From The Oven

I'm changing the title of my blog to "From The Oven".  Cooler weather has finally set in.  Instead of 103-106 every day, we are all the way down to 101.  Of course that all depends on which weather app you look at.  I've checked four so far, and none of them are the same.  

This looks pretty much like rain to me, and I can attest to the rise in humidity (no rain though), because FEELS LIKE has gone up at least 5 degrees. 

On the other hand, this one says it's absolutely COOL with no rain in the forecast.  Who makes up this stuff?  I can tell you it never got down to 75 degrees however.  My house AC is set to 80 degrees, and it's MUCH hotter outside.  It's an OVEN I tell you, and we are all on slow bake.

The only one happy as a clam about the weather is Jonathan.  He loves the warm.  These guys are escape artists, as you can tell from this picture.  They always give it away though.  I could hear the chortling from the back sewing room and I KNEW something was up.  Sure enough, he had pushed open the door and was wandering around outside of the cage.  Pretty good acrobats these guys.  

No, the heat lamp is not on.  That's just for winter time.  

First things first ... strike while the iron is hot, or in this case when the temperature is as cool as it's going to get.  The nice guy at Ace sold this to me so I could get that stripped screw out of the door lock.  I could tell he didn't have much hope that I would be successful because that's what he said.  Good Luck!!

I admit, I had no clue how to use these things, but I guess it's time to learn.  I put on my Locksmith hat and went to work, hammer in hand.  You are supposed to pick one of the little screwdriver-bit looking thingys and hammer it into the head of the screw.  Then you try to turn it with a wrench.

It was with great satisfaction that I hammered so loudly, the neighbor's dog (who barks constantly) began barking and disturbing its owner.  They do it all the time to me.  It's payback!!  I laughed out loud!

Can you believe it???  I actually was able to get that top screw out!!  I even surprised myself!!  Then it was a matter of jimmying the lock up and down to get it out.  Getting the replacement in was a little more difficult, even if it was the exact same size.  

I was extremely careful not to let any of those screws fall inside.  The weird part is the lock lever is attached to the handle, which I wasn't replacing.  I'm not sure I got it in exactly right, but VOILA!!

It's all back together and it WORKS!!  I can't believe I actually fixed this one.  It took a little bit of adjustment, but the lock works perfectly and stays locked like it should.  Chalk one up for Nancy!!  I probably saved $120.00.

While it was still only 85 degrees outside, I grabbed my gloves, a very long handled knife and a pair of tongs in order to do surgery on one of the worst cactus plants in my yard.  It has billions of hair-like needles that have hooks on the end ... the better to imbed themselves in your skin.

Surely I can just lop off a few pieces invading the lawn area and toss them over the fence with no sticks in my fingers.  That would be a NO.  They are like the jumping chollas ... they reach out and touch you!!  I've now got four pieces in my fingers that are so tiny you can't even see to get them out ... but you sure can FEEL them!!

I spent the afternoon watching the Calgary Stampede and finishing up this quilt top.  I've now got nine quilts stacked up waiting to be quilted.  

In other fascinating heat wave news, I had a good scare this morning.  Something was making a terrible racket on my patio.  It sounded like someone was moving stuff on the wall ... and like cans being kicked on the ground.  What the heck?  If you're breaking in, you sure are being noisy about it.  And if you are a critter ... how did you get over the fence?

I crept outside in the dark (armed to the teeth) to see what it was.  Oh good grief!!!  For whatever reason, the sprinklers were hitting the downspout, making a racquet of epic proportions every time it went by.  I'm now soaking wet because I had to go fix it.  Problem solved and I didn't have to shoot anyone!!

It's always an experience in the desert.  Let's hope it cools off SOMETIME soon!!!

That's it for today ..... From The Oven