The Mobile Home Woman | Our journey from urban homesteading to rural homesteading at Windhaven farm…

Guess Who Got Cable?

Posted on September 6, 2009 by MobymomSeptember 6, 2009

Now before you go and freak out and get mad at me… it was kinda free, so I decided to accept it.

You see, with the new virtual school that Maggie is doing, well, they are paying us a little bit each month for our internet service! 10 bucks. And since I already have a cable modem since my business is all done at home and I need to have it, I was already paying $39 a month for high speed internet. Well….. we also had a Netflick account for movies, but I found that we were just not using that very well. It was $10 a month. ($9.99)

Soooo….. and we had gotten the digital converter box and antenna, but it was so annoying. What little TV we wanted to watch, our area was not good reception so it was always digitizing and saying NO SIGNAL and just being pretty wonky and very annoying.

So. I asked the cable lady… how much for BASIC BASIC cable. $19. And I figure, okay. I canceled the Netflick… and with the monthly stipend from the school…. that makes oh, $19.

So, we’re not paying any more than we were, and now we get about 20 channels, just the basics and mostly what’s cool is we get History channel and a Green channel and a few other pretty cool channels… oh Science channel… and three PBS stations as well as the local stuff. We’re pretty pleased.

I still think that commercial TV is pretty much a major cause of disenchantment with life… seeing all the new stuff you need and should have or be deemed “behind the times”… but with winter coming and all, it is nice to be able to snuggle up on a cold night with a cup of hot chocolate and a dog and a kitty and an afghan and watch a little Military channel.

Did i mention we get the Military channel? Yeah!

Okay, yeah, I feel weak. I know. My fellow urban homesteading bloggers will feel I’ve given in. Yeah, I suppose I have a little bit. But I think TV has a place, especially if you choose how to use it and not let it rule you. And it’s kinda nice to sit around with my kidlings and watch a show together instead of all of us being in our own little realms with the computers and all. We watched a cool show about the History of India… a couple episodes of How That’s Made…. and then a neat cooking show too. It was kinda fun. Haven’t had cable for almost 2 years now! We’ll see how it goes…

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Sink Died….

Posted on September 6, 2009 by MobymomSeptember 6, 2009

Nothing better than washing dishes and go to empt the sink and think, gosh the water sounds really loud. Hmmm…

And then realize…. OH MY GOSH… the pipe under the sink drain had broke and there was water all over the place under the cabinet!

YUCK!

And then you have a whole pileup of dishes and no man around to save ya!

So we do what all good moby women do.

We go to Lowes the next day and bring parts and talk to the nice fellas over there. And then you buy what they tell you to buy.

Plumbing parts are relatively cheap actually, and not that hard to install. Kitchen sink parts all are finger screw on and all. No tools and sealing glue or anything is required. Pretty cool.

Just screw the pipe piece onto the bottom of the drain, and make sure the T section is pointing in the right direction to accept the pipe from the other sink. (Don’t ask me how I know that… hahaha) And get that all tight. Then you screw in the other sink section.

We had to unscrew the other pipe from the other drain to make it all fit. Since the non-drain side had to insert into the main pipe piece a bit, it was easier to do it that way.

I put my old 5 gallon pail under the main sink piece because I just didn’t want to have a repeat performance. My faucet is leaking a bit as well, and the water seems to come down that main pipe. I want to replace the sink and faucet with a one drain sink… and a nicer faucet, but I’m still saving my pennies for that. I want to get over to our Habitat for Humanity Re-Store and see if there is a suitable sink there! That would be sweet.

But it was nice to have all new pipes under there for less than $11. And it only took about a half hour to get it all fixed! Plumbing just doesn’t scare me anymore. It’s really not that hard. I think the hardest part is finding the right parts at the hardware store!!! That took almost 45 minutes of standing there, looking and considering what could be done, and can be done and what would be nice and what would just get the job done. A lot of options. But in the end, it was not too bad.

I’m definately going to have to have the old floor pulled out of that cabinet and a new one put down. It’s clearly gotten wet a time or two… or maybe 15 or 20 times! I don’t really store anything under there because it’s nasty. Another task for Tim to see if he can figure out how best to salvage the situation. I really would like to find some decent cabinets to put in there, but again, that will have to wait a bit. Just can’t afford to change out everything right at once!

At least it works now and I’m caught back up with my dishes!!!

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Kitty Moving In….

Posted on September 6, 2009 by MobymomSeptember 6, 2009

Came home tonight and found ANOTHER kitty sitting on our kitty lookouts!!! One of the stray cats is moving in our kitty territory! OH MY GOSH… You’d think that Luna would be out there defending her turf. Or Jack, although Jack is kind of a powderpuff… he’s a lover not a fighter. Well, it was kind of funny to see another cat using the corners as a perch.

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