A Polarizing Moment

I am feeling so empowered by everything that has happened in the past 24 hours.  Seven weeks ago when my life changed irrevocably, I was having moments of pure overwhelming anxiety when I looked at everything that needed to be done in my home that I didn't know how to do.  For those that know me well, this is not my norm.  The morning after the event, my girlfriend Cherie reached out to her church requesting help for me.  That night, the missionaries came and filled the dumpster we'd ordered to remove three years of construction debris from our property.  The dumpster wasn't big enough to take everything, so I made a mental note to rent another dumpster in the future when I had time.  

Every week for the last seven weeks these sweet boys have checked in on me and asked what they could do for me.  I finally asked if they would be available to help fill another dumpster if I ordered one.  "Tell us when..."  I had a dumpster delivered yesterday afternoon and the Elders met me at 5pm.  They spent two hours finishing the pile that was left, grabbed some other debris from the property... and bonus... one of them spent time chopping wood from a stack of wood that was left behind.  My back yard is the cleanest it's been since the renovation started.  One less stress has been taken away from my deck....

The first time I made the boys a peach cobbler each.  This time I was told by Cherie that dinner is a good thing to make them...  So I made Lasagna tonight... Split it in two so they'd have one and I'd have dinner for a couple days.  Then I made them an apple pie.  It's the first time I've really spent time cooking a meal since July.  I felt like... me.

This morning I went out to a couple of estate sales looking for a present for a family member.  Of course, I didn't find what I was looking for.  Instead, I found something I really didn't need but couldn't walk away from.  A beautiful old cut glass lamp.  The lamp shade was ugly... the chord was extremely old (40's?)... but it worked and it had my name all over it.  I.LOVE.CUT.CRYSTAL.  I should mention as a total sidebar but SCORE - I also found a Waterford Lismore Finger/Nut bowl for... $1.  I want to go to more estate sales by THAT person lol!!!

But I digress, as exciting as the score was, I needed to bring life back into my table lamp.  I went straight to Lowes and bought a lampshade, new lamp cord and a crystal finial.  My mom and Cherie both asked me if I knew how to rewire a lamp.  The answer was no.  Never did it before, but if he could do it, I could.  I spent the time waiting for the lasagna and pie to cook, cleaning and dismantling the parts I knew I understood.

I quickly found out how much I didn't know.  I found a YouTube video on how to change a lamp wire.  Unplug your lamp, remove the harp and the light bulb... (I'm soooo with it, let's get this thing STARTED!!!)  Next step:  "Remove the metal socket shell.  Just find the word press."  I'd unscrewed the cap and socket from the lamp and I'm trying to push on the magic press word to no avail.  I open another tab on my laptop and YouTube how to do this.  For those that don't know... do not unscrew the cap from the lamp.  I screwed back on the cap.  Pushed the press word and it magically came off!!!

Now the nice guy teaching me how to do this fix tells me that I should observe the "underwriters knot".  He goes into depth on why I must have this knot.  By now I've pulled out the old wiring (which did NOT have an "underwriters knot", pushed in the new wiring and attempted to make one.  It looked nothing like the picture, and I'm quite sold by the dude teaching that I MUST HAVE THIS knot... So I open up another tab and YouTube how to make these.  I am happy to say that I am now an expert at "underwriters knots".

I've got the knot down, now it's time to attach my wires to the socket.  I learn that like a car, the two wires are hot and neutral.  Hot wires have smooth plastic coating.  Neutral have ribbed coating.  I feel up the two wires and I KNOW which one is ribbed... I'm READY!!!  Hot goes to brass screw.  Neutral goes to silver screw.  Um... I don't have two different color screws.  I rewind my video for the twentieth time and watch carefully as he shows the socket.  The "brass" screw has a larger metal piece.  The "silver" screw has a metal piece that almost looks like a guillotine.  I twisted the correct wires over the correct screws... screwed them down in place, put the socket cover and harp back on.  Unwrapped the new shade and put it on.

It's looking great.  The final step is to grab a Hue bulb that I've never programmed.  Figure it can't be too hard.  Put it in the socket, turn it on, grab my phone and pull up the Hue app.  It finds the bulb and starts changing colors... OMG!  I've done it!  I am a badass queen that needs NO ONE!  Well maybe not no one... I need everyone that does YouTube how to's.  Keep doing those y'all...

My antique light, with new wiring, shade and Hue lightbulb... set to Soho setting... It's currently at Midwinter setting but I'm trying to decide if that is better than Ocean Dawn.  

It's been an amazing 24 hours.  Thank you to the Mormon Missionaries and thank you to the multiple YouTubers that saved my evening.

#Choosejoy