Slowly, slowly.
A week ago today the electricians came. They spent two days. I primed a few of the cabinets and the kitchen window came in so we worked to get it installed. We had our interruptions.....we always do. One thing that happened was that the morning after the electricians left, my telephones all quit working. I really REALLY don't think it had anything to do with them. But....in tracking down the problem, I realized that the service WAS coming to the house because I had a dial tone at the NID on the side of the house. I worked on this off and on for a few days, replaced the connections in the attic with a nice little junction box. I won't go into all of the different things I had to do, but I ended up bipassing a splitter outside and wired the master bedroom, and the office directly from the NID. We had already direct wired the workshop from there last year. That left me ONE MORE SLOT for a direct wire and no matter what I did, I couldn't get a signal on the other end of the line I wired there. This morning Ron and I pulled a brand new wire up through the soffit and across the attic into the new junction box. It still didn't work until I went BACK to the NID and started exchanging the lines. I don't know why, but it finally worked!
So. Now I know what a NID is (the box on the outside of the house that receives the signal is called a Network Interface Device.) I know that modern phone line has 6 wires but you only use two. I know that OLD phone lines had 3 or 4 wires and the colors do not match modern wire colors, so I learned that the modern BLUE connects with the old wire's RED and that it is the "ring" wire. The modern wire's white with blue is wired to the old wire's GREEN and that is the "tip" wire. (Isn't this interesting???!!!!)
While I was in the attic this morning, I also had to put a splitter on our cable wire so that I could run a new cable outlet to a location in my kitchen. This required 2 3-way splitters and SEVERAL screw on ends for the cable wire!
We have pulled out an old, unattached a/c vent in the kitchen ceiling and have put in a couple of sheet rock patches...on over the vent hole and one over the hole left under the old florescent ceiling light.
We really didn't do any work in the kitchen Fri-Sat-Sun. I DID hang all of the insulation, but there were many interruptions and I mentioned earlier.
On Friday I went on a field trip with Ashlyn's class. We visited a civil war park here in Zachary. Incidentally, my mother's maternal grandfather, Elias Baker, was a member of a New York Infantry that fought at that location! There were reinactors at the park for the children so we learned about cooking at a civil war camp,
firing a cannon,
caring for the injured (including a leg amputation!!!!),
spinning wool into thread for weaving (including dying it) (don't know how this fit in, but it was certainly interesting!)
games that would be played in camp when there were no battles raging, and different types of burials for the dead. We were told stories of actual men from battles there. This was followed by a picnic lunch and it was a very nice day.
Earlier in the week Ron had casually wiggled the regulator handle on the camper gas bottles and LO and BEHOLD....they came on!!!! Saturday I made a big pot of my own version of "goulash". Mom used to make goulash for us with ground meat, macaroni, tomatoes and green pepper. I have invented my own version with corn and black beans and we occasionally include a cheese sauce. We ate on this both Saturday AND Sunday.
LSU's final series at home was played this weekend. I did NOT attend. Ron went to all 3 games with the last being Sunday at noon. Saturday afternoon Heather was here with her best friend's toddler. Christie brought Emmie and they played in the back yard in the splash pool together. Soon George showed up with his girls and they brought me a Mother's Day Gift!
Christie, Jake and Emmie came Sunday afternoon after eating out with her mother and family. They got here shortly after Ron returned (early....it was TOO hot) from the game and spent the rest of the day with us. Another cute Mother's Day Gift and some cute cards.
I hope you celebrated the day with YOUR mother (or children if you ARE a mother!) I called my mom and had a nice chat before bedtime last night.
I need to tell you that Ron and I go to bed SO TIRED at night that sometimes we can't sleep well. Some of that may be due to the fact that we have aches and pains associated with this project. Neither of us are spring chickens anymore!!!!
So. Now I know what a NID is (the box on the outside of the house that receives the signal is called a Network Interface Device.) I know that modern phone line has 6 wires but you only use two. I know that OLD phone lines had 3 or 4 wires and the colors do not match modern wire colors, so I learned that the modern BLUE connects with the old wire's RED and that it is the "ring" wire. The modern wire's white with blue is wired to the old wire's GREEN and that is the "tip" wire. (Isn't this interesting???!!!!)
While I was in the attic this morning, I also had to put a splitter on our cable wire so that I could run a new cable outlet to a location in my kitchen. This required 2 3-way splitters and SEVERAL screw on ends for the cable wire!
We have pulled out an old, unattached a/c vent in the kitchen ceiling and have put in a couple of sheet rock patches...on over the vent hole and one over the hole left under the old florescent ceiling light.
We really didn't do any work in the kitchen Fri-Sat-Sun. I DID hang all of the insulation, but there were many interruptions and I mentioned earlier.
On Friday I went on a field trip with Ashlyn's class. We visited a civil war park here in Zachary. Incidentally, my mother's maternal grandfather, Elias Baker, was a member of a New York Infantry that fought at that location! There were reinactors at the park for the children so we learned about cooking at a civil war camp,
firing a cannon,
caring for the injured (including a leg amputation!!!!),
spinning wool into thread for weaving (including dying it) (don't know how this fit in, but it was certainly interesting!)
games that would be played in camp when there were no battles raging, and different types of burials for the dead. We were told stories of actual men from battles there. This was followed by a picnic lunch and it was a very nice day.
Earlier in the week Ron had casually wiggled the regulator handle on the camper gas bottles and LO and BEHOLD....they came on!!!! Saturday I made a big pot of my own version of "goulash". Mom used to make goulash for us with ground meat, macaroni, tomatoes and green pepper. I have invented my own version with corn and black beans and we occasionally include a cheese sauce. We ate on this both Saturday AND Sunday.
LSU's final series at home was played this weekend. I did NOT attend. Ron went to all 3 games with the last being Sunday at noon. Saturday afternoon Heather was here with her best friend's toddler. Christie brought Emmie and they played in the back yard in the splash pool together. Soon George showed up with his girls and they brought me a Mother's Day Gift!
Christie, Jake and Emmie came Sunday afternoon after eating out with her mother and family. They got here shortly after Ron returned (early....it was TOO hot) from the game and spent the rest of the day with us. Another cute Mother's Day Gift and some cute cards.
I hope you celebrated the day with YOUR mother (or children if you ARE a mother!) I called my mom and had a nice chat before bedtime last night.
I need to tell you that Ron and I go to bed SO TIRED at night that sometimes we can't sleep well. Some of that may be due to the fact that we have aches and pains associated with this project. Neither of us are spring chickens anymore!!!!
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