An Even Better Tuesday....

Today was not the best day ever, but it was certainly better than the last few weeks.

I had a dream last night with a very vivid piece.  I had drifted back to sleep this morning after feeding and watering the dogs.  Just before waking, wherever my dream had taken me, I was in a kitchen and when I turned around, Rudy was standing there.  In my dream, I knew that he had already died, but he said to me that he knew I had been needing him.  He walked to me and his big, loving arms enveloped me in a big, bear hug that seemed to go on forever.  I looked up at him, smiled and then he was gone.  But I still feel those arms today in my waking time.  And while I have some tears, they are satisfied tears of appreciation and I have been energized for my tasks today.  I will still need lots of earthly hugs to fill the void, but I feel better today.

So, I installed a new item in my house.  I cannot tell you what, yet, but when I can I will explain.  It was frightening as there were wires and drills and screws with levels and goofing it up could have affected a very pricey piece of equipment in my house.  But I took my time, followed directions step by step, asked questions when I was not sure and got everything done and everything worked perfectly!  I know for a fact that I would have been charged $250 or more to have had someone else do it, but part of what I did was do it myself.  So I am quite pleased.  More later.

Then I set about, with my earlier success under my electric drill, to replace the under-counter (Spacemaker) toaster oven in the kitchen.  I had to replace the one that had been in my kitchen since the 1990's.  It was no longer toasting bread into any kind of toasty surface.  I purchased a replacement and had hoped to get it installed today.  I am not super handy as it was usually Rudy putting stuff like that in.  He would have done a lot of grumbling but it would have been installed already.  As I type, it is not finished.

There were two tasks in this project, the removal of the old appliance and the installation of the new one.  The setup of the appliance is there is a heat shield that goes under the cabinet and the toaster oven hangs from it.  The old oven just slid into the slits on the shield.  So that part was easy, peasy.  The removal of the shield, not so much!

The screws, used some 20 years ago, had the standard slots and not Phillips slots, so they are more difficult to turn.  They have been in place for over 20 years,  They are inside the bottom part of the cabinet and the electric drill does not really fit, so it all had to be done by hand.  It took several attempts and different heights of stools and step ladders in order to reach over the stove top and into the cabinet to finally get all of the screws (they are at least 3 inches in length) and the old shield is gone.  I saved the screws as the ones supplied are not as long, and I saved the old spacers just in case.  But the old oven is in a trash bag outside, waiting for the garbage men to pick it up.

I had to take time to gather the garbage and eat a quick sandwich as I had not eaten much all day.  So I decided to tackle the installation tomorrow morning.  I have figured out the template and how the new holes will go, so it will just be execution.  Keep good thoughts for my task.

Heading for bed... perhaps to dream!!!  I could use another good hug as a reward for a job well done!