Our extended family is pretty amazing. We were invited to a celebration on Saturday afternoon: Karean’s grandmother turned 91, and the family invited us to her party. Mother is an amazing woman; if I hadn’t seen the candles on her birthday cake I would have sworn she’s thirty years younger. We sat on the back deck and picked crabs and laughed and enjoyed every minute of our stay.

I had a successful day at my FIL’s house repairing a bunch of things; first on the list was the hot water line in the guest bathroom, which I’d struggled with two weeks ago and given up on. The fitting was leaking, and I couldn’t get it off with the tools I’d brought, so last week I splurged on new locking pliers and brought a smaller set of vice-grips. In about five minutes I had the fitting off, which was a relief. I replaced it with a Shark-Bite and hooked everything up, and within twenty minutes had the whole cabinet buttoned up and hot water running again. That was a huge relief, because I’d prefer never to have to crawl under the house to access the main water shutoff again in my life.

Next up was the kitchen disposal unit, which wasn’t functioning at all. It’s very new—I don’t recall installing this for him, but I did do the dishwasher fifteen years ago—so it should have been working fine. After testing the power at the switch and to the unit, both checked out fine. I found a manual online and learned that it has a fuse on the bottom. after resetting that and pulling a piece of glass and a metal pin out of the bucket, I got it working and cleaned it up. There were various other projects around the house to tackle, and after some weeding in the side yard, I made a dump run and got the garage cleared out. Then we met with a salesman who gave us a quote on replacing the guest shower; it’s been torn apart for years and could stand to be replaced.

We had to get on the road by six to get Finn back for a good night’s sleep—her first day of school was today—so we said our goodbyes and hit the road. It was a lovely evening for a ride with the top down, but by the time we got home I was exhausted. It took a long time to get to bed and I woke up groggy and tired.