Figured I'd HAVE to take a trunk-load of scrap to Harding Metals this morning or I'd have no room for a Christmas tree in the back of the car, which we really wanted to get today. But first I had to investigate and identify the water shutoffs in the cellar in anticipation of having a friend fix the leak in the bathtub faucet tomorrow.

EVERYTHING involves more and takes longer than you think it will.

After bushwhacking to the main water shut off for the house and clearing out the stuff in front of it (that's where the other clamp light was!) and moving around a bunch of other cellar stuff AND finding another length of copper tubing to sell, I came upstairs exhausted, out of breath, sweating and explained to Tom that all I had energy left for was drawing a diagram of the plumbing & shutoffs around the water heater (that seems to be the hub) and cleaning the bathroom.

Tom looked as if I'd just shot his dog (if he had a dog)...he'd really been looking forward to getting out of the house today. So... we went out. The scrap metal is GONE and converted into 33 bucks. Traded 16 of those bucks for a Christmas tree.

Yeah. I feel pretty good that there's two more things to cross off my list. The tarps which had covered the metal are now folded and in the boot of my car. Lunch was made and consumed. Laundry is in. Dishwasher almost totally loaded.

I think I'll take a couple pictures of the Rube Goldberg plumbing arrangement and maybe Tom can see it on the computer screen and remember exactly what he did when he was plumbing it...

I may bring a few more things up from the cellar to take up to the (diminishing) FREE pile at the head of the driveway. It's spitting rain. (At least it's not snowing -- all of Sunday and Monday's snow is gone except for a few dirty remnants.)

Gotta go do stuff or my body's gonna seize up. I can feel the aches already from this morning's exertions. Oh, besides the cellar stuff, I cleared out the stuff in the bathroom cubby (in front of the frozen cold water shutoff) and stored it temporarily in the guestroom. Mostly I've spent the day getting into weird positions and moving stuff. Who needs to pay a gym membership to workout?

Linn