First, the fun part of the day:
I went to school! I was in kindergarten today as a special guest to celebrate my daughter’s sixth birthday that is in 2 days.
She picked Just Helping My Dad as the book I was to read aloud to the class.
I can recommend this book. Because, I am a Dad.
And…I got to sit in the “Teacher Chair” and read to my audience of 20 kindergarten students. And I have to tell you – they are a hard crowd to entertain. The wiggling and not paying attention was starting to run rampant until her teacher reminded them that they have a special guest (that would be me).
My little birthday girl sat right beside me in her birthday chair with a paper happy birthday crown perched right on top of her head as excited and proud as can be.
Once my performance was over the kids danced to a happy dance video and then sang happy birthday and then the ultimate treat: she got to pick a toy from the birthday box and she chose a squishy toy (that will get pitched soon when the novelty wears off) but this is kind of neat and something that I didn’t have for sure:
She got to pick a book to take home from the book vending machine.
A book vending machine! I have never bought a book from a machine. A Coke, yes. But never a book. Times have changed for sure.
Oh! The book was Spiderman and Friends. Books – from a vending machine! Who knew?
The whole birthday book reading took a hour.
How did I spend the other hours of my day? Pretending to be an electrician. A very bad electrician.
Or, depending on how it went: A fireman. Or maybe insurance adjuster.
It was a simple task: Change the outlet in the kitchen.
Easy, Yes?
I knew I was in over my head when I pulled the outlet out and there was a sea of wires hanging from it. I should have stopped and called the electrician right then and right there.
I didn’t. I am a fool.
There must be a technique to get two wires to stay in place when you tighten the screw and I am sure I do not know it. And even when you do get the wires attached then when you’re working on the other side, the ones you just put in fall out! It was a frustrating 2+ hours to say the least.
Then, to add insult to injury I thought I was done and when I went to turn things back on I had no power to the microwave. Back to square one and I am well into hour 3 at this point. Of course, I am doing all this at 4pm on a Friday and good luck finding an electrician if this went completely sideways which it could well have done.
As all things home-improvementy- it took me twice as long (if not longer) to get things sorted but at the end of the day all worked out and we now have a shiny new outlet in the kitchen and the microwave even works!
And that’s how we spent the day before the day before the birthday.