Anyway, I've long heard stories about all of the home improvements Josh has completed in the past. He's put stone and wood floors in (only to have his mom move soon after completion and do them all over again), fixed other things...etc. Can you tell I never paid that much attention? The truth was that even though I believed him, I had never seen any evidence of such skills with my own eyes. I've seen him spend hours upon hours editing (and filming and watching) movies, enjoy great art, talk about books, cook, and write scripts, but none of those things provided anything close to indisputable proof of his more practical abilities. In truth, the main handyman skills we've been in need of during our marriage have been car related, and he never claimed those. However, when our shower deconstructed this weekend by first letting go of its head, which hit Josh at full force in the eye, and then refusing to drain any water at all, I was more than a little dismayed.
You have to understand that we've been living for at least two years with an oven that beeps until you pull it out and unplug it after each use. And then the clock blinks constantly. But if you set the clock (which you have to do to turn it on), it starts beeping again once you turn the heat off. Unplugging the oven was my job before the baby bump. Now, I'll occasionally glance up from a book to see Josh's legs flailing wildly in the air as he attempts to balance himself on the counter with his head between the wall and a hot metal surface. Also, for probably four months we've had a kitchen faucet that drips so much that I have to disguise its relentless tap-tap with a well-placed dish rag or risk institionalization.
All this is to say that we tend to live with pain-in-the-butt work arounds rather than fixing the things that break in our house. I think it's because I'm too cheap to pay someone to fix these things, but we're both too busy to figure out how to fix them ourselves. That and it's so much fun to unplug the oven often!
But, alas, I could not come up with a shower work-around other than driving to Kristin's house to shower (which I did one morning--thanks again, Kristin), so Josh was forced to put his long-boasted skills to work.
And lo and behold, he has them! In a jiffy he had the tub draining and had installed a brand new, much better shower head. Our shower is just heavenly now! What's more--he's on to the kitchen faucet today! He's unstoppable.
Now, I know that the above feats may not seem all that praiseworthy to those of you who are more mechanically inclined. But all I have to say to you is what do you know about oven electronics?
The only potential problem with our new shower is that on its maiden voyage this morning, it ran out of hot water half way through! That's never happened to me before. So here is my question--is it possible that our new shower head is releasing more water than the old one even though the hot water lever is in the exact same position as before? It seems like the same amount of water would come out of the pipe regardless and that a shower head would only change the distribution of that water. Any experience with this?
7 comments:
Oh Josh, you are so handy!
I remember a display from my Boy Scout days where they where showing a a certain shower head maintains the same amount of pressure and uses a lot less water. So I guess it can make a difference.
But then again, I was 12 and didn't look too closely at the thing. Water conservation wasn't at the top of my very short list of things that merited much attention.
I should probably more carefully proof the posts I leave on my English teacher's blog.
first of all, i read this out loud to neil and he laughed so much that there's now toothpaste decorating our floor. he loved the image of josh balancing on the counter. oh, and this is rachael even though I'm signed in as neil.
also, my friendly household engineer says that your shower problem is indeed caused by the new shower head. he says you can either a) go buy a different head with a slower flow rate or b) turn up the temperature setting on your water heater or c) buy a bigger hot water heater (not recommended for the cost efficiency). and he also says that it may be easier to just flip the breaker to the oven on and off rather than unplugging it. he says if it's 240 volts, which most ovens are, it should have its own breaker. but if it's not on its own breaker, you may turn off other kitchen appliances as well.
hope those help!
Thanks for your advice, Rachael/Neil. We'll have to try one of the first two suggestions--that, or I need to find a much quicker way to shower.
Do you think you send Josh over to my house sometime soon? I have a few handy man jobs for him!
Keaka is quite a handyman and I am a little of a handywoman myself. Still, our toilet handle needs to be jiggled and our sink drips. Josh may just inspire me to get to it and fix them. I'll tell you how it goes.
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