Well, what followed DragonCon was a series of interesting events (but at least not interesting in the Chinese sense).

On Tuesday, while I was dipping in and out of "Star Trek Day," I took down the master bedroom curtains, washed them, washed the windows, and did something about the window shade on my side of the bed (finally). The spring broke on it some time ago, and for many, many months now when I opened the window I just rolled up the bottom of the shade and secured it with a large paperclip on each side. It occurred to me just recently that we had a window shade we cut for James' "man cave" and had never put up; it's been propped up behind the door of my craft room since...well, you don't want to know. I tried it. It fit. So now I have a working shade again and the curtains are clean. (I have saved the broken shade; it's back behind the craft room door. It would be fine down in the "man cave" since James doesn't open the windows, but we can't get to the window now with a shelf full of modeling things in the way, and we never put the mounting hooks up anyway. Ah, well.)

Since it was cloudy out Wednesday morning, I put up the main autumn decorations outside: leaf mailbox cover, leaf wreath, fall banner, fall basket. Also did laundry and installed a "shelf" over one of the power outlets in the garage. These will be used to hold the rechargeable lights I found for his power chair if we have to take it out at night. I also put something away in his truck, and thereby hangs a tale:

Thursday James headed downstairs, got in the truck, and headed for physical therapy. Well, no he didn't. The truck wouldn't start. I should have simply told him to take the car, instead I just grabbed my pouch and took him there myself. On the way we discussed what to do with the truck: we figured we'd just call AAA and have them replace the battery. After all, it was five years old...

Well, no, I realized as I drove home, no it wasn't. The starter died last year, and they replaced the battery along with it. The receipt from November 2019 was in the glove compartment. So I called up the mechanic, who told me, sure they'd replace it free; it's under warranty. I told them I thought it was because the door didn't close properly when I'd put something in the cab. He told me that if it was just the light that had drained the battery, maybe they didn't even need to see it; if I could get it jumped off and then keep it running for awhile, the alternator would recharge the battery.

As I once again considered calling AAA, up the street comes our neighbor Gary, who walks his little daughter in the stroller every morning. I hadn't jumped off a vehicle in a dog's age, so I asked if he would help. We already had jumper cables, and the car...

Annnnnnd it worked. I locked the truck and left it running outside and just was about to take Tucker walking again (he got shorted on his first walk) but realized a whole hour had gone by and it was time to pick up James. Did I dare? Yes, I did, although I don't feel comfortable driving the truck; I dressed and went to get him. Just in case, instead of going directly to shopping, we drove home, turned it off, he changed clothes.

Yay. Restart. Still working, so far...

On Friday we had lunch at Top Spice [Thai restaurant] for the first time since the lockdown. Everyone likes Top Spice, so we had nine people, which was within safety guidelines. We also stopped in at Barnes & Noble (didn't buy any books; they don't have a thing I want) and at Hobby Lobby.

Did a bunch of other little things on Saturday including vacuuming the whole upper story and all the dust bunnies under the bed, and then it was Sunday and chore day (backed up my hard drive, too). So it was a varied week.

Big Thanks again to Gary for helping out!

Labels: books, cars, chores, cleaning, crafts, decorations, events, friends, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:30:00 PM

Comments:

Wow, I didn't know anyone still used window shades. From 1978 - 1984 I worked in the 3rd floor workshop of an old department store, sewing drapes and slipcovers, making traverse drapery rods, replacing tape and cords on two-inch slat generation blinds, and making custom made window shades. I'd cut the wooden rollers to size, cut the stiffened window shade fabric, stitch the hem, staple the fabric to the roller, push the slat into the hem, attach a grommet in the middle of the slat, and attach a pull cord with a "crochet" covered ring at the bottom of the cord.

The roller spring may not be broken, it might just need winding. If you turn the little metal device (forget what it's called) attached to the spring, and there's little tension, and it turns easily, turn the little metal device until there's more tension. If you don't have a roller spring winder (I may be the only person in the world that still has one) then you can grip the metal device with a pair of pliers to turn it. If the spring is wound too tightly it's a little trickier to unwind the spring a little. I knew how to do it 35+ years ago, but haven't tried it in half a lifetime!

I'm glad you had a spare window shade to put up, because regulating the roller spring is kind of difficult the first few times you do it.

P.S. If the window shade bracket is worn, that can also cause the shade to not work properly.

# posted by  Karen : 11:47:00 PM

 

Well, we bought these 14 years ago from Lowes...who knows if they still sell them.

The spring seems to be wound all right--wound too tight! It will not move! I tried it with pliers and couldn't get it to let loose.

My mother hated window blinds--or rather she hated taking them down once a year and scrubbing them one at the time in the bathtub--so we had shades from the time I was in the higher grades of elementary school. I think I would get regular Venetian blinds, but not miniblinds. We had them in the old house and in our apartment and hated them.

# posted by  Linda : 11:09:00 PM

 

Oh, and I wish I could find the shades you talk about in your post, with the crocheted pull cord! I loved those as a kid, and you could get them in colors. Lowes only sells white. I know someone must make them for old houses, because we toured Biltmore House some years ago and all the windows have those old shades with the cord. I'm pretty sure they're specially made and repaired and cost a fortune.

# posted by  Linda : 11:11:00 PM

 

I couldn't remember the trick for lessening the roller tension (haven't done it since 1983) so I went to YouTube.com, searched for "window shade roller tension" and found dozens of how-to videos. The one that seems the best is "how to release an over-tightened shade spring" by Mazer Wholesale. At least that's the one that seems like what we did up in the Shryock's workshop.

You mentioned wanting colored shade pulls. I went to eBay.com, searched for "colored window shade pulls", and found some oddities, including multi-colored hand crocheted pulls. There are lots of hand crocheted ones, blue plastic parasol pulls, and gaudy black pulls with gold hearts dangling off them. Probably not what you want, but interesting to see what people have come up with over the years.

My first apartment (during my Shryock days) had window shades which I made. My next two apartments had home-made curtains, and my current former-motel-room efficiency has a metal mini-blind that used to block out all light, but now it doesn't close as tight as it used to, so light gets in. I got the blind because there's a streetlight nearby, and I wanted to block out light. It worked great for awhile ...

# posted by  Karen : 12:44:00 AM

 

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