so good to be able to do stuff like this—I love that people share their expertise in ways that make it so easy to do it yourself.

Kenmore 80s Series Engine and Tranmission

NOBODY!

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4 Responses to Four Things I Did Today

  1. Good for you, Jim! The house is looking awesome. We replaced our motor coupling, and re-assembly takes two people and lots of muscle. Noel and I cursed our way through it together!

  2. Reverend says:

    Cathy,

    Good to know. I figured my sense of accomplishment came way too easy thus far 🙂 How is the new machine working? Like a charm?

    Also, on a different note, how are the new digs? We miss you here at UMW!

  3. Love the picture of the outside of your house. It looks lovely Makes me curious to see medium shots of the inside. I’m also paring down Christmas to make it more meaningful and less frenetic.

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