I have regained the will to knit

But am still unable to face any of my WIPs, so I cast on a pair of socks. Using Jojoland on size 2’s, toe up two at once. Mmmm socks.

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Ok so plumbing story

It was just a leak. A leaking faucet. Unfortunately, it was the hot water faucet and it started leaking pretty badly. Like “oh crap, we don’t want to pour hot water into the tub 24 hours a day” badly.

My sister and I, being handy as we can be (mind you, our favorite tool is duct tape) decided we could fix this. Just a washer. Who can’t replace a washer?

People who can’t find the water shut off, that’s who.

First. We looked around the bathroom. No shut off for the tub. Hit the google. Hmmm, access panel on the other side of the wall? Not exactly, but there is a vent to nowhere right where the back of the tub would be. We could just make that a little bigger and maybe find a valve back there. A few minutes into our adventure, we have accomplished this:

Inside the larger hole, we look, and after getting over the freakout factor of being so close to something that looks like this:

We suck it up and take a good look up, down, around inside that wall. Pipes. Yep. There’s pipes. The hot one is the one we are interested in, right? Damn, we’re good.

Following that up, we see nothing but the back of the tub and the shower. Ok, so, hm. Where does this go off to the right then?

It goes…right into a stud. Anything on the other side of that? No. FINE. We will just head off and try and turn the water off from outside.

There was a meter looking thing that fit the description from the city site, and a hole in the ground containing nothing, that was labeled water meter. We turned the valve on the meter looking thing. Still water in the house. Ok…hm.

The water heater! We can just turn that water source off, and turn off the water heater so nothing explodes during our attempt to replace the washer. I hope we don’t break anything on the water heater.

Yikes, sharpness. Not to mention, it won’t turn a single millimeter. Let’s repair it , spray some WD40 on it, and let it sit here and think for a while.

Repair magic!

We never did get that valve to budge.

Decided to turn the water heater back on so the children could take baths and stuff. After 45 minutes or so of unsuccessful attempts to get the pilot light relit, I put two large pots of water on the stove, Little House on the Prairie style and turned on the burners. Actually, I turned the knobs and heard the click-click, but no flames.

Apparently we turned off the gas when we tried to turn off the water outside. Got that turned back on, fired up the stove, and waited, looking forward to taking nice hot showers that night after all of the wasted day.

Next morning…still no hot water. WTF. I check the water heater and the pilot light is still on, but no burner. No combination of turning on the hot water taps and adjusting the thermostat resulted in any burner action whatsoever.

Closer inspection reveals – the knob thing that turns from off-pilot-on? I broke the plastic part. So on the outside, it says on, but taking the plastic part off reveals, it is still in pilot light mode. Fixed.

Two days of fixing and breaking and fixing, and we’re back where we started, with a little trophy from inside the walls.

Today, a friend who happens to be a plumber came over and fixed the whole thing in a few minutes. Yay for friends.

P.S. I got my knitting mojo back and cast on a pair of socks after this whole ordeal. Ahh.

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Things I suck at, part 1042

Plumbing. Seriously. A leaky faucet is going to be my downfall. I’ve been taking pictures during this adventure (by adventure, I mean disaster), and if I manage to not go completely insane before it is all over, I shall post the whole thing tonight or tomorrow.

Meanwhile, you 80’s freaks and/or karaoke lovers should check out the contest for this show. It’s easy to enter and the grand prize swag doesn’t suck.

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What to put in the bubble

So I found a site full of awesomely awesome free blogger templates suckmylolly and changed up the look around here yet again. Check her out if you want your blog to look spiffy too!

I just need to fix my link lists and put something in her speech bubble. The voices in my head have yet to tell me exactly what. Just the blog name seems too…bleh.

Too much family time, not enough messing around time to deal with blog issues, although I think we will try and record a podcast sometime this weekend.

Later kiddos…

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Like, wow, I’m still not knitting!

I’ve thought about it, does that count? This is becoming less of a knitting blog and more of a blogging blog, I think. There will still be knitting, but not just knitting.

My favorite thing on the internets today: http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/adaccess/

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Stuff is coming, honest

Seriously, I have some pictures of projects to post, I’m putting all of my stitch markers and things in my etsy store and there seem to be all these kids running around…Tonight I’m editing the podcast, tomorrow is all about fresh bloggy stuff. I know, it’s thrilling. Yep.

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