I Have a Dryer and Thoughts About Food

We have dryer! The repairperson was scheduled to show up between 6:30 am and 9:30 am, but actually arrived shortly before 8:30 am. By the time 9:15 am rolled around, the dryer was back together, he was backing out of the driveway, and DH was hurrying out the door to get to work on time. I had a different repair guy this time, and I liked him a lot. Not really a talker, but very efficient and answered my questions without hesitation. I did four loads of laundry after he left, and used my dryer, and every load was perfectly dry. I'm elated. No more laundromat! DH gives the repair 90 days. I wrote the date on my calendar - I think it will last far longer than that. 

I was busy cracking walnuts and pecans while 
chatting with Aearwen yesterday afternoon. I got 
a good portion done by the time we signed off 
for the week. 

I was so busy with laundry and grocery shopping/cooking that I didn't even get a chance to settle in front of a computer until after 2:00 pm. I was still getting up all the time to rescue clothes from the dryer or do the next project in the kitchen, but at least I had a chance to catch up with different people during the afternoon. I had my weekly phone convo with Aearwen (delightful as always) while I was cracking walnuts and pecans to make a mixed nut arrangement of my own choice. I had purchased some hazelnuts, Brazil nuts and almonds at the store, and wanted to crack some walnuts and pecans to add to them. Then I'll shell some pistachios, and my personalized nut mix will be complete. I love nuts, but the commercial mixes just aren't the nuts I want. 

Have you ever seen cashew nuts in the wild? This 
is what they look like on the tree. The nut itself 
is protected by a toxic shell. Here's a short video 
that tells you all about cashews. 

Speaking of nuts, I'm trying to wean myself away from one of my absolute favorite nuts - cashews. I already eat very few almonds because they are water guzzlers and not an environmentally friendly nut tree, but I was totally unaware of the human toll that harvesting cashews requires. Although cashews have been a favorite of mine for more than 50 years, I'm knocking them out of my diet because I can't support forced labor or poisoning people who process these nuts for our consumption. 

I'm thinking a roast beef for Sunday might be perfect. 

DH told me yesterday that I've "ruined" his Sundays and I'd better present him with menu choices for this Sunday. I think he's out of line, but I'll give him a single choice - roast beef with honey roasted carrots and roasted green beans with slivered almonds (I already have the almonds on hand from a few months ago). Will this "menu" work for him? I have no idea. 

If we move into winter, it's going to knock a lot of veggies 
and fruits out of our selections. We'll be using sweet 
potatoes, kale, beets and other root crops for our salads. 
Here's a nice looking kale salad. Kale isn't one of 
my absolute favorites, but I can deal with it knowing the 
season will move into Spring soon. 

I'm fairly sure WildFit will be moving into a winter season starting next week which will blast our massive fruit intakes down considerably and push our bodies to start burning fat as a fuel instead of burning sugar. I know weeks six and seven are always thought of as the hardest weeks by anyone who has gone through the program, so I'm really looking forward to finding out what changes will go into effect on Monday. On that note, I'm out of here. Have an excellent day and please be kind, stay safe and please wear your mask. I'll be back tomorrow. 

A Saga About My Dryer Repair - Argh Doesn't Begin To Describe My Opinion

The dryer repair person was expected between 8:30-11:30 am, but didn't arrive until almost 11:00 am. A poor beginning for what turned into a poor experience all together. We didn't click - Tim and I. Just didn't really click at all. He went to the dryer and first questioned whether I wanted the work done at all since it was $400+ into a 6-year-old dryer and I could spend an additional 2-3 hundred to get a new dryer. "No," I said, "I want this fixed". 

The rectangular box on the back right side at the bottom 
of the disassembled dryer is the heat exchange unit. That's 
what broke to cause me to contact repair to come out. 
The Idle Assembly was somewhere on the left side in the 
electronics over there. 

So, that said, he proceeded to dismantle my dryer to get to the heating element. He knew what he was doing - exactly where each screw was, and exactly how to get everything off, up and out. I might not have liked him, but he did good work. 

The belt is supposed to be fairly snug around 
the dryer drum. This is how loose my belt 
was when he pulled the drum from the dryer 
yesterday. Not tight at all. It's rather 
remarkable the drum was able to move around 
at all with this much slack. 

