Hail the conquering homeowner

 Yesterday didn’t start all that auspiciously, with a fall at pickleball that at least only resulted in a bruised ego and a sore hip (those pesky extra 10 pounds padding me are proving their worth).

          But I racked up one success after another as the day wore on.

          After 5 landscape companies ignoring my calls more consistently than I do spammers, one guy did get back to me, bless his heart. He began his yard and home maintenance company only a few years ago and so is still small enough that his only employees are teenage sons.  

 

         I’ve been trying to get rid of these big holly bushes in order to replace them with something lower maintenance.

        

 

When I arrived home after pickleball, there he was, and there my bushes weren’t. Yay!

 I think I’ll put in some more roses and perhaps a big grass in the back of them.

  

        The other home issue has been the microwave, which had decided to light up its filter replacement message. We just acquired it last fall, so I wasn’t sure of the process.

      

    First, the useless “manual” I received with it. Three pages telling me not to do stupid things like cook with aluminum foil and a useless diagram for some other model.

 

         Second, Google it. But the only instructions online were for previous models.

     

     I opened up the microwave. It was obvious where the filter should go: in back of that long black plastic cover. Up on a stool, I could see instructions on the top that said to slide to the left. Except it wouldn’t go. I didn’t want to snap it.

    

      Off I motored to the store where I’d bought it. Amazingly, the salesman climbed on a chair, located the critical screw, removed it, and demonstrated how to slide the panel. It could have been my personal charm that made him so helpful, but it was more likely the fact that I shamelessly repeated several times that last year we’d bought from them not only the microwave, but a fridge, oven, and dishwasher.

          Today I got out my trusty pink stepstool and screwdriver and slid that sucker right off, popping in the new filter. Ta Da!

  

        Except now the fridge has a message for me.