Scattered Thoughts . . .

I had previously written that we had noticed a couple of problems with our clothes dryer in recent weeks.  The drum was making some squeaking and creaking as it tumbles and the clothes were not fully drying as they should.  Also, everything was coming out wrinkled so I knew that something was not right. Yesterday morning, I completely disassembled our dryer, cleaned it out completely (it wasn't bad at all, actually, but I figured I should do this while I was inside the dryer), and replaced the rollers for the drum as well as installed a new belt.  That job was a bit of a pain in the butt but it is done.   I think they must have used locktite on the bolts holding the drum rollers because removing them was extremely difficult and frustrating.  While I was inside the machine, I checked everything and tested the heating element.  The heating element tested as good so all I did with that is removed the little bit of lint and dust that was around the elemen...

So, once again, between rain showers, I've been pulling tools and lumber out of the shed so I can finish my dryer vent repair.  As rain showers would approach, I would quickly put everything back into the shed...  then back out again...  then back in...  etc.   ________________________________________________________________ To update - After all the moist, rainy weather over the past month or so, we noticed that our clean clothes were coming out of the dryer smelling terribly.  Once we opened the dryer door and stuck our head in the dryer, it was clear why our clothes were smelly after being in the dryer.  The dryer itself smelled terribly! It sort of smelled like a mouse nest or dead animal so I was originally thinking that I would find one or the other in the vent or inside the dryer.  I disassembled the dryer and found nothing.  Then I ran our shop vac up the vent from the outside to see if it would grab a dead animal.  Once ag...

Let's start with the good stuff.  Unlike many people who live along the Winooski River, as well as some other rivers in other areas, our home did not suffer from any flooding.  Our home is still intact, standing and in relatively good condition so that is very good news.  Sheila is working from home for the foreseeable future but we expected that to happen.  Montpelier was devastated due to catastrophic flooding.  Sheila's office building fared relatively well through the flooding but, since the entire downtown area is in recovery mode, they don't need people driving in and parking in areas that are in full recovery mode.  They would only get in the way.  Consequently, Sheila will continue to work from home for the foreseeable future.   On a sidenote, we've also heard of a few buildings in downtown Montpelier being condemned.  This will make the recovery significantly more difficult and more prolonged.   We had a couple of powe...

We've been without the use of a dryer for about three weeks now.  It wasn't the end of the world though.  I set up a couple of clotheslines behind the house so we could continue to do laundry when it wasn't raining but I like absolutely nothing related to hanging clothes outside on a line so it has been a long, frustrating three weeks. First, I really hate seeing clothes hanging in someone's yard or over a railing.  That is not the place for clothes.  Next, drying clothes is then dependent upon the weather and we get a lot of rain-days here in Waterbury.  Worse yet, all the clothes turn out flat, stiff, rough and I think some of them have gotten moldy due to the lack of high heat that a good dryer would apply to each load.  When we would bring clothes into the house to be folded, we could just stand them up in a corner because they were stiff as a board.  If they had that freshly pressed look, that would be great but they looked like they spent the a...