How NOT to Fix a Circuit Breaker

While I was in the middle of cooking dinner (and no, you didn't read that wrong...I was cooking), the entire house lost power. Power outage, we thought after Dan made his way to the electrical box and declared everything ship shape. So, we took the kids out to dinner, because, really, it was like 100 degrees today and without air conditioning....that stinks. We left, fully anticipating that the power would be restored upon our arrival.

Alas, it was not.

I called the power company, reported the outage and was informed a mere 30 minutes later that there was indeed power to our house. Lovely. By this time the kidlets were in bed and two of the three were fast asleep. I made my way down into the basement and proceeded to flip all of the switches myself...except for the top one...also known as the main breaker...because I couldn't get it to budge.

Now, here is where the "don't ever do this unless you're a professional electrician" part comes in. Pay attention.

I thought, perhaps, if I removed the entire covering for the panel I would somehow magically see what was not working and be able to fix it. This, apparently, was not a smart move.

Suffice it to say that when my younger, taller and obviously stronger brother arrived on the scene, he was aghast. In one swift motion he was able to shut off the main breaker and reset it....effectively restoring power to the house and taking business away from our electrician (who is, unfortunately for us, currently vacationing in Florida). After restoring power, said younger brother gave me a well-deserved talking to about NOT taking off the box cover unless I wanted to be found dead on the basement floor.

I deserved the lecture, but alas, it seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Perhaps I should add this to my post on being impulsive...

On A Whim. (aka My Brilliant Impulsiveness)

As I was washing the cat in the sink with lemon fresh hand soap in the three minutes it was going to take to heat water for the kids' lunch, a few things dawned on me...

1. I'm impulsive.
2. I manage to cram a lot of little tasks in between the big ones.
And 3....bathing the cat in the sink is not a good idea unless you're prepared with things like leather falcon training gloves, bandages, antiseptic cream and a plethora of towels.

Let that serve as fair warning in case you ever feel inclined to bathe your cat...especially if he has claws. Sharp claws.

Anyway, I started thinking about other impulsive things that I've done that might help to serve as warning to you. After all, if you're reading this, the very least I can do is provide you with practical advice. So, grab some lemon water or a cup of coffee and learn from my mistakes...

1. Painting the living room stoplight yellow as a surprise for your spouse is not always a good idea. It's best to stop when 3/4 of one wall is done and just apologize profusely.

2. Rearranging the furniture in your house just because you're bored...will leave you with more work than you wanted. Guaranteed.

3. While it may seem like a good idea to start putting things aside for a yard sale, unless you're actually going to HAVE said yard sale, it's best just to leave the junk in the closet.

4. Starting to place an order online 5 minutes before you need to leave to go somewhere is a sure guarantee that the site will freeze...as it's processing your credit card.

And those are my gems for the day. I'm sure I'll think of more later...it's a given.