Beep, Beep, Beep

Last night as I was watching television, I heard a beeping sound. I was not sure where it was coming from but after a few minutes I got up to investigate. It was not the kind of sound that my smoke detectors give off, but I checked them anyway. I continued to walk around until I went upstairs and saw my carbon monoxide detector blinking and chirping. For a moment I got scared. Was it a low battery or was there carbon monoxide in the air. I opened up all of the windows just in case, until I found the AA batteries to replace the existing ones. I climbed onto a chair and one by one put in the new batteries. The beeping stopped and I tested the unit to make sure that I had installed the batteries correctly. All was well, but I now had a pounding headache. For the few minutes when I was not sure it was only a weak battery, I did not want to take a deep breath.

Choices

Every evening I pick out the outfit I will wear to work the next day. I look in my closet and begin the process of choosing my clothes. First I start with the pants. What color am I in the mood to wear? Do I feel like basic black, or chocolate brown or maybe grey? Do I want the tweed or the pinstriped? Once the decision is made for the pants, I move onto the tops. Do I want a sweater or a cotton top or should I choose a layered look? Next, I move onto shoes. Do I want to wear boots or flats or a low heel? Once the outfit is chosen, I lay it out on the dresser until I wear it the next morning. I like to be prepared ahead of time and do not want to have to pull out clothes at 6am. I have no idea what makes my brain decide on the "color of the day" as each article of clothing is one that I liked enough to buy. I guess it is the same theory of foods. Am I in the mood for Italian, Chinese or American?

T-2

I have two bathrooms in my house. What would be the odds of both of them having a problem at the same time. You guessed it. Like Murphy's Law says, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Being the do-it-yourselfers that we are, having a plumber come and fix them was the last option. We went to Home Depot and bought the parts. The small bathroom was easy to fix. It just needed a flap. The larger bathroom was going to be the hard one. We needed to remove the tank and put in a new seal. Too bad that the screws holding down the tank did not get the memo. After hours of twisting and turning, using monkey wrenches and vises, we gave up and called the plumber. He will be here in one hour.

Una Mente De Ello Es Propia

Una mente de ello es propia, is Spanish for "a mind of its own". I have been writing this blog for almost two years. Every morning I go to the website and enter my password. About one month ago the Google page for this blog turned Spanish. At first I "x"'d out the browser to start all over again, but it still came up in Spanish. I noticed that at the bottom of the page there is a drop down box to choose your language. I highlighted English and the page turned to English. I thought I was through. Wrong. The next morning the Spanish appeared again. It is only Spanish on the log in page for Blogspot, nowhere else. I turned it to English once again. Every morning I redirect the log in box to English. This morning I just gave up and logged in, in Spanish. Acabo de abandonar ( I just gave up).

Loaded

I might not be the most technological person around, but I am pretty good with figuring out how things work. Whenever there is a problem at my office, I am the one that fixes it. Since I will be doing some lectures next month, I needed a stapler that could be used for 20 pages. A standard stapler cannot do the job. I purchased a  stapler that could easily bind 25 pages. When I opened it up to load the staples, I did it the standard way. I placed the staples on the metal bar and closed it. It would not work. I reloaded it with less staples. No good. I reloaded it with more staples. Still no good. I showed it to my husband and he did the same thing. I put it aside and decided not to look at it again. When my husband got home from work, he decided it was his mission to load the staples. I am not sure how long it took, but he figured it out. They needed to be loaded with the stapler upside down, almost defying gravity. I have no idea who thought up that concept. It made no sense, but the stapler now works.

Arctic Freeze

It is cold outside. The kind of cold that makes you run. The thermometer says 22 degrees but it feels like 6 degrees. I changed my outfit twice, each time putting on a warmer sweater. I am sure that when I am in my office, sweating, I will regret that decision. The only good thing is that there is no snow. Yesterday, depending on where you live, you either had clear ground or a winter wonderland. All of this within a matter of ten miles. I shouldn't complain. So far this winter has not been as bad as expected.

The New Ink

I just replaced the ink cartridge in my printer. The ink is getting to be so expensive that sometimes it is cheaper to buy a new printer that comes with 2 new inks. Once the ink is replaced, it goes through its test cycle. I have no idea why it has to print a full page of black and blue designs. Why can't it just do 3 or 4 lines. As it does its cycle, all I can think of is that it is wasting my precious, expensive ink.