Unfortunately, when we took a serious look at the dryer, it wasn't just the heat exchange, but also the belt and something called an Idle Pulley Transfer Assembly. He didn't have these parts on his truck, so he put everything back together again, called it a "diagnostic" call instead of a repair, and trundled away to his next call. He left it up to me whether I wanted to have him order the two parts and come back to do the repair. After thinking about it, I finally contacted the company for a refund on the money I had already paid them for the repair and decided to talk to DH about it (not that he's talking to me at the moment, but this is home repair stuff and he'll talk - minimally - about that). 

The Idler Pulley assembly was toast, one more 
part that the belt attaches to for moving the 
dryer drum. It's not much of a part and not 
very expensive, the expense is all in the 
labor, not the parts. 

I decided I'm going to investigate getting a new dryer, so I measured the old one today because the space is tight - not a lot of wiggle room at all. I'll start looking at dryers on-line today. Wherever I buy it from will also have to do the installation, so I'll start with my local appliance store. They actually have VERY good people for the install part of the job. I'll be using the laundromat dryers for a few more weeks while I figure all of this out. (Big sigh.)

A new tensioner and belt can be purchased for less 
than $100, and the heat exchange unit usually runs 
anywhere from $100-$150. So the total in parts at 
most, is approx $250. The labor, on the other hand, 
is at least $300-$400, bringing the total to $550 or more. 
Maybe if I hadn't disliked the repair person so much, 
I would have considered it, but by this time I would 
have put $650 into an old dryer when I can go 
new, with a new warranty, for a couple of hundred 
more. As much as I'd love to keep my current 
dryer, it doesn't make a lot of economic sense. 

To say I'm very disappointed in the quality of my Samsung dryer is an understatement. I'm very pissed off that something that was installed in my house on January 21, 2015 is already dead on March 11, 2021. I really expect more than six years from major appliances. At least the washing machine is still working well (knocking on the nearest piece of wood). 

On that note, I'm out of here. As always have a wonderful day and please be kind, stay safe and wear your mask. I'll be back tomorrow. 

Smoothies and a Wish For Smooth Sailing For My Dryer

It'll be a busy day, but there are a few things that will rise to the top for "need to accomplish" today. The first of these is reviewing the day's lecture for my nutrition program. New foods to add or to take away are introduced on Friday and take effect on Monday. That gives everyone the weekend to shop, but I'd rather drop by the grocery today, since it's a day off anyway. I'll have a couple of days where I can either start the new food regime, or if I would prefer, I can hold off until Monday. Since one of the items is a morning smoothie (taking the place of my beloved oatmeal - 'weeping'), I'll need to figure out how to make it when I'm not pressed for time. Today will be a practice day. 

I'm not sure about drinking green things. I'm also not exactly 
sure about what the recipe is. I've found a lot of different 
recipes for smoothies to drink later in the program, but this first 
one is rather specific. I guess I'll find out three things: (1) 
what is in the smoothie (ingredients), (2) whether my 
old blender is up to the task, and (3) whether or not I'll 
manage with these taking the place of my oatmeal. 

I have the Dryer Vent Witch cleaning people coming today between 10:00 am and noon. I'm hoping it will go quickly, but given past experiences with my appliances, there will probably be something that will make it more difficult. My duct isn't a straight shot, there's a u-turn in the vent hose. I suspect that will give some difficulty, but hopefully they will be experienced enough that it won't phase them (much). 

My dryer duct hose isn't quite as bad as the goosenecks 
in Gooseneck State Park in Utah, but it still has a full 
180 degree bend it in before it gets to the external vent. 
I hope the duct cleaning guys can handle a bend like that. 

I'm seriously hoping this will fix my dryer, so I'll need to test it out on something. I probably can run a quick load of laundry. I'll have to hang wet clothes around the house if it doesn't work, though. I have no time to hit the laundromat for an in-between load. 

I rather like green vegetables, but I know one of the 
components of the smoothie is celery and I'm concerned 
about those strings of celery in the blade of my 
older blender. I don't want to have to buy a new 
piece of equipment for this program. If my old 
blender works, then I'll be quite happy. 

Of course, I'll be at the grocery at some point, getting what I need for my nutrition course's next week, but I'm also hoping to spend at least a little time seaming up more of my sweater. It sits in a bag next to my laptop backpack and it mocks me every time I'm grabbing my electronics. It's amazing what a loud voice a pile of knitted yarn can have - LOL. 

So, I'm going to wrap this up and start taking notes about today's nutrition lecture. I hope all of you have an absolutely fabulous Friday and I plan on being back (with positive news about my dryer - fingers crossed) tomorrow. Until then, please be kind, stay safe and wear your mask.